James Litz has opened two pretty tough nuts with ‚Ace of Spade‘ (9a) and ‚Peruvian necktie‘ (9a +) in the Poptire Cave in Utah. Daniel Woods made with Eline Ménestrel for a spontaneous trip and tried in two routes. While still ‚Ace of spade‘ could be cracked by Daniel and managed the first repetition, he was dismissed in the original route ‚Peruvian Necktie‘. Would Daniel graded up the routes to 9a+ ( ‚Ace of Spade‘)  and 9a+/9b (‚Peruvian necktie‘).

Daniel by instagram: „Ace of Spade (14d/15a) 2nd asc. made a spontaneous trip out to UT to check out the poptire cave with @eline_lemenestrel. I have heard about this cave but had no idea what to expect. It is super remote and rugged. . I was shown an unrepeated James Litz line called Peruvian Necktie (15a). It had an alternate exit called Ace of Spade (14d). Both these lines immediately caught my eye. After a couple days of work I repeated Ace of Spade (fell twice at the v4 crux near the anchor haha due to 0 endurance) then began to try Peruvian Necktie. I ended up falling near the end of the final boulder a couple times. . Breakdown of Ace is intro 10 move v12/13 bloc, ok rest, 5 move v10, bad rest, 8 move v10 to 13a outro. I felt this line could be more 15a than 14d. peruvian is same first two boulders but finishes with a final v11/12 to 13b. this thing felt more 15b. . it felt good to get pumped again after taking 5 months off sport climbing. will return back for the necktie!! awesome effort with these two routes James!!!! .“

Photos: (c) Mike Call