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Check out the previous story on the Mountain.RU: 8b + - maximal onsight category in rock-climbing

Master-class. "Ghegoro", 8b +, on-sight

Serik Kazbekov: You will send the complex route if you climb naturally...

I want to take into confidence my impressions about my 8â + on-sight.

I’d like to begin with notice that already two years have passed away since my last appreciable success in sending extra difficult lines.

That is accounted for our professional climbing specialization. As our family (my wife Natasha Perlova and I) live on "prize-winning" money, and our sponsors, first of all, take an interest in our results at different competitions. Therefore, leaving on rocks, we are engaged first of all in training for new starts. It is an inadmissible luxury for us to organize special adventure in any rocky area to climb a super-route. A visa “corridor” hardly suffices for visiting all necessary starts. But this time the successful coincidence of circumstances allowed me to carry out my dream: 8â + on- sight. To tell the truth, I did not expect that it would make such furor in our climbing world, but I was surprised to hear a lot of congratulations.

Now, I give a detailed description of that. Covolo climbing area (Italy) is rather known among the Italians, but rock-climbers of an average level of training do not go there, accounting this place “the area of the eights”. But despite of that at the weekends you have to queue on lines since the morning: such amount of strong rock-climbers is gathering in one place. Basically they are amateurs, but of a very high level. And you can not take such public's breath away even a little. First time our familiars specially saw us off to this area. Without support, only under the description it was simply impossible to find it.

As the local habitues conducted statistics with a great accuracy (they precisely know who where when and how sent a route), I understood that these guys would constantly keep one eye on what lines and how we would begin to climb. The surface disposes to climb in my style therefore I was interested only in on-sight. They showed me a route that Christian Brenna had on-sighted (then it was 8Â, and after the key hold on the crux was broken it turned out into 8Â+).

I tried it, and then rushed to other routes, being everywhere close to send, but all the time something obstructed to obtain success. Lines for on-sight are heavy, but it also is their desperately precious. It seemed that everybody had time to notice: my fingers are strong, I have got a big potential, but not the vein to realize it. (Likely my very strong desire prevented me). Toward the end I understood that too.

The last day of our staying in Italy we arrived on rocks. I was going to climb "Ghegîro", with a strong sensation that I had a chance. There were a lot of people on Saturday there, but it did not prevent, even on the contrary – helped: the Italians are able to support and they do that in time and whole-hearted. Marco Savio, the author of the route, named after his lost son, was there and supported me too. When I started "Ghegîro", Marco was so bound up in my climbing that it seemed to me like someone pushed me from below, and I had only to have time to move hands. When I easily climbed all complex sites and there was a pair of meters of an easy vertical site left, I began to feel butterflies in the stomach. It came to my consciousness, that I have almost sent 8b+.

And in such condition I was near to fall from a simple relief. Suddenly I felt cold; my hands began to be turgid with lead. Marco understood that. He began to feel the same and hardly constrained himself not to cry out the help that would spoil my on-sight. And here my long-term experience was very useful: I chose more - less convenient position and began to relax psychologically with the help of respiratory exercises and positive mood. I tried to restore my starting mood and to lull myself. And I could do that.

Having sent the route and departing from the received stress I felt full psychological comfort. It seemed to me further I could send such lines one by one.

So, I executed the program - maximum. That day I tried to on-sight 8b-line more, but fell right under the top. One more 8b+ I decided to flash that day and realized that I would have sent it on-sight if I had tried it second. But it was not indubitable facts :-)

And I came to conclusion about that fact: You will send the complex route if you climb naturally.

Tomorrow we go to the Crimea. Natasha and I want to try Atlant-M. As I know the Author not bad, the line should be very interesting and well-found.