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“Massive war WON!!!!! HUGE!!!!!! One of my ultimate-global-nemisis-projects, the legendary @fred_nicole problem Monkey Wedding [8C] which chills in the center of one of Rockland's most popular sectors. Last season I tried the boulder quite a lot, for at least 12 days, but could never seem to improve my highpoint, or do better than one hang the beast, which is only ten moves long. This year I returned partially uncertain of whether or not I could even summit this small peak, my confidence dashed by last years failure. Right off the bench I discovered more intelligent beta, resequencing my old crux, and matched my previous links. Sadly the war continued for another 6 days. I was confused by the conditions, normally cold weather is my jam, but my cursed sweaty fingers never seemed to stop sweating while I sat at basecamp, about two meters from the start of the rig, amidst all types of cold blustery weather, but it was always smarmy and humid somehow. One day, my window presented itself; super hot and a northerly wind, directly from the dry deserts of Africa, I felt something, potentially like an opportunity. I cruised out to Roadside, booted up, warmed on the moves, made a try, fell at the crux, felt great, rested a moment, pulled on, and from that moment on, it was this surreal mind bending experiance. It felt too chill, almost like all the dreams Ive had of ever sending, yet it was real and terrifying, it was my chance to fall off after the crux...but that never happened. I ended up on top, a suprised and happy man, liberated, unleashed, humbled, proud, potentially wiser, and feeling ridicoulous. The moral is, even if you don't believe in yourself, even if you describe a boulder as being built against you, the opposite of your style, outside of your entire box, "impossible" for some reason, if you will. Like you should have done it by now if you were gonna ever do it. You are wrong. You can suceed. You can do anything. Its like the kitten poster from the Lego Movie...which I forget exact wording to. Buzzin.”

by Natalie Berry - UKC 06/Jun/2016
Foto: © Ella Russell

Alex Barrows has climbed his first 8C, ticking "The Wheel of Life" at Hollow Mountain Area bouldering in the Grampians, Australia. The problem is world-famous for its length of ~70 moves and was first climbed by Dai Koyamada in 2004 and originally graded 8C+.

The Wheel links Extreme Cool (7B+) into Sleepy Hollow (8A) into Cave Man (7C) into Dead Can't Dance (8A). 

Describing the problem, Alex told UKC:

"It's ~70 moves all told, so a long way removed from normal bouldering, but not quite route climbing either. It's long enough to make Pilgrimage at Parisella's look almost like a boulder problem though!"

Last April, Alex climbed his first 9a - Era Vella - at Margalef in Spain. As a climber with preferences for long, endurance-heavy routes with knee-bars, how did he think Era Vella compared to Wheel of Life?

"In terms of grade I think the concensus nowadays is 9a as a route grade, or 8B+ as a boulder grade; a bit harder if you don't use kneepads, but I sure as hell did! I thought it was probably lower end 9a, not that I'm particularly qualified to give an opinion compared to some of the previous ascentionists. The climbing is probably harder than that on Era Vella, but then it's a million times easier to work so it should be physically harder to earn a similar grade for the overall challenge. Anyway, it's not really about the grade with this thing, it's about it being The Wheel of Life and about it being awesome fun!"

Writing in his blog, Alex summed up his achievement as follows:

"The deep down contentment of doing a problem which I'd heard of for a decade but never dreamed I could ever climb until the last few years, and never expected to climb until the last few days, seems likely to stay around a little while... at least until I find the next project anyway!"

REEL ROCK Film Tour

Big news! 14 year old Ashima Shiraishi has just become the first female and the youngest person ever to climb V15, with the second ascent of Dai Koyamada's spectacular 25 move roof problem, Horizon, in Hiei, Japan.

After working the problem in December, Ashima returned during her spring break from school, and sent it today on her third day on. Our crew was there to capture her historic achievement for this fall's #REELROCK11 Film Tour.

Photo: by Brett Lowell.