Benito Blanco ticks La Sensacion del Bloque (9a)

Benito Blanco muñoz has completed La Sensacion del Bloque (9a) in Valle de los Cóndores. Now 23, he started climbing at 17, and six months ago his personal best was 8b. The route was first ascended by Alex Megos in 2017 and has since been repeated by Adam Ondra, Facundo Langbehn, and, just two weeks ago, Ronny Escobar. (c) Cris Posadas

Can you tell us more about the ascent and the process behind?
The route has gained a really high reputation in Chile, it's like the gem or the 'pride' of the country in a way. It is really sustained and with my sequence it is about 35 moves before the hard part is over. It starts with an 'easy' intro that you have to climb very efficiently, and then it all comes down to two main hard boulders stacked on top of each other with no rest.

The climbing on this crag is very special, the wall is very steep (about 50°) and it's full of big hexagonal like blocks, which makes for lots of heel hooks, toehooks, knee bars and generally really psychical compression climbing.

I was really intimidated to come and try it because of its reputation and climbing style, I didn't feel confident at all on this psychical heel hook compression tricky climbing style and I thought of it as my antistyle. At the same time, it was really nice because I came with no expectations and really open to learn and get better, with a really playful attitude.

It was really helpful for me to share some days on the route with Ronny Escobar, a really experienced and strong climber from Santiago, not only to share betas and sensations on the route, but he also helped to boost my confidence that I could do it. Ronny did the 4th ascent of the route two weeks ago and watching him send the route made me really psyched to do it too.

My process on the route was much easier and smoother than expected, the links came together quite quickly, and after two weeks of being here I found myself dropping the last hard move of the route. Then it took another week of bad skin, nerves, fatigue or just bad luck with the rope tangling on my feet to actually send it. I had planned to rest on the day of the send, as my skin wasn't great, but I got psyched seeing people trying hard on their projects, that I decided to tape my fingers and do some 'training burns'... and on the first go of the day I found myself clipping the chains of this beautiful line.

Can you say something about your climbing background and your fast progress in grades lately?
I've been climbing for just over 6 years and I've always been attracted to doing things that challenge me and I get a lot of enjoyment from trying things that I don't know if I can do.

I was out of Chile for nearly two years, and before I left, I didn't climb that hard and hadn't try many things, so when I came back to Chile, I knew I was stronger and I had lots of things to try and new crags to go to.

I was really psyched with bouldering at the time and doing Inferno (8B+) gave me some confidence to try other hard things. I hadn't planned to try 'la sensacion del bloque' any time soon, but after a trip to Patagonia, where I did the 2nd ascent of 'acordeon session', the idea came up as a joke with a friend.