After having ran thorough the potential of hard routes in Red River Gorge, and having climbed the first 9a flash in the history of sport climbing, Adam Ondra bolted two new lines at the Chocolate Factory. The routes have been until now the object of much speculation; little was known about them, except that they must be damn hard.\u00a0
\nWe have asked Ondra himself \u00a0to tell us something more about his new projects on the Gorges’ sandstone.
\nChocolate Factory
\nby Adam Ondra
\n\u00a0I was stunned by the Chocolate Factory wall since I saw the first picture. You rarely get such perfect wall, as if cut by knife, with the perfect amount of holds on it on limestone. After finishing off Pure Imagination and Golden Ticket, the only two routes on the main part of the wall, there were some lines left to be bolted, especially in the prominent, but blank-looking middle part.
\nThe line in the very center of the wall looked a bit easier than its neighbor to the left, so I decided to bolt the hard one on the left first. The route turned out to be possible, but it doesn’t mean I was close to sending it, nor to being able to do the moves. There are holds all the way – that is what I found out during one go on the route. But the difficulty is way beyond what I am capable of right now. If I hung there for a week, I would probably be able to do all the moves, but there is no way of linking them together. At least not for now, though…
\n
\nImmediately I jumped on the middle line, which seemed easier. The idea of having a nice 8c+ \u201cish\u201d route for the end of the trip waned away as I rappelled down to the section at one third of the wall. The boulder problem seemed heinous, but I had no time left to check out how it really is. As I finished bolting, we immediately headed out to the airport. Definitely somewhere in between 9a+ to 9c for the full line.
\nDefinitely there are many reasons for me to come back one day to RRG, as these two lines are not the only intimidating challenges in the area. The potential is enormous and the development of the high-end routes has not even started out there\u2026
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\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After having ran thorough the potential of hard routes in Red River Gorge, and having climbed the first 9a flash in the history of sport climbing, Adam Ondra bolted two…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8066],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-boulder"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n