Meltdown 8c+ trad: Possibly the hardest female ascent ever

Tom Randall wrote an interesting article in the latest issue of Rock & Ice - World's Hardest Cracks. Out of the Top-10 listed, Tom has done the FA of four and Sonnie Trotter of two. The most interesting story in the article is this about Beth Rodden's Meltdown 8c+ put at a pedestal much higher than any other trad route in the world. It took Beth five months to do it but in reality she never gave it a grade. At the time, Beth was married to Tommy Caldwell and they both said it was harder than any trad climbs that they had done. Beth did previously the Optimist 8c. Old interview in Climbing and here is one from Crux Crush. "After a few hours of working the moves, both Pete (Whittaker) and I walked away having done only 10 percent and scratching our heads over how the crux was even possible". Taking into consideration that when the best trad climbers in the world, such as Sonnie Trotter and Nicolas Favresse, go sport climbing, they often perform two grades harder doing 9a's, Meltdown might be equivalent to a 9a or 9a+ sport route, and possibly the hardest female ascent ever? (c) Corey Rich