Can Adam Ondra Make Slab Cool Again?

Czech legend Adam Ondra may be best known for his nails-hard, overhung first ascents. If it’s got terrible holds and a kneebar, he’s probably climbed it. But recently, the accomplished all-arounder has devoted himself to what’s arguably one of climbing’s most divisive styles: slab.

Recently, Ondra put up a new 5.14d/9a slab he named Niobe in Arco, Italy, and shared the process in a new YouTube video. We spoke with Ondra about the line, why slab gets a bad rap, and if he’s a slab king in the making.

Climbing back in time

In an edit directed by Jan Šimánek and produced with Mammut, Ondra embraces retro vibes, wearing vintage climbing clothes and cruising around on a Vespa to `80s synth beats. Ondra then pays tribute to the groundbreaking climbers who he grew up watching, back when slab was in its heyday.

“I always thought, wow it must be so cool to imagine those times when the climbers had everything to explore and everything was new,” Ondra told Climbing. In Arco, Ondra met and climbed with one of those 1980s icons: Heinz Mariacher, an Austrian climber who FA’d many hard slabs in the area. He also met up with Loris Manzana, a pioneering Italian climber who bolted lines in Arco.

While he may not be classified as a spandex-clad slab king at the moment, Ondra explains that he’s always been drawn toward friction-forward routes. “I’ve loved slab from the very beginning,” he said. To him, there’s a magic to climbing slab—he explained that it feels like “touching a piece of history.”

Niobe: The newest line in slab

Niobe begins with a 5.13 section originally bolted by Manzana. Ondra pushed the line further with another, harder section involving distinct sequential cruxes. On one of those cruxes, Ondra had to become almost fully horizontal on smeary feet, reaching both arms above his head to the right, clinging onto a sidepull that is undoubtedly worse than it looks.

Ondra found the most difficult part of the 40-meter route to be foot endurance. “Most of the hard sequences are … about how confident you are pressing onto those smears. Some of the sequences that felt really easy in isolation felt way more insecure and harder on lead,” he recalled.

At one point on the climb, Ondra milked a two-minute rest to shake out his feet and recover. He climbed in La Sportiva Solutions as a middle ground between soft and stiff. Stiffer shoes, he worried, would’ve exhausted his feet more. But even softer shoes wouldn’t have fared well on some of the route’s tiny foot holds.

Ultimately, it took Ondra three days to send Niobe. He spent the first two days bolting and working the upper sequence, then sent on day three.

“It comes down to pain and suffering and holding on to non-existent razor blades,” Ondra said, summing up the slab experience at grades of 9a or beyond. But will Ondra’s new route and his enthusiasm for the style spread?

Restoring slab’s rep

If you’re a climber, you undoubtedly know the type of people who would rather endure a steep pump-fest than balance up a greater-than-vertical surface. Most of us associate slab on granite or sandstone with tiny, razor sharp crimps, footholds that are little more than prayers, and painful cheesegrating falls.

Yet Ondra isn’t the only climber of late to come to the defense of this unpopular style. Arco-born climber Pietro Vidi—who, according to Ondra, dubbed the slab of his hometown “meh” compared to Yosemite—recently became the first to repeat Lurking Fear (5.13c), 25 years after its first ascent. Vidi went on to send some gnarly, slabby testpieces in the UK’s Peak District.

Another dogged defender of this unpopular style of climbing is Anna Hazelnutt, slinger of the slogan, “Slab is Sexy.” Most recently, Hazelnutt sent a hard big wall slab line in Madagascar.

For anyone who’s had a bad experience with granite or sandstone slab, Ondra explained that the limestone in Arco offers a different sort of slab experience. “This one requires a lot of pressure with your feet against the rock, so we don’t slip. But the rock’s friction is more reliable, even though there’s almost zero friction,” he said.

Ondra found this preferable to the tenuous granite slab in Yosemite. Since Arco’s limestone isn’t super sharp, it also has the benefit of not destroying your tips. Ondra believes Niobe could in fact be the “most skin-friendly 9a in the world.”

Why slab fell from grace in the first place

One reason slab may have fallen out of fashion in recent years is because it tends to be notoriously sandbagged, particularly at higher levels. A couple years ago in Climbing, James Lucas described how the grading of hard slabs doesn’t align with their difficulty. Ondra added that ideally, the climbing community should consider upgrading some of the old-school, severely sandbagged slab routes to make the grading more consistent.

To grade Niobe at 5.14d, Ondra says he used modern standards. “Slabs are hard to break, that’s for sure. They tend to be a bit more morpho, especially when you go higher in the grading scale,” he explained.

Another explanation for why slab has arguably fallen from grace might be training. Ondra posited that some might not like slab or might find it difficult because it’s not easy to train for. At most climbing gyms, you can train for overhung all day long, but indoor climbing rarely replicates the tenuous holds and friction that exemplify hard slab.

Niobe‘s first repeat

But Ondra’s attempt to revive slab might already be working: Niobe saw a second ascent last week. On Instagram, Italian 17-year-old climber Gianluca Vighetti announced that he sent it on his third attempt. “The moment I saw Ondra’s video on his FA of this route, I was immediately captured by these incredible moves and excited to give it a try. The route was as amazing as l imagined it to be, one of the best l’ve ever tried for sure,” he wrote.

Vighetti remained agnostic about the grade, saying that since he doesn’t usually climb hard slab, he’s not sure. “I know that this thing is 100 percent my style but, even if I think it’s difficult enough to be 9a, I don’t exclude the possibility that it might be easier.”

Is there more slab in Ondra’s future?

Now that he’s moved to Arco with his family, Ondra isn’t hanging up his slab hat any time soon. There’s another potential slab project in the area that he’s bolted. He’s started toying around with—though he admits he isn’t sure “if it’s actually possible.”

“The hard projects are going to be actually more physical than Niobe,” Ondra reflected. “And there will be more laybacking on very, very bad side pulls and smears, which is, I think, the only way to make a slab on such a low angle hard.” He’ll keep trying a wide variety of climbs, but slab also fits well with his training plans. He can work a slab outside for hours, then go work an overhung route in the gym.

Since he’s been working on leg endurance for kneebars on overhung climbs, he theorizes that climbing hard slab could actually help. “Maybe actually doing more pumpy slabs will actually solve the problem on the steep stuff as well. So maybe it’s going to be extremely nice synergy. I’m not feeling like all I want to do right now is slabs. I just like to combine it all,” he said.

But with lower angle limestone in his new backyard, Ondra is indeed fired up on friction at the moment. “I’m quite psyched,” he declared. “This is definitely not the end of this crag. There are a few lines to be finished.” Some of those lines, he speculated, could be as hard as 9b+/5.15c or 9c/5.15d, which could make them the hardest slab routes in the world.

But could Ondra’s stoke for hard slab actually make the style cool again? “I don’t think so,” he laughed. “But honestly, I really like the vibe.”