E11

An instant classic of British climbing film, and what sets it apart is its honesty about fear. Dave MacLeod completes Rhapsody at Dumbarton Rock on April 9, 2006, after roughly two years: a thin crack protected by small wires, then a bouldery crux far above the gear where a fall could mean a 20 to 25 meter swing, at French 8c+ difficulty. It was Britain's first E11 and the hardest trad route in the world at the time. Hot Aches made the film.

This is for climbers who want to understand what the E grade measures. MacLeod takes fall after enormous fall onto gear that may or may not hold, and the film sits with the toll: sleepless nights, the partner watching from below, the question of whether any route is worth this. Skip it if you want movement. Forty-one minutes is mostly a mind managing terror, and the climbing is the occasion for that.

What works is the partner. Watching from below is its own kind of exposure, and the film gives that perspective real time. The falls are shown in full, and each one changes the next attempt. What it gets wrong is that two years become forty-one minutes with a lot of grey Scottish weather in between, and the pace flags.

Hardest Trad Flash Ever is Adam Ondra flashing Lexicon, the other E11 on the site, in one attempt. E11 is the film that explains why that flash was unthinkable. Watch this first, always.