Slovenian climbing legend returns for her toughest ascent yet

After a nine-month break from competition, Slovenia's two-time Olympic champion Janja Garnbret will launch into the 35-metre limestone of Bibliographie on the south face of Mt. Céüse in France in mid-June hoping to become the first woman ever to master the 9b+ route, one of only a handful climbs on Earth at that grade.

Graded just shy of the highest possible grade of 9c and pitched in 2009, the limestone route was first climbed eleven years later, but never by a woman, CE Report quotes The Slovenia Times.

Garnbret, who also holds a number of world championship titles, attempted to climb last year but failed. She told the Slovenian Press Agency that this year the Bibliographie is her top priority.

"Following last year's season, I felt I needed to take a step back, take a break from competitions, mentally and physically. It did me good."

This has allowed her to climb more in natural rock. "I'd been neglecting natural rock and I'm happy that I've been able to spend more time there now," said Ganbret, adding that natural rock required a lot more patience because there are many factors that are out of the climber's control.

This is also the case for Bibliographie.

"It's one of the hardest routes in the world." The climbing season is limited to summer, she said. "Its 2,000 metres up a mountain and it's cold for a long time. And even once it does get warm it also gets cold very quickly."

She does not want to think about failing again. But if she does, she is likely to return and try once again immediately after the Innsbruck climbing classics at the end of June. "I don't want to postpone it by another year."

She has been training for Bibliographie in Switzerland, Austria and Italy, as well as in Osp and Mišja Peč in Slovenia.