The tale of Chaos (8A?)

One of Redhill's oldest proposed 8A's, "Chaos", has seen a lot of attention in the past few months, with several climbers bagging the line for their 1st of the grade. Most recent was Alan Hills, who has agreed with common opinion that the problem should perhaps be downgraded? As reported before "the original concept of the problem involved a long move off a sloper rail to poor sloping crimps, before slapping up to slopers on the lip and topping out. "Chaos" remained a project for several years, repelling attempts from a number of capable climbers, until Emile Esterhuizen thought of a slightly easier sequence by moving further to the right to a poor sidepull, and then moving back left into bad underclings above the sloper rail and skipping the crimps altogether. Although the line was complete, many Redhill locals felt that the true line was yet to be climbed. In 2007, Marijus Šmigelskis finally made the first ascent of the originally intended line bumping the grade up from 7C to 8A".

Now however, it seems that the problem may be suffering (or benefiting?) from a strange phenomenon that is common for sloper climbs at Redhill. Fresh rock in the area seems to have a strange form of micro lichen that grows between the texture of the holds. As people start climbing on the holds, adding chalk and brushing them, the lichen dies off and over the years, the friction improves dramatically. We've seen classic examples of this on "Rolling Stones", which went from 7B+ to 7A+ and "Four Singers".

Check out Clinton Martinengo making light work of "Chaos" this past summer, climbing it on his first redpoint go after flashing the crux section in isolation: