UKC

When Nalle Hukkataival finally sent the infamous 'Lappnor Project', later named Burden of Dreams, in October 2016 after multiple gruelling seasons, he sent a seismic ripple through the bouldering world.

The ascent was not just another impressive tick. It redefined the cutting edge of what was possible in bouldering. At the time, 9A (V17) was a grade almost mythical in nature. An untouchable level of difficulty that was hardly imaginable even by the world's most elite climbers.

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Interesting that there was no mention of the 3d scanning and reproduction of Burden on a board which meant that athletes could try a very close replica of the climb without having to go to Lappnor. Will's single trip repeat of Burden of Dreams surely couldn't have been done without that hyper specific training for the climb. 

Not quite ‘no mention’: 

“Modern Training Methods and Approaches

Today’s climbers have tools that didn't exist a decade ago, such as 3D replicas…”

Terrific article and I'm not even into bouldering!

I'm intrigued by the swapping and changing between grading systems, sometimes using both individually within the same sentence.

Seems to me the climbing world, or at least any point within it, should make its mind up as to which of Font grades and V grades to use.

At the moment it's a bit like saying the temperature will be around 15°C in the morning but may reach up to 75°F by mid-afternoon. Nuts.

Fair enough. There was some mention. For me though it maybe would merit more consideration in the article. Very interesting analysis none the less. 

I think you make a good point. There's surely a huge difference between someone doing something in a few sessions and someone doing the same problem in a few sessions after three months of working a replica of the climb. I have no idea what Will Bosi did though.

The difference is that the climbing grades are extremely easy to convert!

If I remember correctly Bosi was in Finland for over a month, possibly months, rather than just weeks. So I'm sure the 3D thing helped a lot (didn't he train on a board set up to replicate Burden but a few degrees steeper!?) but he still put his time in in Loviisa. 

Yeah. Usually we don't get worked up about number of sessions etc; it's about whether you get it done or not. But with the likes of top end bouldering it seems an important distinction to make for the historical record. 

Great, insightful article - thanks UKC. 

Time to dedicate to a problem can make a huge difference. Projecting something to death got a mate of mine up 9a, and got Fred Rouhling up Akira.  I suspect that over time the hardest boulders/climbs will end up in places where the weather facilitates large amounts of projecting time.

Add Backflip Sit to the enigmatic list, albeit with the complication of a slash grade. Not easy to repeat, given the location https://www.planetmountain.com/en/news/climbing/vadim-timonov-first-ascent-...

It's like a nine-dart finish,147 break, or playing a complex piece of music on the piano/guitar; PopSci puts it down to 10k hrs of practice but in sport its called specificity.

We are seeing 'better climbers' because selection pressures have increased and training is becoming more hyper-focused.

Also, it shows the overall progress of the elite as a group as more of them get top grade sends (did I just use that word) more quickly.

Won't be long before somebody's out there working on the first 9A+, or maybe we're there already but it's just not in public yet.

I think that point about training is important. I did my 10k hours to learn an instrument starting when I was 11 which meant I could pass auditions, sight read well enough to do studio work etc. However later in life when I wanted to pick up a completely different instrument, I knew how to train, and applied it specifically to what outcomes I wanted, which turned out ok, but much quicker.

If only I’d applied that to climbing ;-(

Thread hijack: Do you know anywhere in Sheffield I can get some 1968 Mullard ECC83s tested?

Does anyone know if there's a video of Aiden doing Arrival of the Birds?

Google turns up a clip of a near send when Aiden was on the Nugget podcast, and I've heard Brook Raboutou mention she watched Aiden's video for beta when she tried it, but I don't know if the video has ever been publicly released.

Hiya, I’ve been away from Sheffield for a couple of years (heading back soon) but I used to use this outfit, one of them had a preamp and power amp valve testing rig:

https://www.telemods.co.uk/tgc.php

it says on the site that they still do valve testing. They tested a bunch of Sovtek ax7s for me which I bought at auction. Good luck.

Many thanks!

Is the Lappnor Project infamous? Why? What is the bad quality it is known for?

Funnily enough, I was looking for the same thing after listening to the CT podcast with Brooke and only got the same result as you. I wonder if it's only available to their Patroon listeners or on the Discourse channel. I think they mention having additional video material on that in some of their pods.

It appears Nathaniel who wrote the article is from Singapore or maybe Malaysia so English might not be his first language, or at least not his only language. Nevertheless had I been editing I don't see anything wrong with using that word. He hasn't called Burden infamous, he called the project before completion infamous. There is other bouldering at Lappnor that long predates Burden, so it wasn't like Nalle's project was a secret. From memory, and any Finn can correct me on this, it was known that he had been trying the project for several years before doing it, because the team that made the Kylmää kiveä film were working with Nalle to film his attempts. So the multi year siege makes it infamous. 

I've bouldered at Lappnor but back then I'm not sure the Burden boulder had been discovered but friends who are decent boulderers themselves who have been there since, say when you are under it, touch the holds and feel the steepness it just seems utterly ridiculous that anyone thought they could climb that. So infamous for it's brutality and preposterousness, as well, perhaps!

infamously difficult.

I'm guessing you're famously pedantic.

You should write for the Daily Express! 

This was really interesting and well researched. Great article. 

Am I right in thinking that when Nalle did Burden it was quite heavily wooded and the boulder was hard to get in decent conditions?

Looking at his send video and the movie compared to others the woods look bit more "dense". Wonder if it got any breeze in there and if had any effect on the difficulty or just tricky to get in bon cons. All purely hypothetical from me just curious. I'm more likely to walk on water than climb 9A boulder.

Yeah, the area around the boulder was clear cut between when it was first done and more recent ascents. I'm not sure if it would make much difference though, people only seem to boulder hard stuff in Finland in a limited cold time before the snow comes and in the spring when some snow has gone but before it gets warm. But the winters a long the south coast are getting progressively less snowy, so maybe it will see winter ascents too in the future.