Connor Herson redpoints Meltdown

Connor Herson has repeated Beth Rodden's 8c+ trad testpiece, Meltdown, in Yosemite (CA). It is considered the first 8c+ trad climb in the world and was put up in 2008. Caro Traversi did the first repeat in 2018, which was followed by Jacopo Larcher and Barbara Zangerl. (c) Ian Dzilenski.

Nice work! Can you tell us more about Meltdown?
In short, I’ve been trying it almost every weekend in between schoolwork since the start of October. It took me a while to figure out the boulder, but once I did progress came quickly… until it didn’t and I started making reverse progress. Then, during the school break for Thanksgiving, it felt so much better, and it came together! Meltdown is such a specific style, I don’t even know how I’d train for it. It just seemed like overall strength/fitness was beneficial.

How did you clean the protection after each fall?
After falling, I’d either hang then climb to the top or down-aid to clean my gear. I had a lot of different belayers all fall, but my sister Kara belayed me for the send. (For most of my weekends working the route, I would drive up with her, climb a route on Saturday, then project Meltdown on Sunday). The day I sent was actually 4th day on - the previous day we’d climbed Wayward Son (7b+), the day before that I tried Meltdown, and the day before that we climbed Scarface (7b+). I onsighted both Wayward Son and Scarface!