2012 Golden Piton Awards

CRACK CLIMBING

• Century Crack (5.14b)
• Canyonlands National Park, Utah
• Tom Randall, Pete Whittaker

In fall 2011, Britons Tom Randall and Pete Whittaker made an unprecedented blitz of many of America’s hardest offwidth cracks. On a tip from Steve “Crusher” Bartlett, the pair had come stateside to attempt an unclimbed offwidth on the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands National Park, Utah. Back home, the pair had trained extensively for two years on a basement “crack machine” that included a six- and nine-inch roof crack, a 40-foot, two-inch roof crack, a 45-degree armbar, and a kneebar sit-up machine.

Before attempting the White Rim crack, Randall and Whittaker climbed Spatial Relations and Lucille (both 5.13a) in Vedauwoo, Wyoming; Trench Warfare (5.12d) in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah; Gabriel (5.13) in Zion National Park, Utah; and Belly Full of Bad Berries (5.13) in Indian Creek, Utah. By the time their trip ended, the pair had climbed a staggering 14 offwidths 5.13a or harder and many “easier” lines—most of these were climbed first or second try. But the real capstone of their trip was the first free ascent of Century Crack.

Bartlett had stumbled upon this 80-foot-long offwidth roof in 2001, aided it at C1, and called it Chocolate Starfish. He showed it to crack master and Brit Stevie Haston, who, after two visits to Utah, was not able to free the route. Haston gave the crack its current name and suggested 5.14+. Randall and Whittaker each fired Century Crack first try of their second day on the route. They proposed 5.14b for the climb.

During their initial ascents, Randall and Whittaker preplaced cams for protection, which set off a bit of controversy, so when the pair had climbed everything on their U.S. tick list, they returned to Century Crack to re-climb it and place gear on lead. “As we had the time and knew our ascent could be done in better style, we thought we may as well give it a go,” says Whittaker. “We knew we’d never be in as good offwidthing shape again.” The pair believes the route’s grade is the same either way; they used 13 cams initially, but placed only seven during the redpoint. “We found that the weight of carrying seven big cams was about the same difficulty as stepping around the 13 preplaced ones,” Whittaker explains.

The pair returned to England, but not to target more wide cracks. “I have other routes I’d like to do, but none of them require hanging upside down for 20 minutes,” Whittaker says. “I need to change my training.”

SPORT CLIMBING

• Corazón de Ensueño (8c/5.14b)
• Getu Valley, Guizhou Province, China
• Dani Andrada

This climb totally blew us away, partly because it challenges ordinary categories like “sport climbing.” Chris Sharma’s deep-water-solo route Es Pontas in Mallorca, Spain, was that kind of climb. Dani Andrada’s 2011 creation Corazón de Ensueño (“Heart of a Dream”), in the Great Arch of Getu, China, is another one. As elite grade distinctions become ever more abstract, this multi-pitch sport route makes it all seem real again. It overhangs close to 300 feet in its 650-foot length—probably the steepest long free route ever climbed—and makes every gymnastically inclined rock climber wish he or she could climb 5.14.

Probably the foremost climber in the world for equipping and then climbing super-elite routes (more than two dozen 5.14d or harder first ascents and counting), Andrada, 36, of Catalunya, Spain, has long been deserving of a sport climbing Golden Piton. He’s done many routes harder than Corazón de Ensueño, but as Andrada puts it, “This is definitely the best climb I have ever created.”

The proportion of time Andrada spent on the various stages of this dream climb speaks volumes about what goes into creating a route like this: 11 days of cleaning and bolting (on rappel when possible, but much of it on lead and rope-solo, with a belayer recruited for the sketchiest lead-bolting); then three days to work and redpoint the eight individual pitches; and finally another day for the five-hour link. The first two pitches are gently overhanging, smooth and watersculpted; very technical and pumpy, they go at 5.13c and 5.13d. After two easier leads—5.13a and 5.11d—“you find yourself in the ceiling of the arch,” says Andrada. “The belay station is actually a 10-meterwide, suspended cave.” Pitch five, 300 feet off the ground, is the second hardest on the route, and also the steepest—so steep, in fact, that on much of it you make negative progress toward the summit, “like downclimbing 5.14a,” says Andrada. Finally comes the technical crux, through smoother bulges: 5.14b, a grade Andrada often onsights, and thus could equip and redpoint as the sixth pitch to a new route done in a two-week effort, on a road trip to Asia. Two more 5.13 pitches reach the forest.

On Corazón de Ensueño, toproping or jugging was impossible, so the belayer, too, had to be highly capable on overhanging 5.14. Andrada recruited none other than Chris Sharma for the job, and some video clips show Sharma taking hilarious, horrifying falls while seconding (he freed five of the eight pitches). One quaint local innovation we’d never seen before: hanging bamboo belay chairs, set in the forest of tufas and stalactites in the cave roof, 300 feet off the deck.

A Golden Piton could be awarded to the Getu Valley itself. The area was opened to modern climbing largely thanks to Petzl RocTrip efforts, and there are currently about 300 routes on 14 cliffs. Mick Ryan, who attended the RocTrip event, writing for ukclimbing. com, said that “the Great Arch has much potential for routes longer, harder, and steeper than Corazón de Ensueño.”