La Rambla (5.15a) for Jon Cardwell
This is Cardwell's third-ever climb of the grade.
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Catalonia climbing season is in full swing with another send of La Rambla (9a+/5.15a) on the books. Over the weekend, the American Jon Cardwell clipped the chains on the famous 135-foot route that has become the single-most repeated 5.15a in the world. Cardwell’s is the 20th ascent of the line.
“Hard to explain the feeling, but these moments are why I love climbing,” Cardwell wrote on Instagram after his send. “Long days out with good friends in amazing locations, hard work and discipline for goals, seeing the process all the way through. ‘La Rambla’ was a great test, one of the routes that inspired me in my first years of climbing. So happy to share the moment with many of my close friends.”
Cardwell projected La Rambla back in the beginning of 2017 alongside Margo Hayes and Matty Hong, but couldn’t finish it off before he came back to the States. “Last year he battled a serious finger injury that put him out for multiple months, but was able to rise above and get back in the game,” Daniel Woods—who just made the third ascent of La Cappela (9b/5.15b)—wrote on Instagram.
Both Hayes and Hong sent on that trip, and thereby kicked off La Rambla’s busiest year to date. Following them, it was sent by Stefano Ghisolfi, Jacopo Larcher and Klemen Becan in 2017.
This trip it took Cardwell a mere 10 tries to polish it off. This was Cardwell’s third 5.15a, following Biographie in May 2016, and Papichulo in April 2017. He has also sent more than ten 5.14d’s (9a) and climbed The Game (V15). In 2003, Ramón Julián Puigblanque first climbed the 9a+ extension to La Rambla, the core of which was originally climbed as a 9a by Alexander Huber in 1994.
Also read Margo Hayes Sends La Rambla (5.15a)!