For 35 Years, The World’s Best Climbers Couldn’t Send This Route. A Barefoot Teenager Just Did.

Until last month, Le Bombé Bleu was one of the world’s hardest open projects. But when it was finally sent on February 11, some 35 years after it was bolted, the deed wasn’t done by a veteran climber with cutting-edge gear, but by a 17-year-old kid, climbing barefoot.

Le Bombé Bleu (“The Blue Bulge”), located at the French crag Buoux, was one of the most infamous unclimbed sport routes in the world. Frenchman Marc Le Menestrel, a pioneering climber who made early ascents at 8c+ and 8B (5.14c and V13) in the 1980s and ’90s, bolted the 40-foot route in 1991, originally dubbing it Chantier.

He said he bolted it both because he recognized it as a king line that he wanted to try, but also because, at the time, some climbers at Buoux were chipping artificial holds into their new routes. “One of my motivations to bolt it was to preserve it for future generations, being afraid that someone stupid would chip a hold in this magnificent line,” he told me.

But after a few attempts on the line—a chain of 16 powerful moves between small, shallow pockets, ascending a bulge of blue-gray limestone—Le Menestrel realized he was outclassed. “I knew there was no way I could do it,” he said.

For decades, the route held firm against attempts from generations of the world’s finest climbers: Ben Moon, Stefan Glowacz, Fred Rouhling, Chris Sharma, Iker Pou, Alexander Megos, Charles Albert, and Nicolas Pelorson, to name a few.

The French teen who finally clipped its chains last month, Erwan Legrand—the son of famed French climber Francois Legrand—held off on publishing his send until March 5. He was initially reluctant to propose a grade, but on Sunday, March 15, he wrote on Instagram that he reckons it’s 9b (5.15b), making it the hardest roped route ever climbed without shoes.

35 years of defeat

I spoke with Le Menestrel and several other veteran climbers who gave Le Bombé a shot to learn what makes the route so special. Most painted a picture of a line that felt, frankly, beyond the realm of possibility.

If anyone had a shot at the send after Le Menestrel threw in the towel, it was Ben Moon. The Brit was also involved in pioneering routes at Buoux, and was one of the world’s strongest climbers. The year before, he had made the hardest redpoint in the world (5.14c, Hubble). But Moon told me that when he went up against Le Bombé, he quickly realized the route was beyond his capabilities.

“I concluded, really, that it was just too hard for me,” Moon said. “I don’t even really remember doing any of the moves on it, certainly not on the lower section.”

After a few failed attempts, Moon took tinfoil molds of the route’s pockets, measured the distances between them, and then tried to replicate the route back in England, but this didn’t make it any easier. Whether the faux-route was inaccurate or the moves were just that brutal is difficult to say, Moon said. “The replica ended up being just ridiculously hard,” he admitted. “I couldn’t do any of the moves.”

Charles Albert, the world’s most accomplished barefoot climber, also tried Le Bombé, in 2021, and managed the moves in isolation, but couldn’t link them. He said the climbing on the route appeared similar to Action Directe—the world’s first 5.14d and a similarly short, overhung sport route consisting of big moves between pockets—but harder.

Iker Pou, a pocket enthusiast who spent three days on the route in 2012, made the same comparison to Action Directe. Pou called Le Bombé, “without a doubt, one of the best routes I’ve ever seen or tried. Very impressive and explosive, with perfect moves.”

Le Menestrel, who never put in a serious effort on Le Bombé after his early attempts, but belayed friend Chris Sharma on the route and also watched Albert work it, said in his view, success on the route relies on being able to withstand finger pain and working around difficult redpoint conditions; Le Bombé’s protrusion on the southwest-facing wall takes the full brunt of the afternoon sun, and avoiding this heat is crucial.

Alexander Megos first tried Le Bombé in February of 2025, the same week he flashed Moon’s 1989 route Agincourt (5.14b), also at Buoux. He gave the route four or five burns over two days, but said the heavy sun and lack of a plan stymied his efforts. “Visually, it looks absolutely incredible,” Megos said, “but it was very sunny, and hard to work. I didn’t really give my fingers and skin enough time to get acquainted with the pockets.” He paused. “It was quite a painful experience.”

Megos said the route’s crux move, near the start, requires a brutal combination of precision and power. “It’s a very violent jump,” he said. “You have a left hand that’s very poor, either a mono or two fingers stacked, like Erwan did. Your right hand is quite far down, and the wall is super steep, at least 60 degrees. You release your right hand and fully dyno into a two-finger pocket that you can’t see. There is no room for error. If you don’t hit the pocket precisely, you have no chance.”

The barefoot advantage?

Barefoot climbing’s visibility has grown of late, largely thanks to Albert, who has now climbed and proposed multiple top-end boulders sans-footwear, including two V17s: No Kpote Only, in 2019, and L’Hombre du Voyageur, in 2023. Both were downgraded, but admittedly by climbers with rubber on their feet.

One of the most interesting things about Le Bombé is that unlike Albert’s V17 proposals, this route actually appears to be easier without shoes, although a lot more painful, because the climber’s big toe can hook into pockets too small for a shoe.

Le Menestrel noted that Legrand’s barefoot strategy—which Pelorson also used to get painfully close to a send—was clearly the correct one. “Some of the footholds must be used barefoot,” he said. “You simply cannot use them with shoes.” Either you wear one shoe, keeping one foot barefoot specifically for those toe moves, or you go entirely shoeless, like Legrand.

Pou agreed. “It seems the crux moves are a bit easier barefoot, because you put your big toe in the pockets and get closer to the wall than with climbing shoes,” he told me. “But I imagine it must be pretty painful.”

Megos said that for him, climbing without shoes was the true crux of the route, not the dyno near the start. “To be honest, climbing barefoot, I have zero experience,” he said, “and for me, it felt absolutely wrong. I literally felt like my big toe was just bending open, as if I was a beginner climber trying to hold a crimp one-handed. It did not feel comfortable at all to climb without shoes.”

Megos decided his best shot was to try the route with shoes, but as a result, felt unable to replicate the beta used by Albert, Pelorson, and other shoeless climbers. “For me, the crux was that I could not climb barefoot.”

In that sense, Legrand’s ascent of Le Bombé seems to serve two purposes. It’s both a high watermark for the growing trend of climbing routes without shoes—a testament that rubber isn’t always an advantage—and a passing of the torch from one generation to the next (albeit with a few generations in between). “Le Bombé Bleu was always thought of as the ‘last great problem,’” Moon said. “It’s great that Francois’s son has now done it.”

Le Menestrel agreed. “I bolted this route, really, in order to preserve it for future generations,” he said. “And it worked perfectly.”

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