18 October 2016

The Wideboyz on the 9a+ trad mono Crucifix project

Five years ago, Tom Randall and Pete Whittaker made the FA of Century Crack 8c after years of projecting and replica training. Last week they did the FA of the Millenium Arch Project, which is a 100 meter long roof crack. This was just a quick side project when waiting till their main goal dries up, the Crucifix 9a+ project, which they found after one months of searching. - Just pacing out the top of the crack made you shiver with the sheer size of what lay beneath. The roof was around 180 foot in length. This was the very last cave on The Rim that we were checking out and we’d hit the absolute jackpot. All the abseiling, jumaring and legging it round the desert in the blistering sun for the last two weeks was worth it for this one. Essentially we’d found a mother-ship of intertwining roof cracks running from left to right and weaving in and out of cave systems. Right in the centre was ‘The God Line’ that we’d been looking for. A full 180 foot, straight from the depths of the hollowed out cliffside piercing right through the centre of the cave and out to the lip. Strangely enough, it was also bisected by another crack which gave the appearance of a giant Crucifix in the ceiling and seemed to bring about a theological context to our subsequent days and thoughts on the line. The next question was, ‘is it climbable?’ The crux is broken down into the 5 Holy Hangs (and involves 7 very hard moves around these positions). The holds are almost exclusively mono finger locks in a roof. This wouldn't be a huge problem, except for the fact that the footholds are almost nothing. It feel like trying to campus monos in a front lever position. And that's not easy!! Section 1 = 10m 8a+ Section 2 (main crux) = 5m 8B+ Section 3 (other easier cruxes) = 35m 8b
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