Maël Grenier does Shortcut as his first 9a

Maël Grenier, who last year was eleventh at a Euro Cup, has done Shortcut (9a) in La Balme de Yenne .

Can you tell us more about the ascent and your climbing background?
I am a 21 years old French climber, located in Grenoble. I do mostly competition and I was in the French lead climbing team last year. I’ve done 2 finals in a row at the French championships and wore the French team shirt in Augsburg and Bologna European cups and Briançon World cup last year. I don’t have a large outdoor experience but I did my first 9a last week!

I had a difficult competing season because I failed to take my ticket back in the French lead climbing team. So, it was the perfect opportunity to take a step back and gain some outdoor experience this summer. I climbed a lot between Pic St Loup and La Balme de Yenne, near Grenoble where I live. One of my main objectives was to send « Beyond » 9a+ in Pic St Loup but this route is very hard and challenging for me and the heat wave didn’t help me. So, I decided to return in two of my local projects that I tried for the first time 2 years ago.

The first one is « To do list » 8c+ which begins with a hard boulder to a 20 crimpy moves and power endurance section. It ends with a long 20 meters 7c+ with good holds to the top of the cliff. It was a perfect route to continue to train during the summer period and I did it in 5 sessions this year.

The second one was « Shortcut » 9a, a totally different route which requests a lot of endurance. The route is located in the big cave of la Balme in a crazy 60° overhang with a lot of kneebars. It begins with « Dissidence », an 8c that I already did 3 years ago and continues with an 8b+ with long moves on quite good holds. This one took me 7 sessions in 3 weeks this year. The process was very cool because I had all the moves quickly and got better almost every try. It was still a mental battle because I broke a foothold on the last move of one of my last tries and also because my send go was my last possible try before leaving for holidays.

I’m so glad I climbed my two home projects this summer and sent my first 9a, even if it’s not the hardest. I’m motivated to start training for the next season and maybe to return in « Beyond » in early winter.