Jumbo Love 9b by Seb Bouin

Sebastien BOUIN, who previously has done nine routes 9b to 9c, has sent Jumbo Love (9b) at Clark Mountain. It took him ten days and now he is working on a more direct and harder variation. (c) Clarisse Bompard

“An old dream came true last Wednesday. This king line has attracted me for a long time. It was a true inspiration to see the footage of Chris Sharma on it. I started climbing around 2005 and it was one of the most incredible climbing films I had watched at that time. Jumbo Love looked like everything I like in Climbing: A perfect huge orange steep wall in the middle of the Mojave desert.

I knew this line and this wall will be my pure climbing style. Climbing on this line is something I have been waiting for, for several years. And I am definitely not disappointed. It's an amazing line with perfect moves. But, Jumbo Love is not just a hard line, it's a whole adventure. I totally underestimated the total process, the drive, the off-roading, and the hike in. We changed our car three times because it was not good enough to get to the crag. We also changed two tires due to off-road driving incidents,... The 1h hike really takes it out of you. I am used to climbing for many days in a row. But, here, that would be a mistake. We had to preserve ourselves. And keep our energy and motivation up. We were sleeping some nights in the desert, so as not to drive every day. I did the route on my 10th climbing day.

My overarching objective would be to do the Direct variation of Jumbo Love, which is supposed to be harder. My approach was simple, find the best betas possible in Jumbo Love, in order to have the highest chances possible to send it coming from the direct (adding an 8c+ route before the 9b). In this process, I used kneepads for the send, in three places. This kind of rock (orange rock with pockets) is actually not the best for using kneepads, but I still found it helped a little, with some tricky ‘expert ++’ kneebars. I was falling half of the time, slipping from kneebars. I almost gave up with these kneebars at some point because it was to sketchy. I was thinking the route a bit more powerful without kneebars, but way more secure if you have the strength required.

Yet, I was still thinking about how to approach the direct version. With the normal start, you are coming into the jumbo Love crux really fresh because there is not so hard climbing before (around 8a to reach the crux). So I still had a lot of power reaching the crux from the original start. Yet, in the objective to start from the direct (which add an 8c+ route right before the crux) I would need to find some less powerful beta, even if it's more technical. That's why I stuck with my kneebar beta. The kneebar help so in this route, I don't think they are changing the grade. It's not like "Iron Curtain" or "Change" where the kneebars are making a big difference. I think Jumbo Love stays on the same level, with or without. This route is really stunning! Incredible and futuristic vision from Randy Leavitt to bolt this one in the 90's... Thanks for the futuristic vision and the line, and thanks for the inspiration Chris Sharma and Reel Rock.”