Jonathan Siegrist: Bad Girls Club (5.14+)

Jonathan Siegrist has claimed the second ascent of Bad Girls Club (5.14+) in Rifle, Colorado’s Wicked Cave.  Not long after the first ascent by Matty Hong, Jonathan headed west from his home base on the front range to check out Bad Girls Club.  Bolted last year by Joe Kinder, the line saw a steady stream of suitors this season.  Many, including Siegrist, originally doubted the quality of the line due to the usually fickle rock quality found in the Wicked Cave.  Jonathan wrote on his blog,

“Last year I spied homeboy Joey Kinder hanging on a rope, sinking metal in the Wicked Cave, up a less than inspiring line to the left of The Crew. As you can likely tell, I was a bit of a sceptic, but rumors of a sick, hard new route in the Wicked Cave roused my interest - then, a few weeks ago I saw photos of said route with crusher Matty Hong making a proud F.A. Whoa! This route actually looked killer - clean rock and cool holds. I was stoked to have a go.

He followed with, “First and foremost, Joey Kinder deserves a shout out - he put in tons of effort on this thing, cleaning it up, equipping it and giving it love. (sorry I doubted you man! this is a RAD addition, and a worthy Colorado test-piece).”

Joe Kinder on his route, Bad Girls Club (5.14+)  Photo: jstarinorbit.

Jonathan put in three days of effort on the route, then retreated back to the front range to take care of some business and rest.  Just 36 hours later he was back and clipping the chains.  As for the grade he writes, “I've grown a lot as a climber in the last year (since I did my first 9a), and my experience in the 14+ range this year has been empowering, but also very confusing. I did BGC on my 8th try - much faster than my other 9a's, and almost twice as fast as I did Necessary Evil 14c earlier this year. I'm beginning to speculate that 'your number of attempts' is really a flawed standard for judging difficulty. Grades are everywhere, and differ for every climber, at every crag. I think the best we can do is try to keep consistency within areas, remain honest, and also expect to get shut down, and kick ass from time to time. On that note, I'd like to repeat a few other hard routes in the canyon before I feel confident to defend or deny BGC at 14d.”

Regardless, Bad Girls Club has quickly become the Rifle testpiece and a highly coveted line for hard American climbers from around the country.  Siegrist finished up his short stay with a second try ascent of Steve Hong’s Planet X (5.14a/b), but Jonathan wasn’t the only one sending last week in Rifle.  Keller Rinaudo managed to send another Joe Kinder route, Waka Flocka (5.14b) while young Stefan Lavender clipped the chains on Bride of Frankenstein (5.13d).  Rifle is in peak condition this month so keep an eye on DPM for more breaking news.  I’ll be heading there as soon as I finish with all these updates! 

-MW