Upgrading “Clash of the Titans”

It’s been more than five years since I first tried the route “Clash of the Titans” back home in Tirol which was first climbed by Alex Megos in 2017. Alex graded it 9a+ back then but to me it always felt substantially harder than that. I’ve done quite a few 9a+ and also 9bs but none of them took as much effort as this route. However, after I finally sent rather quickly last year I wasn’t sure anymore if it really deserves an upgrade making me hesitant to publish the ascent and have a clear opinion on the grade. After all, the route doesn’t fit my preferred style, which is crimping, but there are quite a few open handholds on this one, which gave me a hard time. Earlier this year, the opportunity came up to go back together with Stefano Ghisolfi who checked out the route as well and gave his opinion. Check out the video to find out more.

In general, I think we saw some kind of grade inflation in sport climbing over the last years and I feel it’s the responsibility of everyone who is capable of climbing the hardest grades to also give their honest opinion. That’s why I’ve downgraded some routes in the past. For the same reason, I now suggest an upgrade for “The Clash of Titans”.