Dutch climber Nigel Armino has climbed Action Directe (9a) at the Waldkopf in the northern Frankenjura. Three and a half years after he ruptured a pulley on the route, he came back with new beta and a replica he had built and trained on at home.

Action Directe hardly needs an introduction. Milan Sykora bolted the line in the 1980s, and Wolfgang Güllich added the direct start and made the first ascent on 14 September 1991. It is widely seen as the world's first 9a, although many considered it 8c+/9a in its early years. Güllich even invented the campus board to train for it. According to 8a.nu the route has now seen around 35 ascents. Last year Josef Šindel did it at just 17, as we reported.

Armino's history with the route goes back to 25 April 2023, when he ruptured a pulley on the right-hand pocket. That same pocket is the hold he later switched to a half crimp. He put a lot of time into the project in summer 2025 and came back this autumn fully focused. The week before the send he was at the crag with his girlfriend Lynn van der Meer, and he spent the decisive week there with his friend Jochem. Back home he had built a replica of the route at his gym, the National Climbing Center in Nieuwegein, and trained on it there. He clipped the chains in late October, and 8a.nu ran his interview on 25 October.

He used the newer beta, going from the sidepull to the mono and skipping the clipping mono halfway up. It is close to the sequence of Vojtěch Trojan, who repeated the route in 2023, except that Armino uses a toehook instead of jumping to the sidepull. Near the top he did the left-hand triple bump known from Stefano Ghisolfi, and as his Instagram video shows, he skipped the fourth clip. Güllich's original sequence had 16 moves, while most repeaters now climb an easier version with 11 to 13.

"Standing on top of Action Directe after all the time and effort I've put into it felt pretty surreal," he told 8a.nu. He also said he was "super proud to be the first Dutchman to send it!" Action Directe is not his first 9a. That was Coup d'état (9a/8c+) in Fléron, Belgium, and in 2024 he climbed Working Class (8c+) in the Frankenjura. Now he is off to Leonidio in Greece for two weeks with his girlfriend. Next season he wants to return to the Frankenjura for more 9a and 9a+ routes.

Sources: 8a.nu, 8a.nu (Coup d'état), NKBV, Gripped, PlanetGrimpe

Cover: Alex Megos on Action Directe in 2014. The photo shows Megos, not Nigel Armino. Photo: Jorgos Megos, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.