Tristan Chen completes Desperanza (8C)

Tristan Chen has sent Desperanza (8C) in Hueco Tanks (TX). It is a lower start to Esperanza (8B+) established by Daniel Woods. Only 18 months ago, he was diagnosed with Leukemia and a couple of months later he had to do a Bone Marrow Transplant.

”After the events of last year I feel as though any hope to a sense of purpose I possessed was shown to be illusory, as if scoured clean with my marrow. I feel like this climb was one of my last moorings to hard bouldering and I’m left floating in a void ready to deemphasize bouldering for something else yet to be determined. Whether that be a different form of climbing, finding a new career, a new hobby, or simply pushing forward towards a light from within. The future remains uncertain.”

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
I tried it a fair amount in the spring after repeating the Esperanza, but I wasn’t able to complete it then. I think I fell on the last move at least ten times, which was quite frustrating because I found that move to be easy in isolation. This time around I never fell on the last move, but I did dab once after sticking it so I had to repeat the climb a different day. This actually happened to me on my first first fifteen (except snow prevented me from topping out that time) so it’s only fitting that it should happen this time as well.

How much is added with the sit?
The sit only adds a six move V7 [7B] into Esperanza so it’s quite easy to think that it’s not much harder, but the bottom moves are quite extended and take away energy in such a way that the rest of the boulder becomes harder. By the time I did Desp I was able to do Esp pretty much on lock as a warm up and cool down. To me it felt a bit harder than Dreamtime or Pegasus, and a step above the other V14’s I’ve done this year, so lower end V15, but still maintains the grade.