Realization (climb)
 | This article may be too technical for most readers to understand. (September 2010) |
| Realization | |
|---|---|
| Biographie | |
 The Montagne de Céüse, site of Realization | |
| Location | Céüse, France |
| Coordinates | 44°30′51″N 5°56′36″E / 44.514196°N 5.943432°E |
| Climbing area | Montagne de Céüse |
| Route type | Sport Climb |
| Pitches | 1 |
| Rating | 5.15a or 9a+ |
| Grade | I |
| Route setter | Jean-Christophe Lafaille, 1989. |
| First free ascent | Chris Sharma, July 2001. |
Realization, or Biographie, is a sport climbing route on a crag on the southern face of the 2016-metre (6614-foot) Montagne de Céüse near Gap and Céüse, France.[1]
While not having been graded by its first ascensionist Chris Sharma, it is generally considered to be 9a+ (French grade) or 5.15a (Yosemite Decimal System).[2] Among the routes that have been repeated by anyone else except the author, Realization is the first ascent to be recognized with a 5.15 rating formally making it the most difficult as of 2001. However, in 1996 Fred Rouhling proposed even harder grade 9b (5.15b) for his unrepeated climb Akira. Since 2001 there have been ascents of other routes which are recognized and rated to be more difficult.
Name dispute
The name of the route is disputed: routes in France are named by the person who first bolted the route, while in the U.S. they are typically named by the first ascensionist. In 1989, Jean-Christophe Lafaille bolted the whole "pitch" and named it Biographie. In 1996, Arnaud Petit added an anchor in the middle of the route, and did the first ascent of the first half in that year. (Around 2007 the anchor chains marking the end of the route which Arnaud Petit climbed were removed from the wall.) In July 2001 Sharma became the first person to climb the full route and gave it the name "Realization", following the American way.
Many Americans consider "Biographie" to be the first half of the route which Petit climbed in 1996 and Realization to be the full route including the extension, whereas other climbers such as Adam Ondra and Sylvain Millet refer to the entire route as Biographie.[3]
Sharma admitted in an interview to kairn.com in April 2010 that the importance of a First Ascent, and the investment in that route before its FA, meant that not anyone could just show up, climb a route (and rename it) without asking anyone else. He was referring to his route "First Round, First Minute" (FRFM, then a project) in Catalunya and, in an interview to planetmountain.com on 20 April 2011 (the day after he sent FRFM), Sharma actually used the name "Biographie".
Subsequent ascents
Realization has been repeated by Sylvain Millet [4] (May 24, 2004), Patxi Usobiaga (July 29, 2004), Dave Graham[5] (July 30, 2007), Ethan Pringle (September 2, 2007), Ramón Julián Puigblanque (July 27, 2008), and Enzo Oddo (August 2010)