Mejdi Schalck’s summer sending spree continues with repeat of ES Pontas
- Monday 28th October 2024
French competition climber Mejdi Schalck continues his summer sending spree with a visit to Mallorca for his first taste of DWS and a repeat of Es Pontas (F9a+).
Having been frozen-out from Olympic qualification by teammates Sam Avezou and Paul Jenft, Mejdi Schalck needed an alternative to focus on. Like many competition climbers freed from the rigours of competition Schalck chose rock - and what a summer he’s had!
A trip to Magic Wood in July resulted in a haul of over a dozen Font 8A and above boulders including a flash on Riders on the Storm (Font 8A+), four Font 8B and two Font 8B+ ticks including the classics Power of Now and The Never Ending Story.
In August Schalck hit Squamish. His haul there included the Chris Sharma classic, Dreamcatcher (F9a) after which he scooped yet another haul of hard blocs which comprised 15 Font 8A’s and above. Included were flashes of Summoning (Font 8A+) and The Shelter (Font 8B) as well as repeats of The Reckoning and Deadlift – two Font 8B+’s.
Commenting on Dreamcatcher Schalck said: ‘I’m glad that I was able to send it pretty quickly. After working all the moves, I was able to quickly red point up to the last crux, I rested a little bit and few sessions later I sent it.’
Ending his trip to Squamish it seemed that Schalck had achieved the re-set he was looking for:
‘On this special period I wanted to discover a new place to try to clear my mind. The past few weeks has been honestly hard for me, going to Squamish was one of the best decision I’ve made. I had a really good time climbing here 🙌🔥’
Next up Schalck hit Mallorca. Despite this being his first time trying DWS, Schalck got stuck into yet another Chris Sharma classic, one of the hardest DWS in the world - the famous Es Pontas (F9a+). Whilst working on Es Pontas he was able to snatch quick repeats of Loskot and Two Smoking Barrels and Phlem Loskott and One Smoking Mono – F8a+ and F8b respectively.
Reporting his repeat of Es Pontas on-line Schalck commented on both the jump and the final hard section – both caused him to take repeated falls. Schalck opted for a two-handed approach to the famous jump: ‘I needed a bit more than 10 tries to do the jump with one hand. Few goes later, I tried with two hands, It felt way easier for me and I could do it every time after this !’
Having sent Es Pontas, Schalck summed up his latest success saying:
‘Yesterday I sent Es Pontas, one of the hardest deep water solo in the world.
After falling 6 times on the last hard move of the route in the past 2 sessions I sent it on my second go of the day.
Another dream route ticked on my list, after this one I feel really hyped for more hard outdoors projects in the future and of course for some more deep water 🏝️
Schalck's ascent of Es Pontas came at a similar time to Belgian climber's Hannes Van Duysen's own super fast repeat of the classic. Es Pontas climbs the spectacular natural arch on the south east of Mallorca. Following Chris Sharma's first ascent in 2006, Jernej Kruder made the first repeat in 2016 after which Jan Hojer and Jakob Schubert repeated it in 2018 and 2021 respectively.