Adam Ondra Repeats Sharma’s Stoking the Fire (5.15b)
Last day, last try and in the last light of the day, Adam Ondra clipped the chains of Chris Sharma’s Stoking the Fire (5.15b) at the Santa Linya cave, Catalunya, Spain.
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Last day, last try and in the last light of the day, Adam Ondra clipped the chains of Chris Sharma’s Stoking the Fire (5.15b) at the Santa Linya cave, Catalunya, Spain—claiming the route’s second ascent. This was his eleventh 5.15b send, according to 8a.nu.
After falling on the route repeatedly, Ondra says, “I somehow managed to convince my body to stay there,” in a video posted on Facebook by Pucseries Patxi Usobiaga. “It was some kind of miracle.”
Sharma made the first ascent of Stoking the Fire on February 6, 2013—the day before Ondra sent La Dura Dura (5.15c) in Oliana. Sharma described the climb to Rock and Ice in an interview the day after his ascent: “The style of the route is very steep, powerful and continuous … there aren’t any
places to shake and you just have to climb super tight and precise nonstop.
“There is like a seven move crux with a bunch of left-hand underclings and several hard stabs to a two and one finger pocket. The climbing is very involved and complex. For every hand move you have to do several foot moves.”
He called the route “pretty solid” 5.15b.
Stoking the Fire was one of two unrepeated 5.15b’s routes established by Sharma in the Santa Linya cave, according to DPM. The other route, still unrepeated, is called Neanderthal.
Ondra came close to sending Stoking the Fire last year, and despite feeling out of top form this year, he managed the ascent.
In the video by PUC video, Ondra says: “This trip to Catalunya has been a bit of a struggle, maybe. I wasn’t as strong as I wanted to be, but in the end, sending Stoking the Fire—such a beautiful route and an amazing fight—was an experience that I will not forget for a long time.”
Watch Chris Sharma working Stoking the Fire (5.15b):
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