Adam Ondra Climbs New 5.15b, Onsights 5.14c

Adam Ondra made the first ascent of
Robin Ud, a new 5.15b (9b) in Alternativna Stena, Slovakia, yesterday—his fifteenth FA at the grade. The 23-year-old climber projected
the route for four days this year, after having tried it one day last year. “Ultra athlethic climbing,” Ondra recorded on his 8a.nu scorecard. “Thirty moves of hard climbing.”

But he didn’t stop there. To top off the day, he onsighted another line at the crag, C’est La Vie (8c+/5.14c). “[Second] ascent after 15 years,”
he wrote in an Instagram post—whose picture was not of the climb, but rather the bottle of wine with which he planned to celebrate his ascents.

Ondra is the most prolific first ascensionist of routes 5.15b and harder. According to the 8a.nu datebase,
Robin Ud is his fifteenth first ascent graded 5.15b or 5.15c. Chris Sharma has the second most first ascents at these grades, with a distant
eight.

The Czech climber is the only person to have established routes at 5.15c (9b+), of which there are only three in the world: La Dura Dura,
in Oliana, Spain; Change,
in Flatanger, Norway; and Vasil Vasil, in
Sloup, Czech Republic. Recently, he has been working on a new project,
also in Flatanger’s Hanshelleren Cave, that he speculates could be in the 5.15d (9c) range.

According to 8a.nu, Ondra is next headed to Yosemite, California, possibly to try his hand at Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgenson’s Dawn Wall.
Ondra has mentioned his intention of trying the climb on El Capitan several times since the line was established.

*Correction: The original title of this article incorrectly stated that Ondra flashed C’est La Vie (8c+/5.14c), while he actually onsighted the route.

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