At the end of August, 24-year-old Jonny Kydd made the first ascent of Godzilla Sit (f8B) 8B (V13) in Biblins Cave, Gloucestershire. The problem was a long-standing project and one of the hardest boulder problems in the area and had previously caught the eye of the likes of Tom Peckitt and James Squire alongside other strong locals. Jonny has just released a video of the problem.

Up until this summer, Jonny had focussed on repeating climbs in the UK - mostly in the South-West - and had never had a long-term project. He told UKC:

'This year I felt as though I had made a bit of a jump in my climbing and was wanting something hard to work on over the summer, so I thought that I could project the stand start without any intention of attempting the sit.'

From the sit start, the climb is 12 moves long and breaks down into two sections, the first consists of hard sustained climbing on undercuts and side pulls with the second section (the stand start) being crimpy, with a hard crux move of latching the finishing hold and matching it. Jonny first tried the stand start a couple of years ago. He commented:

'I felt as though it was way beyond me, but also that it was my style of climbing and if I was going to climb something that hard in the future, then it would probably be a good one for me to get on.'

During the first session of this summer, Jonny ended up doing all the moves on the stand start and managed to complete it on the next session - much quicker than he had expected. The sit start was on the cards:

'I then decided that I might as well attempt the moves of the sit start to see what they were like. It took two sessions just to figure out the moves and then another two to make it from the sit start to the holds of the stand start. Over the next two sessions I was consistently getting to the last move and fell going for the finish hold over 20 times.'

Finally, after two months of trying the problem this year, Jonny managed to finish it off on his 9th session of the summer and 11th session overall, ending a long period of dedication to the project. He told us:

'This was my first first ascent and by far the longest I have spent working a climb, as well as the first time I have specifically trained for a climb, including setting replicas of the crux at my local wall.'

***PLEASE NOTE: Biblin's cave is only accessible between 1st May and 30th September due to hibernating bats.***

Watch a video of some of Jonny's recent climbs - including Godzilla Sit - below: