Alexander Megos frees Modified 9a+ in the Frankenjura

German climber Alexander Megos has added two new routes to the Frankenjura, Modified 9a+ and Nice Freshly Baked 9a.

A climbing performance is no longer measured in days, but hours. It's astounding, but at the moment everything German sports climber Alexander Megos lays his hands on seems so easy that it's forcing us to think in bouldering terms, i.e. the number of (few) attempts and the number of hours on a given day.

One could argue that this is perhaps nothing other than the natural evolution after having proven to be capable of climbing 9a onsight, but nevertheless Action Directe in less than two hours certainly left its mark, as did (if confirmation were really necessary) The Man that follows hell 9a+ in an hour and a half. On that occasion in mid-May we wrote that perhaps the time had come for Megos to invest his hours not in redpointing an existing route, but in a great new project. And even if a great new project hasn't been identified yet, in the days that followed those climbs Megos acted on his own accord and made two interesting new first ascents in the Frankenjura.

The latest creation is called Modified and is a combination of the routes Kate Moss and his Classified. No new terrain therefore, but nevertheless a great 9a+ that settles in as one of his hardest climbs to date. This joins a route Megos freed at the end of May, Nice Freshly Baked. For this route the 20-year-old got out a drill and, after having placed a line of bolts, freed the route at 9a. The times you may ask? Modified required 3 hours, Nice Freshly Baked a mere 3 attempts. By now it's clear that there's someone out there playing in a completely different league. The first 9b in the Frankenjura isn't perhaps that far off!