UKC

Shawn Raboutou has belatedly announced an ascent of Alphane in Chironico last year and proposed the grade of 9A. The line is to the left of Alphane Moon 8A.

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In reply to UKC News:

Congrats to Shawn, he's been on fire lately.

But a slight note/question about the other 9A's.

AFAIK Seudan Soul has been repeated and also opinions of 8C+ seem to be around (IIRC).

Return to Sleepwalker and Burden of Dreams are still unrepeated (but 'cause they haven't been tried)... Albeit naturally for a non local to tick these, will be extremely hard (or they will need a lot of time... especially for Burden, for which the conditions days aren't that many and not according calendar).

Yu, repeated it is... By at least on other person... and as even the title impleys 8C+ is also thrown in the mix. https://www.8a.nu/news/soudain-seul-9a-8c+-by-camille-coudert-lu8pr

In reply to HeMa:

Opinions from repeaters so far are 9A, 8C+ and soft 9A. A more generous interpretation would be the only confirmed 9A!

Worth noting that Shawn is also rumoured to have climbed a line known as the Megatron project. Apparently the grade maths is 8C in to 8B+ which would put it in the 8C+/9A ball park.

https://climbing-history.org/climb/849/soudain-seul

https://climbing-history.org/climb/1147/megatron-project

In reply to UKC News:

I think you mean discreetly (without attracting attention) rather than discretely (separately or individually).

In reply to HeMa:

Not sure about that.  At a minimum Jakob Schubert has tried Return of the Sleepwalker and Sleepwalker has had a few repeats so I'm not sure it's that hard to access.  Burden I guess is more difficult location and conditions wise but Aidan Roberts went over to try it and found it very hard. 

In reply to Ian Patterson:

I know Schubert tried it. But AFAIK he only had a brief set of time (short trip or something). Certainly possible, but more about having the time and willing to put the effort in.

> Burden I guess is more difficult location and conditions wise but Aidan Roberts went over to try it and found it very hard. 

Conditions are the problem... location not, it's about 5m from where you park your car... in fact, I'm sure that you can chuck your pads from the booth directly under the problem... .

In reply to remus:

Well... I would say that "confirmed" it ain't... certainly as the 8C+ is there (and wasn't that the only ascent sans book-knee padding?). But in the sense you are also correct, that it is currently the only repeat hard boulder problem (which one other person than the FA has given the 9A suggestion).

That being said, both RtS and BoD have been tried by some pretty hard climbers, and have resisted their efforts, so either all that have tried them after the FA have had bad connies (not true, when Team Japan was here in Funland pre-covid), bad luck... or that they really are hard (and thus highly likely worthy of the grade proposed).

In reply to HeMa:

"Funland pre-covid"

Seems about right!

In reply to HeMa:

Hi another armchair critic here! from a video i saw, Jakob Shubert tried it and was totally shut down, think this came as quite a reality shock.

has he not climbed multiple 8c's quickly

In reply to UKC News:

A recent Wedge video showed Aidan trying a replica of Burden using 3d printed holds so wouldn't be surprised if that gets repeated in the next year or two.

In reply to Phil_Brock:

I wish the weather gods will allow for prime connies when he's on it!

In reply to HeMa:

All the best boulderers of the time tried Burden, along with Nalle, he publicised this. 
 

https://hardclimbs.info/climbs/burden-of-dreams/

Col. 

In reply to Col Kingshott:

I know, to be fair, Webb and Woods and Graham were here for a Sisu comp, so ~a week of or so. And spent a few days with Nalle on the project. Sure enough, it was hard, but conditions weren't optimal (they were good) and they had limited time to put on it.

Afterwards others have also came an tried it. Namely the two Japanese beasts (whose names I can't remember), I recall they actually have done two trip now... and made a proper cast replica of the holds. Fairly certain Russian Beast Vadim Timonov has played around with it on his many trips in and through Finland (I recall seeing that in his IG feed)... And it is quite likely Niccola Ceria has also atleast given a look at the problem also.

So as said, it is the one hard boulder problem, that has been tried by some of the best boulderers (some quickly, some with proper effort with an aim to get the 2nd ascent)... But it has resisted. That being said, as Nalle says in the the documentary about the FA (I recall it's freely available in Youtube these days), it is fairly condition dependent and you only have a few weeks of good conditions for it each year... Not an easy one for non locals (or close to locals).

Seudain Soul is obviously less condition dependent (or rather, the weather on 'Bleau is better so there are more suitable weather days per year). Plus it's in the Mecca of bouldering, so it will get a lot of attention. Which is why it has been already repeated two times after the FA... in fact, in a quite fast pace.

Return of the Sleepwalker, is certainly hard... as in the stand is hard. The stand has had quite a few repeats, but pretty much all have put quite a bit of effort in getting it (IIRC it was originally Nalle's project that he worked from time to time, later Webb and Woods joined and one of them napped the FA...  I recall Nalle got the 3rd ascent some weeks later). To my knowledge no one has put any proper effort on Return to Sleepwalker, as if the stand is hard for them... they have no change of doing after the start. I recall Woods mentioning it in the video, that he would climb the stand a few times each session (so while really hard, obviously didn't feel that hard for him at the time).

So yeah, all these three problems are hard and based on the effort that is put to them at least Return to Sleepwalker and Burden are really hard. Seudain Soul is hard, but repeated a few times already and in a short timespan. Would be good to see someone like Woods have a go at it and gives his opinion... IIRC he has the most 8C+ FAs (and possible 8Cs) of any other person on the planet.

In reply to HeMa:

Largely agree with what you're saying, but I think the speed of the repeats on Soudain is a little misleading. As I understand it all three ascentionists were working the problem at the same time so there's a large overlap. By the numbers, Simon was on it for ~25 days, Nico a little longer and Camille "70-100 sessions". I think it's also worth bearing in mind that Jimmy Webb has put significant time in to Soudain and has not done it yet, despite having climbed a lot in the 8C to 8C+ range.

In reply to remus:

Well... 

Nalle, Woods and Webb were all working on Sleepwalker at the same time (Nalle started earlier, as it was his project). And afaik it was certainly not a few sessions and in the bag. I don't know exactly how long they worked on the stand, but it certainly was for a while (~a few weeks). And to get the assis, Woods added a month to it (or was it longer?).

Shooting from the hip, FA of Sleepwalker took as long as FA of Seudain. And repeats are also in the same ball park. And this is for the stand. Then it took considerably more for the assis (~100 session on top of what it took for the stand IIRC).

Naturally weather, location and availability of good conditions play a role in this. 'Bleau offering just that, Red Rocks about the same for conditions and weather (AFAIK, but perhaps not for location). Lappnor, well location is easy (40mins from aiport and a few seconds from the car), but reliable weather and good conditions are not the strong suit.

As for Jimmy not doing it, when was he trying it (before or after his surgery that he is recovering from), pre covid I assume so also pre surgery. But indeed, Jimmy has a good track record of climbing hard stuff, and quickly at that.

So it remains to be seen.

As I wrote already, based on the effort alone RtoS will stay at 9A when it is repeated (prolly will become one the most climbed 9As I think). Seudain Soul might be a (soft) 9A, or really hard 8C+... and it'll be the most climbed of these three problems. I guess Burden will take a long while for it to get repeats (Timonov or the Japanese lads being the top contenders). As for Swiss hard ones, I'm sure they will get attention as well, and time will tell where they settle at.

IMHO for these hard problems to get consolidated, a few things need to happen. Firstly they need to get repeated with people having a good basis for the grade estimate (ie. track record) and grades being consistent. Ideally they would be repeated by a person that has climbed another 9A-contender... My gut feeling is that Woods would be the first to do so, but certainly Nalle can step on that train as well, and forget about developpin' new areas and boulders, building Sauna vans, an occasional forays into Dawn wall.  Shawn and Giuliani might also step up on the podium for that matter. For Shawn, Sleepwalker and RtoS is an obvious target back home (with good conditions coming in the winter?). And Giualiani has all the Swiss stuff at his backyard, plus 'Bleau ain't that far either.

In reply to Spanish Jack:

If Aidan is flexible in his schedule, getting good conditions isn't that hard. Flights to Helsinki (prolly one layoff), rental car from the airport and casual 40min drive to the foot of the boulder (it's like 4m from the road...). So with flexible schedule and some spare dough, getting to the base means that you pretty much board the plane (buy the ticket) this afternoon and you could be crankin' on it the same evening.

In reply to UKC News:

Surely the most interesting thing about this story is that there was a huge delay in reporting a cutting edge ascent.

Has he said why? 

In reply to UKC News:

Extremely good and well edited video including the FA of Alphane here:

youtube.com/watch?v=Rx6GPpO37C4&

In reply to Dan Arkle:

To coincide with the video release it would seem. He’s done another hard thing in Colorado which is also waiting for another video for details to be released apparently. 

In reply to HeMa:

Again I largely agree with your overall point, but...

Unless Im misunderstanding you Im not sure this is quite right. Jimmy spent 11 days making the FA of sleepwalker which is significantly less than the 25 days Simon put in to Soudain.

In reply to Arms Cliff:

Seems likely it's this thing https://climbing-history.org/climb/1147/megatron

In reply to HeMa:

As with Remus I think I pretty much agree with you, but this seems wrong:

I think Ruana repeated Sleepwalker in about 8 days, which is a lot less than anyone on Seudain. https://gripped.com/news/drew-ruana-sends-first-v16-with-sleepwalker/

In reply to Fellover:

Ascents 2 (woods, a bit longer) than for Webb and 3 (Nalle) took longer.

And note, Sleepwalker is NOT 9A, RtS is (well over 100 sessions IIRC correctly… since the video starts when Woods had already climbed the stand, Sleepwalker).

In reply to Arms Cliff:

 

same thing happened actually with Sleepwalker (the 8C+ stand). It was published quite a bit later, After the actual FA. Maybe it’s a sponsor thing (vids get more attention), or perhaps keeping people in the limbo is the new Black…

In reply to InC:

Just watched this on a big screen and thought the editing was absolutely superb, the best I've seen in a very long time. 

Some footage by Aidan on an attempt on Alphane. He says he got close a couple of times getting as far as doing the last hard hand move but then not getting the left heel/toe in. 7C+ after that. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/ChxAu3oj1g5/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=