Century Crack 5.14b

Century Crack is a 40-meter horizontal offwidth roof on the White Rim in Canyonlands National Park, Utah. It runs dead level along a ceiling, forcing climbers through sustained, body-contorting offwidth technique rather than any single hard move. At 5.14b it was the first offwidth ever confirmed at that grade, and it remains one of the longest and most physically punishing cracks of its kind, a route built entirely around stamina and tolerance for pain rather than finger strength.

History

Steve Bartlett discovered the crack and made the first aid ascent in 2001, naming it Chocolate Starfish. A decade later, in 2011, British climbers Pete Whittaker and Tom Randall, known as the Wide Boyz, made the first free ascent after two years of dedicated offwidth training, including building a replica of the crack in a cellar in Sheffield. They first climbed it with gear pre-placed, then returned two weeks later and redpointed it on lead. It has seen few repeats since: Danny Parker made the third ascent in 2018, Fumiya Nakamura the fourth in 2023, and Mary Eden the fifth in 2025, which was also the first female free ascent.

On film

Wide Boyz (2012) follows Pete Whittaker and Tom Randall through their two years of offwidth-specific training in a homemade cellar crack in Sheffield, building toward a trip across the Atlantic to attempt Century Crack. The film covers both the grinding preparation and the pair's eventual free ascent of the roof crack in Utah, the payoff for training most climbers would find close to unbearable.