La Dura Complete: The Hardest Rock Climb In The World

La Dura Dura means the hard hard. It's a route that I bolted six years ago in Oleana, Spain. It felt kind of impossible for me when I first bolted it. I was like, there's no way I'm going to do this. But La Dura Dura ended up being like the perfect route for me and I just needed Adam to kind of show that to me. We are in Oleana and I've been trying this awesome project bolted by Chris. You know Adam, he's climbed all the hardest routes in the world and he was looking to push his limits even further. And I was like, well dude, maybe you should check out this project La Dura Dura because it might be just what you're looking for. I touched the hose and it did not look that impossible. Watching Adam climb on La Dura Dura got me really excited. I think I'll get on it. Maybe I'll try it. All of a sudden it was like, oh my gosh, I can do this thing. I started working on it with him and it was a really special moment for the two of us to team up together to bring into life the hardest route in the world. After months of trying it, Adam started getting really close. Six months later, when the conditions got good again, Adam came down from the Czech Republic and we picked up where we left off, just working on the route again, relearning all the subtleties. There's so many small details to all the different moves. I found that even though I was trying to stay in shape during the summertime, I really had to get into that specific Dura Dura shape. It has some really bad holds on it. You make a move to a small side pull, you get a really crappy intermediate, shuffle your feet off, take this little tufa ball thing. You take this really crappy peanut hold, readjust your body, and you make this super big span. Iron cross to this hold that I can only take with two fingers when I first get it. You come into a little undercling and you do kind of a dead point to a good wake up. Maybe it's like a V14 boulder problem or something like that. You have to crimp as hard as you can, you put your left heel hook, and you go into a very bad intermediate. You have to bring your left foot up and you go into the ball. From here it would be kind of cool to clip the drop, but it takes like two seconds, so it's definitely much better to skip it. Make a huge span way out right. Go into undercling and you do a dyno into who I go. Originally we thought once you stick that gaston you're in there, but I probably fell at least 10, 15, 20 times after that on that next move. And Adam as well. This is my fourth trip to Oleana this year. It seems like I almost spend here more time than at home. I tried this route just so many times. It feels like the hardest route I've ever tried. And it's really cool to see Chris after just multiple times struggling on it, seeing it, seeing him being very, very close. And I wish he sent it anytime soon. If he sent it, it will make me even more motivated to finish it off as well. First time I stuck the Waco, I realized like, wow, I really can do this thing. I'm gonna do this thing. And that's when all the nerves and like anxiety creeps in on a project. Once you stick the lower crux, you still have a hard 14c above you. After you get a pretty bad shakeout on this really uncomfortable knee bar, you have the whole upper crux. By no means is it over. You have a hard dead point move. Do you get this heel hook up, lock off this little blocky three-finger crimp and just stab to this two-finger pinch. Side pull, left heel to a slopey crimp and you have to go into the pinch. It's so stretched out and you have to be kind of fresh. It's really easy to miss it. That move is the moment of truth for sure on the whole route. Adam is super possessed when he climbs. It's pretty rad. He just wants it so bad. And that's something I really learned from him because I'm such a kind of like laid-back guy when it comes to my climbing and just kind of let it flow but sometimes you got to like force it a little bit. He climbs really fast, very precise, very efficient and coordinated and it's really cool to see just such a fine-tuned climbing machine. This whole process of working on La Dura Dura with Adam was kind of a cool opportunity for me to repay those favors to all those legendary climbers and you know my own personal heroes that kind of helped me along the way. Maybe I can give something to the next generation and show them what the next step might look like and give them like a stepping stone in the same way that I had one when I was a kid. The more I tried it I have the route so wired that it doesn't feel any easier. There is no margin to make anything more efficient. My muscles just memorize the move so perfectly that I either have to be a little bit stronger or just have a little bit more luck. I couldn't believe that I really stuck it. I really couldn't be any closer to the falling and as I was resting I felt like I had a heart attack. It was so intense, it was so hard to calm down. The rest of the route which could be about 8b on itself it was just really sketchy because I really didn't want to mess it up. After trying a route for almost nine weeks falling off on the very very top of the route that route really sucked but I was lucky enough to send the route. What to say, hard to describe how happy I am. Today I didn't really feel confident I could do it but I had an empty mind, no worries and I just did everything perfectly. My dream came true. Thanks Chris for bolting this beast. I got to do it too man. When Adam did finally send La Duradura I was really happy for him and it only made me want to do it even more. I had to work for it a little bit longer but about a month later it came and it was so satisfying. Come on Chris. Chris you're done, good job man. You know oftentimes by the time you know we clip the anchors and by the time our feet are back on the ground we're already thinking about the next project but La Duradura for me it's the culmination of a bunch of years work living in Spain, developing new routes, trying to find that next level grade. Holy ---- thanks you guys for all of your support all along the way. Really quite a journey.