Rhapsody - E11? McClure speaks about the grade

E11?

The nut that held over 40 falls, 50 footers mainly.

Now that Rhapsody has been repeated by two climbers, what is the consensus on the grade? The route that took Dave MacLeod over 70 days to climb, on which he hurt himself badly on several falls including a 70 footer and also falling upside down with his leg wrapped round the rope; a fall that prompted him to wear a helmet on subsequent attempts...

Check out the next edition of Climb Magazine for an in-depth article with the views of Sonnie, Steve and Dave MacLeod. But now, for a quick overview, some thoughts from the climbers:

Sonnie climbed the route on his 24th redpoint on a reasonably cool and windy day. Most of his redpoints were in unfavourable conditions. He took 22 falls from the technical crux, roughly 6-8 moves from the top. All the falls were taken fine.

Steve climbed the route on his 3rd redpoint. Redpoint 2 was aborted early with a fumbled clip that he 'touched' and then declared 'that can't count now'. Conditions were similar to both of Sonnies ascents.

Sonnie has written about his view on the difficulty 'Rhapsody is basically a 5.13c/d into a V10/V11, and a cheeky one at that'. This translates into an overall 5.14b/c R or french 8c/8c+.

He doesn't have enough experience of our 'E' grades to have a view.

Dan, Keith, Steve. Reviewing the photos taken during the ascent.

I interviewed Steve after his ascent and he has now briefly published his views on Climb's website.

On the grade. A lot of people want the route downgraded for whatever reason, typical Brits! Firstly I'm hardly qualified having only climbed E9. The climbing is at least hard F8c, it felt like F8c+ compared to other sport routes I've done quickly, but perhaps fear added a notch. That makes E9 for effort straight away. Originally I assumed it may be E10, going straight for the lead after just a few hours looking at the route, taking a massive whipper and barely feeling a thing. The fall was safe. But I underestimated the route. There is a lot more climbing above where I fell, and on my lead I had to dig deeper than I have for a long time. The last move was as close as it gets. Perhaps if I'd fallen I'd have known for sure.... What I will say is that Dave did not overgrade the route. Not from what he experienced. The climbing is super hard, and the falls are big. Dave was hurting himself repeatedly during the falls. He didn't know if one of them could turn out really nasty. The first ascencionist can only propose a grade. This is how it works."