Orrin Coley FA’s The Wizard King (9a)

Orrin Coley, with 8b and 8C as his route and boulder personal best, has done the FA of The Wizard King (9a) in Forest Rock. “8 sessions this summer. It’s been fun being back on a rope and adding a new type of challenge to this little crag.”

Can you tell us more about the ascent and the process behind?
It takes a central line through the middle of the cave from the lowest point all the way to the top, involving a very unique mix of climbing styles. Starting with horizontal roof climbing, it then breaks out into a very burly board style section before a technical headwall leads you to top out. It's about 40 moves from start to finish and became a more physical battle than I anticipated. I'd expected it to just pump me out a bit and that's it, I'd slowly progress until I succeeded. But the pump was unlike anything I've experienced before - not only did my forearms box out as expected, but due to the steep nature of it and tension required my whole core and legs would fatigue as well just as much. After failed redpoint attempts, I'd lower off and just be unable to catch my breath for a while because it was so hard to keep breathing while on route.

I also recognise the grade may seem a surprise to some, or like I pulled it out of nowhere. I don't exactly have much experience sport climbing these days, at least not at this level. My previous best redpoint was 8b and that was so short it was basically a boulder anyway, so it's a bit of a jump. After many conversations with peers it sounded like this route could certainly sit in the 8c+/9a region for sure. So why did I settle on 9a? After so many years climbing in this cave it's become increasingly apparent my opinion on difficulty here is flawed due to over exposure, so it's proved more accurate to lean towards the higher grades for better accuracy. If it gets downgraded, I don't really care, nor does it matter. It's a great bit of climbing that I'm pleased to have put up regardless of difficulty.