Seb Bouin makes first ascent of Suprême Jumbo Love 9b+/38

1/11/2022

French climber Seb Bouin has established the hardest sport route in North America with the first ascent of Suprême Jumbo Love (9b+/38) at Clark Mountain, California, USA. Seb originally travelled to the area to climb Jumbo Love (9b/37), established by Chris Sharma in 2008. In October, he successfully made the fourth ascent (and first ascent by a non-American) of that route in around ten days of effort. Previous ascentionists have all required multiple seasons and trips to get the route completed, with the fastest previous ascent being Jonathan Siegrist's. His ascent (the third after Sharma and Ethan Pringle) required two ten day trips.

Bouin's relatively fast ascent gave him time to look at a direct start version that Sharma briefly dabbled with in 2010. This version adds 20m of hard (9a/35) climbing before the crux of the original, after doing the start and the crux, you must still climb a long, pumpy 8c+/34 section before the final headwall, making for 70m of climbing in one monster pitch. This type of long, hard route is exactly what Bouin has become famous for, and he managed to put it all together to create a new 'hardest route in America' and further cement himself as one of the very top sport climbers in the world.

(This video shows Ethan Pringle attempting the original Jumbo Love).