Will Bosi has made the second ascent of Ultra Instinct (f8C) at Forest Rock, Leicestershire.
The boulder, first climbed by Forest Rock regular Orrin Coley, is a low start to another of Orrin's hard FA's at the venue, the 8B+ Limit Breaker (f8B+).
Earlier this year, Orrin spoke to us about the specific training he worked on when preparing for the boulder, before eventually starting working on the boulder in early 2020. After more than three years of trying the boulder intermittently, Orrin took a long break from it, only to come back and climb it on his second session this year.
Will's ascent of Ultra Instinct adds yet another top ascent to a barely believable year of bouldering.
In twelve months leading up to his ascent of Ultra Instinct, Will climbed two 9A boulders (Alphane and Burden of Dreams), five 8C boulders, and three 8C+ boulders, including Aidan Roberts' Isles of Wonder SDS (f8C+), where he suggested a downgrade to 8C, and his own 8C+ FA Honey Badger (f8C+).
We caught up with Will earlier today to ask about his experience on the boulder and how it all came together:
'So I climbed the higher start, Limit Breaker 8B+, last year in a day and then didn't return until a couple weeks ago. My first day back it was fairly wet so I wasn't able to try much, but I was able to try the low start moves which got me really psyched to return'.
'I went back last week and repeated the high start and had one good go from the low start before I cut my skin on the savagely sharp pocket. Then a couple of days later I went back, warmed up, and managed to get the send second go of the day'.
When we asked Orrin about the difficulty of the boulder back in March, he stated that it took him around fifty sessons, and that he wasn't 100% certain about the grade, saying 'maybe it's not my style, maybe it's overgraded, maybe it's even 8C+? At this point I honestly don't even care, for me it's the hardest boulder I've ever done and no grade will ever accurately represent the effort this took for me'.
© Orrin Coley
When asked, Will agreed with Orrin's original assessment of the boulder's difficulty, telling us:
'I think Limit Breaker being 8B+ and Ultra Instinct being 8C seems right to me. It definitely felt like the start added enough to get the extra grade, and the top felt like a solid 8B+. Hopefully we'll see some more repeats soon!'
Check out the video of Will's ascent below:
Comments
It's great to see this repeated and confirmed at 8C after Orrin invested so much time and effort into it.
Woah, didn't expect Forest Rock to be on the agenda but great to see a repeat of this one!
As per the FA I'm still struggling to get my head around the fact that a poxy little piece of rock in Leicestershire is of national importance with regards to hard bouldering.
It's not really poxy, was one of my favourite bits of rock in Leics and as well as the bouldering it has some decent routes.
damning with faint praise 😂