La Rambla

La Rambla is a sport climb at the limestone El Pati crag in Siurana, Catalonia in Spain. Originally bolted and climbed by Alexander Huber in 1994 as a route, the bolting was later extended by to a route, which was eventually climbed by Ramón Julián Puigblanque in 2003. While there has been debate about La Rambla'''s grade, there is now consensus that it meets the threshold. It is an important and historic route in climbing, and is part of the coveted "9a+ trilogy" with Realization and Papichulo. History While a route was first bolted by Huber in 1993, a hold broke at the upper section and Huber was only able to climb to an intermediate anchor at , and not to his final anchor that was also the final anchor for Huber's neighboring route, La Reina Mora . Huber climbed his route in 1994, and called it La Rambla, and graded it as . Huber explained in a 2008 interview that he felt his 35-metre route was no more difficult than Wolfgang Güllich's 1991 ascent of Action Directe that was then graded . Action Directe was later re-graded to , and is considered a "benchmark" for a "hard" 9a. Huber later believed his 35-metre route should have had a grade. After Huber's 1994 ascent, Spanish climber linked Huber's 35-metre route to the final anchor of La Reina Mora – Huber's original intention – by bolting a short traverse to the right that started from the last hold of Huber's route, a 3-finger pocket just below the intermediate anchor. Andrada's extended route was still long, and became known for a period as La Rambla Extension, or La Rambla Direct, and even La Rambla Original (as Andrada wanted to keep as much as possible Huber's original 41-metre route), however, as Huber's intermediate anchor at 35-metres is now gone, Andrada's 41-metre route is known as La Rambla.