'I Got My Ass Kicked' - Adam Ondra's Dawn Wall Story | Climbing Daily Ep.1334

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Hello and welcome to Climbing Daily.

Now ages ago we caught up with Adam Ondra
at the (unintelligible) gym in Germany

to talk to him about one thing:
his incredibly quick assent

of the Dawn Wall.

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I'm Adam Ondra. I'm a professional climber

and I climb, I climb a lot (laughs).

I boulder, I sport climb, sometimes

I compete, sometimes I go to the big walls

like last year into Yosemite Valley.

I've always wanted to go to Yosemite.

Like, ever since I saw pictures of it.

It's the mecca of big walls, right?

And I'm almost embarrassed to be
so many years, to finally make it there.

And when you think about Yosemite and
the hardest route

the Dawn Wall
is the most obvious challenge.

I think you can say the Dawn Wall

is considered to be the hardest

free climb big wall in the world.

It might sound a little too brave

or not even respectful that me, as a

big wall beginner, chose right away

the hardest big wall in the world.

But, I wanted something challenging,

and I was definitely challenged.

Like in the first weeks of work on the

Dawn Wall, I got my a** kicked
pretty much.

We pretty much arrived to
the valley

and second day in the valley
I just went up. I went ground up

using free climbing and a little bit
of aid climbing and somehow

after 4 days we barrelled thru the route

to the top. Which was the most

adventurous part of the whole process.

Having almost zero tread climbing

experience or relying on beaks and
not being really accustomed to the

special Yosemite climbing style, it

was tough but really adventurous, and

I'm definitely glad we did not just
walk around

rapelled and tried everything top rope.

It was definitely worth it.