First Free Climb of Underground Big Wall in Macocha

The strangest setting on this site, and one of Adam Ondra's best films because the setting matters more than the number. Macocha is a 138-meter abyss in the Moravian Karst, an hour from Ondra's home town. At the bottom is an arch that had never been free climbed, and access is a five-day window each December, by permission only.

This is for climbers who want something other than a grade chase. The line, Příklepový strop, is five pitches of 8b+, 8b+, 8a+, 7a and 6c on rusty pegs and old bolts, and Ondra goes at it ground up: a fall on the onsight attempt of the first 8b+, then second-go redpoints of that pitch, the second 8b+ and the 8a+. Skip it if cold, humid, dark climbing on poor protection does not appeal. That is the whole film.

What works is generosity. Ondra gives room to the Czech climbers who found and worked the line before him, and the film is about a place as much as a person. English subtitles are in the video settings. What it leaves out is the actual difficulty of the hard pitches. Two 8b+ pitches underground on old hardware deserve more time on the moves.

Silence, Ondra's film about the world's first 9c, is the one people know. This is the one I would show a climber who thinks Ondra is only about grades. He calls Macocha one of his favorite climbing experiences, and the film makes that believable.