Barefoot 9A gets 8B+ by Pietro Vidi

Pietro Vidi, with a dozen 8C and beyond to his name, has repeated Charles Alber’s L’ombre du voyageur (8B+) in Salève. Charles climbed barefoot and suggested 9A meanwhile Pietro used climbing rubber on his shoes, knees and hands, calling it 8B+.

Can you tell us more about the ascent and some thoughts about the grading?
So I went check out the boulder in june to escape the heat and psyched to see how much crack techniques and knee bars were involved, looked like really good crack training! It took me two sessions to found the beta, it’s completely different than both Charles (obviously) and Pete's, but once I found it I just needed a couple of tries to send the boulder.

I basically never tried Charles beta and went with the knees right away, what he climbed definitely looked next level, definitely a 9A performance! Of course with all my gear it was easier, the gloves didn’t really make it easier, they were there just to reduce pain, and I stacked two knee bars on each leg on the last day just because I was bleeding from my knees from all the pressure, it wasn’t really to gain some centimetres.

So about the grade, I think everyone can climb in the style they like and in Charles style this is definitely a 9A performance, but since knee bars and gloves have become the accepted standard in climbing and grading should be about the easiest way to climb a problem, then the grade for me should be 8B+, nothing to take away from the first ascensionist but double grades don’t really work for me. This said Charles is climbing in such a unique style grades maybe don’t event matter for what he’s doing, it’s mind blowing what he can climb no matter the grade.