In this trip report I'll focus mainly on a three week period, starting sometime in the middle of April when I first walked up to Megatron, and ending early in May when I walked away from No One Mourns The Wicked. 

Like most of my proudest moments, very little planning (in its traditional sense) was required. This seems to be a way of allowing things to unfold naturally, and with an order beyond what I or any human could impose. Leading up to this three week period, my training felt more based on faith than anything else. My decisions within training began to feel like necessity instead of choice. It was as if I'd seen the future and only had to live it out - so, like a pale, lanky Michaelangelo "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."

It was only a few weeks before Quinn and I drove down to Colorado that I really set my mind on Megatron. I remember watching footage of when Shawn first did it, back in '22, and how strange it was that even from my couch in Leeds I felt the darkness and gravity of that climb. 

By the beginning of 2025, thoughts of one day trying Megatron had existed in my periphery for long enough that even as my orbit spiraled ever closer to El Dorado canyon I struggled to look such thoughts in the eye. It was not in spite of this, but in revelation of how intimidated I felt, that I pushed for a month in Colorado. Although I'd only just realised what it was that I was carving, I'd been chipping away with vague intention for some time. 

This brings us to my first day in El Dorado State Park, filled to the brim with boundless spiritual naivety, coffee, and coconut water. It was a sunny day, typical for Colorado, and I was just beginning to understand how miserable the entire British population was. It's so easy to forget that we're inseparable from our environments, but here, as Quinn and I searched for the patch of trees that shelters Megatron from the heat, the sights and sounds of the canyon bubbled into peace.

Perhaps my favourite part of trying a climb is getting to touch the holds for the first time. It is in this moment that the dream possesses you, swooping from mind to body and out into the world. Megatron starts on a decent hold which leads into a very tricky sequence to get established for the crux. The holds here are small and sharp. Each edge calls for some kind of contortion if you hope to move past it. The feet are hard to see and relatively flat, more like contours than the crystals or edges you pull on. 

The crux is a controlled trust fall between two poor holds, one small and aggressively turned and the other deep but perfectly flat. The control on this blind, backwards fall comes from the right heel which must be placed on a thin edge just below your hand. After sticking this move, you shuffle your hands and feet around, arriving a few hard moves later at the start of "Tron" - the V14 stand start first established by D. Woods. 

To get here from the floor is likely around V15/16, and on my first day of trying I barely did a single move. The start felt incredibly bunched so I searched around for options - taking my knee pad on and off in an almost occult looking fever. I tried everything under the sun to avoid holding those holds. I was a bit demoralised after my fruitless search for knee bars, so decided it was time to tackle Tron.

It's important to note here that the landing beneath Megatron consists of two levels, meaning that a mistake on the upper moves is not just heartbreaking, but also potentially leg breaking. I tentatively sussed this section, knocking many times on the hollow flake that takes you to the lip. I quickly settled on Daniel's original beta through the meat of the boulder, avoiding Shawn's high left heel in favour of three huge right-hand moves. From here I could barely release my left hand from under the roof without spiraling backwards, but after a few more promising attempts at this move I started trying from the bottom, and - not long after - fought my way, tooth and nail, up Tron. We stashed our pads as the sun began to set and hurried back towards the van. 

Noah Wheeler joined me for my second session. Though we'd never met before, a shared love for music had been established over Instagram, and that bond was strengthened by our mutual disappointment in BCNR's newest album. I was grateful to be figuring out the bunchy lower moves with someone closer in height to me than Shawn or Drew. 

It quickly became clear that we wouldn't be using the original beta, and not long after realising this we figured out a way to bypass one of the harder intro moves. From here, Shawn used high feet to take a small, flat undercut by his face, a hold from which you have to build your feet even higher before slapping backwards to the slot. I was struggling hard with this undercut, but everything changed when I watched Noah establish on much lower feet and intuitively lean backwards into the undercut, taking it first with his palm to slow momentum and only then adjusting to take it in full crimp. Think of Neo dodging bullets in The Matrix, because I swear that's what I saw when he first did this. It's tricks like this that I live for, and in only a few seconds I knew the game was on.

Session three confirmed this promise, and from here on out I went to the boulder each day with an openness to doing it. Summer was coming, but I'd been blessed by not knowing better temps. I began to understand the intro moves better and better, figuring out the minutiae of each hold and body position. A fascinating lesson that I learnt in this process is how to climb into the start position of the next move instead of treating each move as discrete. Through this idea my climbing became a lot softer. Energy was conserved, and momentum maintained. 

I inched closer to sticking the crux in isolation, but still struggled to attempt it with the genuine intention of staying on the wall. A few quiet moments later I pulled on to do the move, and was met with tension instead of foam. "Mank hour" was upon us, so I quickly repeated that move and began to summon energy for a hail mary attempt. My climbing was far from perfect, but I arrived at the crux with the presence of mind to give it an optimistic effort, and, to my surprise, silence greeted me on the other side. I fought my way through the awkward foot walk, but gassed out on the first few holds of Tron. I was beaten up and in need of rest, so I didn't mind when the rain came down. 

I don't remember much of session four, but I do remember warming up with the complete intention of doing the boulder. On each day of trying my routine was quite similar: wake up in the van, drive to our closest coffee shop (I'd often stay in bed for this), order pastries and a black coffee, drive to the gym, headphones on, fingerboard, put the tension board to 65 degrees, finish my coffee, then head to Eldo.

I spread out the pads with Quinn's help and quickly repeated some of the upper moves. It didn't take long to notice the change in conditions from the rainfall, especially on that flat crux hold which seemed to oscillate between sticky and slick each time I felt it. I knew that all the pieces were there and it was time to start putting them together. I must've had about four or five good attempts from the ground, each of which inched further than the last before I was sent tumbling off the platform, denied by the kind of fatigue you can't scream your way through.

Heavy snow fell over the next two days. Nice snow, not the kind I'm used to. Thanks to Quinn's pragmatic mind we headed into the canyon with ropes and brooms to sweep the top out. The talus lay beneath a crisp white blanket so the hike was slow. Fangs of ice glistened in the distance, arranged neatly along the mouth of the cave. Wet streaks meandered down through islands of chalk, or dripped melodically from the ends of icicles onto the solid earth below. 

It took a while to sweep the thick snowy layer off of the top, and as we left it still wasn't obvious when it would be dry again. I would have gone back just a few days later if Brooke hadn't caught me in my warm up and (gently) convinced me that I was being impatient, and that patience was something you could actually learn to enjoy. I listened to her, and soon enough I was back doing that same warm up, only this time rested, and although snow still lay in patches, Megatron was perfectly dry. 

I started trying from the bottom as soon as we'd set the pads up. On my first go I reached a new high point, and fifteen minutes later I surpassed this by one more hold. I rested again, waiting for the spark that tells me I'm ready. I pulled on when it came and climbed perfectly through the crux, again falling short on the upper sequence. My fourth go was much the same. 

My rests became far less about the body, sometimes only being two or three minutes after my previous attempt. By my ninth pull on of the day, I'd climbed the physical equivalent of eight V16 boulders one after another, including one violent dry fire from a place I'd considered the boulder to be "over". 

Again, I sat out on the talus waiting for inspiration. I fanned my arms from a kneeling position at the back of the cave. I removed my headphones and disappeared from thought. Part of me came back as I reached that same position where I thought the climb was "over", a position I now held with three exhausted fingers. A few screams followed to fill my mind with noise instead of fear. This took me to the lip, where the weight of mind descended on me like lead.

I was just starting to worry about my word count, but then I remembered NOMTW shouldn't take up too much space… 

It's such a strange event to look back on. It was very last minute when we decided to go, but we made the two hour drive one evening, parked up by the side of the road and fell asleep. The next morning we met Noah at the parking and chaotically packed our bags for the hike. An hour later, and to my surprise, we stepped out of the dusty open air into a tunnel of green, sheltered on one side by a perfect overhanging feature whose flat face had been decorated neatly with a spray of rails. I immediately went to touch the holds, and was quite horrified by how bad they felt. 

As I began to warm up, this started to make sense. This was not the basic power boulder I thought it was. Yes, the sequence was basic, but the body positions required to move through this basic sequence were incredibly sensitive. 

My flash attempt at Defying Gravity (the V15 stand start) was promising, but not close. My next few goes were spent experimenting with lower feet before I returned to the high right heel beta. I figured out the finger and wrist position on the small left edge and how to squeeze through my left hamstring to keep tension in the heel. I sussed out the upper moves (opting for a hard match on the tiny right hand crimp to make the final dyno feel somewhat more secure). Soon after, I stuck that famous first move and took it to the top. I was already thrilled with having climbed my second V15 ever when Quinn met me on the other side of the boulder with my shoes and a big congratulatory smile, and although no one else was around, I still whispered in irony when I said "I think I can do the sit today".

I ate a quick lunch as Noah walked me through the details of the lower moves. We began to work the sequence that delivers you to the start of Defying Gravity - involving a sloping right hand pinch and very off balance feet. I couldn't figure out how to stop myself spinning off, let alone take the left hand with enough precision to even attempt the jump. I decided my best bet was to give goes from the ground as I've often found that a "send go" headspace inspires intention and precision that's hard to otherwise achieve. 

Sure enough, that's exactly what happened. I flowed with constant conservation into and beyond that move, limited only by surprise as I set up for the jump. I made the motion of doing the move, but the intention of actually doing it had been subsumed by other thoughts, and soon enough I was weightless and bracing for impact.

I had been wrestling with my hatred for taking "proper rest" for a while. What I hated most was placing faith in a science I had no feeling for. It was the idea of "should" that I rejected. My new approach was in becoming as intimately in touch with the cells of my body as I felt I'd become with the thoughts in my mind. Through this, I relied on interoception to tell me when I was actually, truly ready, and when that time came I made my way over to the start hold.

I gambled on confidence, understanding that climbing as if I possessed the knowledge and feedback of many sessions was my only shot at overcoming the absence of exactly this. This time, my mind did not falter as I set myself up to jump. Instead, the entire depth of my awareness was filled with the feedback of my left hand's fingertips, and the balanced extension of my legs.

I held the swing, and immediately felt that weight of mind descend on me. My hands were completely numb with adrenaline. It felt like I was sinking fast through water. I set myself up for the final hard move and, by some miracle, held the swing on hands I couldn't feel. It was a slow, shaky top out (guided by Noah from the ground), but eventually I was on solid ground with a head that felt like air.

I remember thinking "I don't know who I am, and it feels incredible".