After winning gold and silver on this year’s IFSC circuit, plus securing herself a ticket to Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Janja Garnbret set herself up for a new challenge in her comp off-season. Early this October, she went to the illusive Magic Wood in Switzerland, as she stated, without expectations, planning to start climbing again as she took a short break after finishing the World Cup circuit.
Even if at first sight this sounded only like a get-together with “old and new friends”, Janja couldn’t help herself from sending some massive boulders. The highlights of her trip were a quick send (two tries) of New Baseline (8B+) and two 8A+ flashes.
The New Baseline boulder problem is a well-known classic in Magic Wood. FAd by Bernd Zangerl in 2000, New Baseline has been seconded by many strong climbers such as Dave Graham, Daniel Woods, Shauna Coxsey, and Katie Lamb to name just a few. Janja is the 20th climber to send this V15 and the sixth woman in history to climb the line successfully.
Back in 2002, when Zangerl found the problem, it was intended to be THE new baseline in climbing, with an initial 8C grading, but after several climbs, it’s been downgraded to 8B+ where it still stands.
This wasn’t Janja’s first 8B+ boulder, she climbed Bügeleisen Maltatal, Austria, in March 2022. Along with Michaela Kiersch she is in the top two female-climber list to have climbed two 8B+ and above and two 9a sport routes or above.
During this Magic trip, Janja sent a total of ten boulders 7C+/8A and above, adding a slash to Jack’s Broken Heart 8A/+ and Left Hand of Darkness 8A/+ after flashing both of them.
The complete tick list could be found on her Instagram post and sounded like this:
- New Baseline 8B+
- Jack’s broken heart 8A/A+ (flash)
- Left hand of darkness 8A/+A (flash)
- Massive attack 8A+
- Foxy Lady 8A
- Muttertag 8A
- Octopussy 8A
- Sofasurfer 8A/A+
- Right hand of darkness 7C+/8A
- Unendliche geschichte 7C+/8A
Featured image: @janja_garnbret/📸 @vladek_zumr
