On a two-week trip to Andalusia, Ondra was looking for an ascent of Chilam Balam. After making quick work of the 82m monster, he turned his focus to La Planta de Shiva, a project from the local climbers that had gone without an ascent for over five years.

The project immediately appealed to Ondra and his natural climbing style, with ‘first ascent obsession’ overcoming him after he began working the line. 

Over the course of seven days, Ondra set to work on the route, deciphering the beta, and discovering the best holds hidden within the sea of sandstone. He even reinforced some holds with sika to preserve the line. After fourteen attempts on the route, Ondra eventually clipped the chain and claimed the first ascent on 22nd April 2011.

He awarded the route the grade of 9b, and stated that it was one of the hardest ascents he had done at the time. 

During the IFSC World Cup winter break, it has become a tradition for Jakob Schubert to take a trip to Spain and bag ascents of some notoriously difficult lines. In the winter of 2015/2016, Schubert set his sights on the second ascent of La Planta de Shiva. 

From the outset, the route proved to be a challenge for Schubert, both physically and mentally. The sheer size of the line proved a daunting challenge, with the route consisting of many sections of endurance climbing.

After taking a few days off to work on some other projects, Schubert came back rejuvenated and better prepared to tackle Ondra’s testpiece. After an impressive four extra days of effort, Schubert made the second ascent of La Planta de Shiva. Upon completion, he claimed that the route was one of his hardest redpoints to date and shared his excitement in an Instagram post:

“After the biggest fight of my life, I managed to clip the anchor of this amazing line in Villanueva del Rosario. 2nd Ascent after Adam Ondra. Super happy and proud to have sent this one, my hardest route so far. Time for fiesta!”

By claiming the ascent of La Planta de Shiva, Schubert joined Adam Ondra, Chris Sharma and Dani Andrada to become the 4th person in history to climb two 9b’s.

Before Schubert claimed the second ascent fellow Austrian and accomplished comp climber, Angela Eiter, was already hunting for an ascent of La Planta de Shiva. On the back of her ascent of Hades 9a in late 2014, Eiter was looking for her next challenge, and in 2015, she has set her sights on Andalusia and an ascent of La Planta de Shiva.

The battle to clip the chains, and in the process become the first women to ever climb 9b, became a two-year-long challenge.

Even from the outset, Eiter was skeptical of her chances of completing the route. As she admitted herself, the route was at the limit of her climbing ability and a series of unfortunate injuries made the chances of a quick ascent near impossible. Despite being skeptical of her ability to climb La Planta de Shiva, Eiter was determined to give it her best shape.

She made multiple trips to Andalusia over the course of two years and even re-created the route in her gym in Imst to dial in the moves and train at the same intensity. On her last trip in October 2017, and after three weeks of effort, she finally made the third ascent of La Planta de Shiva.

In doing so Angela made history as the first woman to ever climb a 9b. As of 2021, she is only one of three women to achieve this grade, joined by Laura Rogora with her ascent of Ali hulk sit in July 2020 and Julia Chanourdie on Eagle-4 in November 2020.

“It is definitely not one of my easiest routes, but before I sent it was certainly one of the best times I had on a climb!” Angela stated.

On her Instagram page, she shared her joy with climbing La Planta de Shiva:

“Today I sent La Plantas de Shiva 9b in Villanueva del Rosario, Spain. It was one of my biggest dreams to climb this route and it really means a lot to me! La Plantas is definitely not an easy way but I’m so happy that I could do it!”