Estado Critico 9a

Estado Crítico is a 40-meter sport route at Siurana, in Catalonia, Spain, bolted by Dani Andrada on the area's steep, pocketed limestone. It climbs sustained, powerful terrain typical of Siurana's harder lines. Graded 9a, it sits at the boundary between very hard redpoint climbing and the kind of route a strong climber might try to onsight, which is what made it historically significant.

History

Ramón Julián Puigblanque made the first ascent on March 15, 2004, after 10 sessions, and proposed 9a. The grade drifted toward 8c+/9a after early repeats, but once a hold broke around 2010 and the route was reclimbed in its altered state, Adam Ondra suggested the original 9a was still accurate, and that grade has stood since. Its biggest moment came on March 24, 2012, when Alex Megos climbed it onsight after failing to find the route he had originally planned to try: it became the first-ever onsight of a 9a and a marker in Megos's early career.

On film

Rotpunkt, Patagonia's 2019 film about Alex Megos, uses Estado Crítico as the project that forces him to change how he climbs. Megos built his reputation on onsighting and flashing rather than repeated attempts, and the film follows him returning to Siurana to work the route over multiple sessions, showing what happens when the fastest onsight climber of his generation has to project rather than send in one go.