The hardest trad climbs in the world

What's commonly regarded as the first 8c+ trad climb in the world, Meltdown, was put up by Beth Rodden in 2008. It has only been repeated once, by Carlo Traversi in 2018, who confirmed the grade. The potential second 8c+ trad climb, Recovery Drink, was put up by Nico Favresse, in 2013, and has been repeated twice. Blackbeard's Tears, by Ethan Pringle, in 2016, is the potential third 8c+ trad climb, if we exclude a few others that are considered eliminants or otherwise contrived.

Tribe, by Jacopo Larcher in 2019, was not graded although he said it was his hardest ever climb, and he has done five 9a's and La Rambla, 9a+.

One of the eliminant/contrived contenders is Rhapsody, climbed by Dave MacLeod in 2006. It has been repeated four times and downgrades have been suggested. The first piece was pre-placed by Macleod, but the first repeater, Sonnie Trotter, said this placement and the other gear placements didn't alter the physical difficulty of this particular line. Two years later, MacLeod did the FA of Echo Wall saying it was harder than Rhapsody but he did not grade it. Rounding off the 8c+ contenders, Tom Randall has done Pura Pura and Bernd Zangerl Island in the Sun, but these lines are boulder problems that climb into gear protected finishes.

Beside these above mentioned 8c+ or harder trad climbs, there's another dozen 8c trad lines and roughly 30 8b+ trad routes that have been done clean, i.e. placing gear on lead. 99boulders.com has the most updated (2019) list of all the hardest trad climbs. It is worth noting that placing gear more often than not, adds to the difficulty and can also result in handholds and footholds being blocked. At the beginning of the sport climbing era, placing quickdraws on lead was also the norm, and an onsight could only be claimed if you had hung your own quickdraws.