Realization (climb)


Biographie, or Realization, is a sport climbing route on a crag on the southern face of the Montagne de Céüse near Gap and Céüse, France.
The route was first successfully climbed in July 2001 by Chris Sharma, who did not grade the climb. It is generally considered to be. Among the routes that have been repeated by anyone else except the first ascensionist, Biographie is the first ascent to be recognized with a 9a+ rating making it the most difficult at that time. However, in 1996 Fred Rouhling proposed even harder grade for his unrepeated climb Akira. Since 2001 there have been ascents of other routes which are recognized and rated to be more difficult.

Name dispute

The name of the route was disputed: routes in France are named by the person who first bolted the route, while in the U.S. they are typically named by the first person to successfully climb the route. In 1989, Jean-Christophe Lafaille bolted the whole pitch and named it Biographie. In 1996, Arnaud Petit added an anchor in the middle of the route, and did the first ascent of the first half in that year. Around 2007 the anchor chains marking the end of the route which Arnaud Petit climbed were removed from the wall. In July 2001 Sharma became the first person to climb the full route and gave it the name "Realization", following the American way. Since then, Sharma has said that "most of the time I actually call the route Biographie".

Subsequent ascents

Biographie has been repeated by: