Shawn Raboutou has announced his ascent of Megatron, a Font 9A in Eldorado Canyon, Colorado. His success on the project has been a badly kept secret in the climbing world and rumours were circulating as soon as he reported his other 9A, Alphane, that he had climbed a second the previous winter. If the grades stand, Shawn will be the first person to have climbed two 9A problems.

Back in 2017, Daniel Woods climbed a stand start to the project, naming it Tron and grading it Font 8B+. He spent four days working the stand, and described it on his Instagram:

'The moves are powerful on positive holds that are all turned in the wrong direction, creating a weird compression. The feet are high and awkward. 1/3 of the climb is done... now to try and link the sit moves to the stand.'

In 2020, Woods said that the sit-start adds in '7 moves of solid V15 (8C) with no rest.' It's not just Woods who has devoted time to the project, however. Drew Ruana has said on Reddit that he's spent over 75 days on the problem and has fallen from the top crux. He believes the climbing is a step up from Daniel Woods' Font 9A, Return of the Sleepwalker, describing the climbing before the stand-start as follows:

'To me, it breaks down into an 8 move v15/16 that's on nasty crimps and underclings that feel like they're gonna rip your pulley.'

No one in the wider climbing community is quite sure why Raboutou takes so long to confirm his ascents but it's believed to tie into the release of the film of his ascent, this Friday through the Mellow channel.

Megatron becomes the 5th Font 9A in the world. Nalle Hukkataival's Burden of Dreams in Finland was the first, followed by Simon Lorenzi's Soudain Seul in Fontainebleau, Daniel Woods' Return of the Sleepwalker in Red Rocks, and Shawn's other 9A Alphane in Chironico.

So far, Soudain Seul and Alphane have both been repeated twice. Two out of three of the Soudain Seul ascentionists believe it to be 9A. Aidan Roberts recently confirmed the grade of Alphane, but Will Bosi said the following:

'Is it 9A? Honestly, I do not know and as I gain more experience of climbing around this grade range I may have a better view, but it is a fantastic line established by Shawn and I look forward to seeing more experienced climbers comment on where the grade sits.'

Look out for the video on UKC this Friday.