6 January 2025
Ben Hannaโs story sending LOV (9a)
Ben Hanna sent Ace of Spades (9a+) in 2022 but he waited 17 months to post it until the video was finished. Luckily, we only had to wait a couple of days for getting his full story sending Life of Villains (9a). (c) Ian Dzilenski
โYโall have no idea how long Iโve been waiting to make this post. Itโs hard to say if any other climb has ever meant so much to me. The process on this one was long, hard, and so much fun. Last October me and Kai Lightner set out to hurricane for an extended trip to try and send Life Of Villains. The days were grueling but each one we were making progress move by move, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before it happened. On the last day of the trip Kai pulled it off, but I still had a few more moves. Kai being the amazing friend he is, extended the trip a week to give me the time I needed, but I still couldnโt make it happen. Thank you Kai.
I then spent the next 3 months going out to the cave almost every week. Most times day tripping the 8 hour round trip to try it, but kept falling on the last 3 or 4 moves until the season finally ended. Now being back from Spain my first priority was getting this process going again, but to be so real when I woke up at 5am this morning I genuinely thought โam I really about to get in my car and drive 4 hours to fall on the same damn 2 moves right now?โ The answer was โyesโ. Then I hit a proper white out storm on the highway, driving 35 down i80 with less then 40ft of visibility I pulled over and I asked myself again. โWhy the hell am I doing this.โ Non the less, I couldnโt convince myself to turn around and I am so glad I didnโt.
My first go up the climb felt super bad, I hadnโt climbed in 4 days and I was definitely feeling it. I kinda wrote the trip off, but then my second go everything turned on and it felt perfect. I got to the crux almost totally fresh and started to have a little panic attack, the little voice in my head saying โthis is it, youโre gunna do it, this is the tryโ. I was able to shut it out though and focus on movement at hand. It was a little stressful once I got to the jug though, the last bolt is not hard at all but you definitely have to try and I hadnโt been up it is so long I had no ideal where the holds were or what the beta was. Especially after dropping the top of Bumbayรฉ twice, I was very aware of how hard โeasy climbingโ is when your pumped, but thankfully I didnโt make that mistake again, Hahaha.
It was soo rad getting to share the send with Bayes as well, him and his family are absolutely wonderful people and I canโt wait to see what else he does. LOV was not anywhere near his limit!
โYโall have no idea how long Iโve been waiting to make this post. Itโs hard to say if any other climb has ever meant so much to me. The process on this one was long, hard, and so much fun. Last October me and Kai Lightner set out to hurricane for an extended trip to try and send Life Of Villains. The days were grueling but each one we were making progress move by move, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before it happened. On the last day of the trip Kai pulled it off, but I still had a few more moves. Kai being the amazing friend he is, extended the trip a week to give me the time I needed, but I still couldnโt make it happen. Thank you Kai.
I then spent the next 3 months going out to the cave almost every week. Most times day tripping the 8 hour round trip to try it, but kept falling on the last 3 or 4 moves until the season finally ended. Now being back from Spain my first priority was getting this process going again, but to be so real when I woke up at 5am this morning I genuinely thought โam I really about to get in my car and drive 4 hours to fall on the same damn 2 moves right now?โ The answer was โyesโ. Then I hit a proper white out storm on the highway, driving 35 down i80 with less then 40ft of visibility I pulled over and I asked myself again. โWhy the hell am I doing this.โ Non the less, I couldnโt convince myself to turn around and I am so glad I didnโt.
My first go up the climb felt super bad, I hadnโt climbed in 4 days and I was definitely feeling it. I kinda wrote the trip off, but then my second go everything turned on and it felt perfect. I got to the crux almost totally fresh and started to have a little panic attack, the little voice in my head saying โthis is it, youโre gunna do it, this is the tryโ. I was able to shut it out though and focus on movement at hand. It was a little stressful once I got to the jug though, the last bolt is not hard at all but you definitely have to try and I hadnโt been up it is so long I had no ideal where the holds were or what the beta was. Especially after dropping the top of Bumbayรฉ twice, I was very aware of how hard โeasy climbingโ is when your pumped, but thankfully I didnโt make that mistake again, Hahaha.
It was soo rad getting to share the send with Bayes as well, him and his family are absolutely wonderful people and I canโt wait to see what else he does. LOV was not anywhere near his limit!
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