Ignacio Mulero does the FA of El Boulder del Pedal (8c+) trad

Ignacio Mulero reports on Insta that he has done the FA of the trad route El boulder del pedal (8c+) in La Pedriza. This means that it is one of the hardest trad routes in the world, as nobody has dared to suggest 9a. (c) Emmi Isakow

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
"El boulder del pedal" is a ball in the middle of a meadow at the top of the La pedriza with a blind and slopey crack that runs through practically the entire rock except for the entrance, which concentrates the hardest part. The movements in El Boulder del Pedal are of crimps, slopers and some uncomfortable fingers and hand jams with bad feet The protection is quite good. The entire start is protected with crash pads and at five meters you can put the first cam (Dragon 00 blue from DMM) and from there it is protected quite well with the next size.

It is very short and intense, about 12 meters. If it could not be done in trad, I would see it as a highball. In fact, it was always in my head to do it without a rope. But being on it with Nalle Hukkataival made me see that you can really protect it without altering the rock, so why not use the rope and not add danger to the ascent when it is well protected? It was difficult for me to change that thinking. There are many routes of this style. And the truth is that Nalle was right! When you lean out from the top you don't want to fall from there.

Of the difficulty when doing it with a rope, it sounded strange to me to grade it as a boulder. Talking about it a little together with Dani Andrada, who was able to try it briefly one day, it would be like an 8c+ route. For me, that comes from equivalence to a bouldering grade of around 8B+, which for me would be easier to approximate the difficulty of this route in comparative terms of difficulty.

I started trying last season but I couldn't do it. This season I had to remember again and to change methods because I broke a very important foothold and some days it was wet. This together with those of last season were like 20 days.

Now I'm going to Annot for a few days to know the place and then I'm going back to Norway to try Recovery drink (8c+ trad). In between these travels, I want to finish more projects that I have in the La Pedriza.