And so we come to the current zenith of the Australian grading system, grade 35. There’s just four 9as in Oz – Schweinebaumeln, Kitten Mittens, Baker’s Dozen and the very first, The RED Project. We thought we’d go with the original, The RED Project, first climbed by visiting German wunderkind, Alex Megos, way back in 2013.
According to the keeper of Diamond Falls lore, Lee Cossey, the route comes to us via a veritable Who’s Who of Australian climbing: Kim Carrigan apparently put in the first bolts, Garth Miller then placed five glue-in rings and Lee himself finished bolting the line in the early 2000s. The line then went many years without a suitable suitor, unil along came the Mega Megos.
The project was pointed out to Alex, who rocked up to the crag keen to try the route only to have a local abseil down and redtag the project in front of him. It didn’t halt the Mega Megos for long though as other climbers told him it was an open project. ‘I wanted to try it [The RED Project] because it looked really cool, like all the routes at Diamond Falls. It seemed like an amazing route, and projects are always tempting to try,’ Alex says.
Alex had recently become the first person to onsight 35, but The RED didn’t succumb easily:
I remember checking it out and thinking this is not harder than 8c+, so 34, and expecting to send next try. I didn’t send second go, didn’t send third go, didn’t send
