Golden Gate 7c+ MP by trad beginner Soline Kentzel

Sébastien Berthe reports that Soline Kentzel has done the 36 pitches Golden Gate 7c+ in Yosemite ground up. Although the French had done 8b+ before she had only trad climbed once before arriving in Yosemite, some three months ago. During the first days, she struggled to do 5 graded trad climbs. Soline is part of the team that sailed from Europe to America and she is gonna sail back home as well!

"About the ascent, we swapped lead on easier pitches up to 5.11 and we both led pitches from 5.12 and harder. She led the monster offwidth. We took two days to reach the downclimb, pitch 17. She had a few falls on some 5.11 pitches of the first half but always sent them on her second try. Day 3 was a snowy rest day. On day 4, we were at the "move pitch". Day 5, she worked the pitch but could not send. Day 6, rainy rest day. On day 7, she sent the Move pitch in her third try and we quickly moved to Tower to the people. She could even send the Golden desert pitch on her first try that evening. Day 8 was a forced rainy rest day. On day 9, she worked the a5 traverse and then sent it 2tries after in a pumpy battle, we ran to the summit the same afternoon!

We went through some epic snow storms and rain showers which made surviving on this wall a true challenge. During these forced rest days we had to squeeze in the really small ledge we brought constantly trying to avoid being wet first and frozen after... One of our sleeping bags even became totally stiff and icy. But we could keep the motivation really high and got back to climbing as soon as the wall was dry! During the sunnier climbing days, the ice was melting from the top of the wall throwing impressive ice chunks on us. Every 5 min, the lottery was on: we had to stop climbing, stick ourselves against the wall waiting for these pieces of ice to fall all around us. The level of dedication, commitment and perseverance she brought into the whole process of discovering trad and crack climbing is huge and it has been truly inspiring to witness her path."