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On Wednesday, February 14, Czech rock whiz Adam Ondra made the first repeat of James Pearson’s Bon Voyage (E12) in Annot, France. In the process, Ondra has both confirmed the climb’s grade (making it the world’s hardest graded trad route) and cemented himself as our sport’s most versatile hardman.
Bon Voyage is a variant on Pearson’s 2017 Le Voyage (E10), breaking left across a sparse face via thin pockets before finishing up an exposed arête. Ondra spent three days on Voyage, working it on toprope while Pearson shared beta. After working the crux and start in segments on his first day, he took a break to sport climb at nearby Gorges du Loup and Buoux.
He returned for a second day and began roping up for redpoint attempts. On his third day he nearly topped off the bat, but he fell from the technical arête sequence towards the end. Still, he finished Bon Voyage the same day. (While three days may seem fast for a cutting-edge trad route, when you consider the fact that Ondra has flashed 5.15a and onsighted 5.14d, those three days take on another flavor.)
While admitting that he is no trad expert, Ondra offered clear confirmation of Pearson’s E12 proposal. Bon Voyage very well “could be (physically) the hardest route on trad gear in the world,” he reported on Instagram, remarking that the climb would probably be around 9a (5.14d) if bolted. “It is hands down one of the best routes I have ever climbed,” Ondra added. It is a true miracle that there are just enough holds to make it climbable and enough gear to make it runout, but safe.”
The confirmation likely comes as welcome vindication for Pearson, who has had something of a rocky grading past. Several of his early career efforts were downgraded, and he was particularly lambasted in 2008, after proposing E12 for a tenuous 120-foot slab he called The Walk of Life. (At the time there was only one E11 in the world, and Pearson had not climbed it.) Dave MacLoed subsequently repeated The Walk, slapping on a rare triple downgrade to E9, and Pearson was shunned as a grade inflator.
As a result of this past experience, when Pearson established Bon Voyage in February 2023 he did not propose a grade, noting only that it was a step up from any other hard trad climb he’d attempted. But ten months later, he finally offered E12—still today the hardest grade ever given for a trad line—after watching some of the world’s strongest gear fiends (including Steve McClure, Sébastien Berthe, Ignacio Mulero, and Jacopo Larcher) try and fail on his line. At the time, McClure famously remarked, “If this route is not E12, I’ll be amazed.”
Pearson subsequently explained his grade reasoning in an essay published in Climbing last December.
“The route felt challenging in many different ways,” Ondra said, “and apart from being very runout (but probably safe), it has some very hard (and odd!) moves where you really need to be a very complex climber.”
The send is more than just a singular accomplishment, but a testament to Ondra’s staggering versatility on rock. Save for bouldering (where he has yet to send a proposed V17), the 31-year-old Czech climber has now performed at the cutting edge in every discipline of rock climbing. He’s sent 5.14d multi-pitch with The Dawn Wall, sent 5.15d sport with Silence, made the world’s hardest sport flash (5.15a) with Super Crackinette, onsighted several 5.14ds, flashed V14 with Jade, and now headpointed E12 with Bon Voyage.
“I’m really psyched that he’s done the route, and that it felt as hard as I thought it might be,” Pearson told UK Climbing after Ondra’s send. “But more than that I’m just really happy that he came to try the route and that he had such an amazing time on it, and that he totally agrees with me that it’s a real miracle of Mother Nature.”
