The 25-year-old Austrian worked Dave MacLeod's famous line on Dumbarton Rock over two trips this year and topped out on 7 October. That makes two repeats of Rhapsody in less than a week.

When Dave MacLeod finished Rhapsody in April 2006, he gave it E11 7a, a grade nobody had used before. The line follows the crack of Requiem on Dumbarton Rock near Glasgow and then keeps going up the blank headwall to the very top of the crag. On 7 October 2026 Austria's Nemuel Feurle made the eleventh recorded ascent, which is also his hardest trad route so far.

Feurle put in 15 days on the route, split between a trip in spring and another this autumn. He fell at the final crux again and again, and more than once thought it might simply be too hard for him. He spent Tuesday afternoon peeling off the last two holds, a frustrating end to the day that left him wondering if he was just wasting his time. But that failure actually clicked something into place; he realized he wasn't failing because of the grade, but because he was rushing the sequence. He went back the next day and, to his own surprise, was standing on top after his third go of the day.

What makes Rhapsody so serious is that you climb the whole hard section without placing a single piece of gear. The last protection is a small nut, which Feurle calls solid and reliable. Above it lie around 25 moves and about eight metres to the top. Peel off up there and you're in for a 20 to 25 metre ride. His tip is to use the time in the air to get your foot out from behind the rope. Feurle didn't have much to say about the physical struggle afterward, just noting that by the time he reached the headwall, the climbing was as much about keeping his head together as it was about the moves.

Sonnie Trotter and Steve McClure were the first to repeat the route, both in 2008. James Pearson followed in 2014, then Jacopo Larcher, Gérôme Pouvreau, Mat Wright and Billy Ridal. Buster Martin made the ninth ascent on 1 October. In 2018, aged 16, he repeated Beat Kammerlander's Prinzip Hoffnung, and lately he has mostly been on hard multipitches in the Rätikon and on El Capitan.

Sources: PlanetMountain, 8a.nu, Gripped, Climbing History

Cover: the North West Face of Dumbarton Rock. Rhapsody follows the tallest crack in the centre. Photo: Mike Bean, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.