Hazel Findlay repeats Muy Caliente!, spicy trad climb at Pembroke in Wales

Britain’s Hazel Findlay has repeated Muy Caliente!, the bold trad climb at Stennis Ford in Pembroke, Wales established by Tim Emmett in 2010. Originally graded E10, the route boasts a technical crux far above good but extremely distanced gear and while the climb now seems to have settled in at E9, the French 8a+/8b climbing requires nerves of steel in order master the long runout.

Findlay certainly lacks neither nerves nor fingers of steel and a decade after having become the first British woman to climb E9, on Sunday she tied in to the live end of the rope despite not feeling on top form. For climbers of Findlay’s height the crux isn’t immediately after the gear at about 10m as for most, but at a tricky move halfway through the ensuing 9 meter runout, and it is here that she almost fell. She kept her mettle though and fought her way to the top. The 32-year-old had practiced the moves on toprope first, and is now only the second woman to climb this line, after Barbara Zangerl succeeded in June 2017.

Findlay’s climbing curriculum is as varied as it is impressive and spans the spectrum from hard and dangerous trad to hard and safe trad (eg Magic Line in Yosemite, 2019), past difficult sport climbs (in 2014 she became the first British woman to climb 8c) and never-ending big walls (Golden Gate in 2011, Pre-Muir in 2012, Freerider in 2013, Salathé Wall in 2017).

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