Austin Purdy FA’s two 8C’s in the same session

Austin Purdy, with four 8C+’ under his belt, has during one session made the first ascents Don't Fear The Reaper (8C) and Gojira (8C) in Wild Basin.

Can you tell us more about that double FA special day?
Both Don't Fear The Reaper and Gojira are sit starts to the existing boulders Two Sizes Two Big (8A) and XXL (8A+) in Wild Basin, with both start on the same hold which is well above head height and you nearly have to stack pads to reach it. I did the stand starts for the first time in October and was instantly captivated by the obvious sit start project. I decided to focus on doing Don't Fear the Reaper, which links into Two Sizes Too Big first, since to me it is the king line of the boulder. I made quick progress on the sit, but linking the whole thing turned out to be quite difficult. The sit start revolves around a crimpy and shouldery crux section that is in a very similar style to the crux on Two Sizes Too Big, which tired you out for the stand. That combined with the low percentage nature of the two move crux on Two Sizes made the link very hard to put together and I kept falling on the final low percentage crux bump to a small slot. I also ended up breaking a key hold on the sit start during the process which made the intro boulder feel significantly harder and less consistent and pushed the process on even longer.

Gojira on the other hand is much different. Even though the stand start, XXL, is the same grade as Two Sizes Too Big, it revolves around doing a powerful but consistently difficult crux section and then keeping it together for a 10m 7A+ highball finish. This type of climbing fits my style better and I though would be easier to execute so I would always run a lap or two on XXL at the end of my session so that I was ready to do Gojira once I sent Don't Fear the Reaper.

When the day came and I finally sent Don't Fear the Reaper, I was still feeling quite good and new I had a chance to send both lines in the same session. I took a long rest and gave an attempt, but I ended up missing the hold on the last difficult move of the boulder and fell. This gassed me out quite a bit and I also got a small hole on my finger this go and I thought I had missed my chance, but my partner convinced me to tape my finger and give one more good try. Without her encouragement I may have just given up and come back another day. To my surprise I was able to make through the beginning crux even with my finger taped and after a hard fight found myself carefully working my way up the highball finish with numb fingers to finish the climb!