8 June 2016

Alex Honnold soloing 60 m E7 ~7c

Alex Honnold soloed The Complete Scream at Fair Head, which is a 60 meter slab graded E7, having rapped down looking for loose rock. The UK E-grading is based on how dangerous it is to onsight a route combined with how difficult it is to find good trad protection. In other words, using the E-grade, which is meant for "flash" solo ascents, is not a good measurement for this ascent. Using the international scale, the pure difficulty should be around 7c. It should be noted that 8a normally does not publish solo ascents as we do not want to promote this activity. However, as most other media have already published it and many 8a visitors have asked us to include also solo ascents in our reports, we have during the last years made some exceptions when it comes to Honnold's extraordinary solos.
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