Red Bull Most Difficult Route on Earth

Red Bull Most Difficult Route on Earth
Naranjo de Bulnes, Spain date 31.08.2009

Pou Brothers complete the hardest big wall climbing route in the world.

“Orbayu”, the route conceived by the brothers from Vitoria, 500 meters length, difficulty of 8c+/9a, never completed before in a multipitch route.

After two months working in the mountain Picu Urriellu, in the Heart of the “Picos de Europa” (Asturias, north of Spain), Iker and Eneko Pou finished their most complicated project to date. “Orbayu” route, proposed as a 8c+/9a difficulty, becomes Worlds hardest multipich route in big walls.

The Basque brothers completed the route in 8 hours, climbing each one of the 16 pitches at first try, in freeclimbing discipline (using only feet and hands).

“Orbayu´s importance lays overall in being able to take the maximum climbing difficulty typical from sport climbing, and transfer it to a big wall like the West face of Naranjo de Bulnes”, explains Iker Pou. This means climbing extreme difficult pitches 200 meters above the ground, when normally this hard sections are reserved to short routes near the ground. “The protections on the wall are really precarious (copperheads, pitons stocked with wood, micro friends... most of them from old artificial climbers placed many years ago) so the potential falls might get to 20 or 25 meters.

“Even more important was being able to have the vision and the creativity to imagine this line. Ten years ago we were repeating difficult lines, but we didn´t have the vision or the imagination to locate a new futuristic line and climb it” recounts Eneko Pou. “That is the biggest difference for us nowadays. Not so many people are raising new challenges in the mountain but try to repeat something existing. I would compare it with painting perfectly a great picture or paint the original”.

Why name it "Orbayu"? 


“Orbayu comes from the typical light rain in Asturias”, explains Eneko. We are from the Basque Country, Asturias is our second home.

“We hope this route helps to bring Naranjo de Bulnes into the spot light as an international climbing meca”


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