Favresse bites the Cobra

I guess the news spread pretty fast! Yeah I sent the Cobra crack a few days ago. I am super psyched! It's a amazing line and piece of climbing.

It took me 15 tries to do it over 8 days, plus one run up it three years ago. It was hard for me not only because of the physical challenge but also because it bites your fingers so I could only give two tries a days and sometimes on the second try was already too much. Also I could only go up there once every three days in order to have my fingers recovered and fresh. Most of the time when I work a hard route I just get training session on it doing crux moves over and over so I get stronger on them and eventually build up the power for it. On this climb this wasn't possible. Some of the moves I could only do them once then the skin pain would be too much to do it again. It probably sounds horrible but in fact the route is really fun and enjoyable to climb.

The moves on the cobra are really unique and unusual for me. At first the route felt nearly impossible because the moves were hard for me to understand. Even if I have done a lot of crack climbing I am not used to such crack difficulty. But the learning process of the moves went really fast and on my third day on it (5th try) I was just going up to check the moves and I unexpectedly fell all the way at the top. Before that try I was really not sure if I would be able to do it. After that I knew it was in my reach.

About the grade it's hard to tell and probably a bit depending on your finger size. Although I have pretty fat fingers and I think fatter fingers could be ok too. There are many options and different ways of doing each sequences. That's what's really nice about such climb. It's definitely the hardest trad I have ever done. At first The Cobra crack felt like 5-14c or even d. But now that I understood the moves better, I think it feels more like 5-14b to me. But hard considering the nature of the climb, placing the pros, the Cobra bites on the fingers;) The only cure for it was to eat every day as many belgian fries as possible!! See the pictures!

This sunday I am heading up to the Bugaboos with my friend Sean Villanueva to climb some bigger walls. I'll let you if we do anything good.

Nico

Info: www.xpedition.be

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