Stop Sika 8c by Chris Frick (54)

Chris Frick has done Stop Sika (8c) in Rawyl. It was equipped by Betrand Martenet and the FA was done in 2003 by Didier Berthod at 8c. The completely natural line – hence the name – became an instant classic and settled at 8b+. In 2019 Bertrand rebolted the route, establishing in the middle section a more direct and harder line. After Samuel Ometz Re-FA the consensus now it is back to 8c. (c) Isabelle Bihr

"What a journey! At age of 54, it’s still time to rock’n’roll! No need to give up, keep on living the dream! ‘Stop Sika’ is a beauty. Well, for my generation 8c still sounds like a journey to Mars! When I was already 20 years old this was the hardest grade at the time. So it’s intimidating. Anyway, I had to try! I said to myself better fail on a dream route at my limit than regret too late to have never really tried.

The starting point was one year ago by checking the moves. Couldn’t do the two cruxes. From there the process was underway. My last 8c send was in 2016 at age of 48. To regain experience and confidence I hopped on other 8c’s, foremost trying ‘Mind Control’ at Oliana that could be the sibling of ‘Stop Sika’. The wonderful Vanda Michalkova created a training regime targeting my weaknesses. For several months I lived a climbing monk’s life spending most of my free time training. I never took T-Level supplementals (unhealthy and dangerous!). I work 4/7 and I’m not sponsored."