Daniel Woods has made the 2nd ascent of Sleepwalker, a Font 8C+ first climbed by Jimmy Webb in December 2018. The problem is in Black Velvet Canyon just outside of Las Vegas and is quite possibly the hardest boulder problem in the US. Woods was working the problem with Webb, Nalle Hukkataival and Keenan Takahashi but had to leave on the day Webb climbed the problem.
Writing on his Instagram, Woods said: 'A few weeks ago Jimmy hit me up to come check out this proj first tried by Nalle Hukkataival in Black Velvet Canyon. Nalle dubbed it the "Dry Nightmare" proj and it proved to offer some of the harder individual moves I have tried. Jimmy was able to polish it off the day I left calling it "Sleepwalker." I was stoked to return back and finish it off. A few days ago I made the 2nd ascent.'
The first ascent took Webb and the team 11 days of effort and Webb reckons the difficulty of each move to be 7C to 7C+ with a couple of harder moves thrown in for good measure.
This was Woods' 5th 8C+, although the first which he hasn't climbed the first ascent himself. His others are; Hypnotized Minds, The Process, Creature from the Black Lagoon and Box Therapy. He has climbed 22 problems with a grade of 8C.
You can watch the film of Webb making the first ascent here:
Comments
The video of the first ascent is brilliant, exactly how a good bouldering clip should be. The problem looks completely insane, 8C+ is impossible to comprehend really.
Awesome.
There is also some strong 'tash action occurring in this vid. Like some 70s porn stars all rocked up to go bouldering.
Agred the vid is really good; by Kevin Takashi Smith I believe. Hes put out loads of really good bouldering videos recently, much more entertaining than the majority of static shot efforts that are out there:
https://vimeo.com/kevintakashismith