Bombé bleu at Buoux attempted by Nicolas Januel

Nicolas Januel entitled this short clip “Dream project”. And what a dream project it is! The recently retired trainer for the French climbing team has set his sights on what is arguably one of the biggest prizes in sport climbing: the Bombé bleu project at Buoux. Bolted back in 1991 by child prodigy Marc Le Menestrel and dubbed Chantier, over the last quarter of a century the steeply overhanging series of fierce single finger and two-finger pockets has so far seen off all attempts from the world’s best, including the likes of Ben Moon, Stefan Glowacz, Chris Sharma, Fred Rouhling and Iker Pou.

In 2012 the Basque climber told planetmountain.com that the climb was “certainly one of the most fantastic and beautiful routes that I have ever tried in my entire life” requiring “superb power to link these perfect moves up perfect rock.” Interest in the 16-move line has now been rekindled by Januel who in this short extract filmed by Fred Ripert demonstrates precisely how much power and precision is necessary to stick the heinous pockets on what in many respects is considered the "Holy Grail" of sport climbing.

TOPO: the crag Buoux, France

Dream project... #buoux #lebombe #climbing #bouldering #escalade #escalada #klettern @scarpafrance Image: http://fredripert.com/

A post shared by Nicolas Januel (@nicojanuel) on Nov 29, 2017 at 7:51am PST