Lumír Fajkoš makes rope solo ascent of Gekón (8c) in Slovakia

Lumír Fajkoš has made a rope-solo ascent of Gekón, a short and intense 8c in the Manínska úžina area of Slovakia. Located on lower Gothic Wall (Gotická stena), the routes was freed by Stano Klimo in 2009.

Fajkoš first started trying the route on toprope and alone two years ago, with the idea of laying his hands on his first-ever 8c and working out the beta prior to climbing the route with a partner. However, as time progressed he realised that he'd prefer to continue the project on his own. He tested various different belaying setups and, despite setbacks and injuries to both his hand and foot - a nasty fall resulted in a fractured heel and crutches for 2 months - he persevered to climb his hardest route yet in November.

Rope solo ascents tend to be more common in the mountains than at the crag and the Czech climber has previously rope soled easier but far longer multipitches in the High Tatras mountains such as Titanic 7b+, Superdiretissima 7c and Katarzia 8a+.

To date, the hardest rope solo at a crag was the ground-up ascent of the 8c+ Mare at Mt. Futago in Japan by the late Keita Kurakami in 2019.

For the full story check out the report on www.singingrock.com