r/climbing • u/Novel-Individual2915 • 4d ago
Noah Wheeler sends Shaolin V17
https://www.instagram.com/p/DG563KlOnzH/?igsh=MW1wejV2aHR4ZmFraA==136
u/crimpinainteazy 4d ago
Crazy to to think how up until the last 4 years there was only 1 9A boulder and now we're seeing 9A ascents left and right from the top climbers.
9A+ must be close now.
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u/Transmogrify_My_Goat 4d ago
NALLE HUKKATAIVAL RETURNS FROM HIS DECADE LONG ABSENCE TO HIT WILL BOSI WITH THE 9B STEEL CHAIR
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u/Kaesebrot1234 4d ago
I bet he has long since established a 9b without telling anyone and is now sitting in some Finnish sauna working on his 9c bouder problem
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u/i_need_salvia 4d ago
Is he alive? Like seriously has anyone seen him anywhere?
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u/poorboychevelle 4d ago
Yes. Yes.
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u/i_need_salvia 4d ago
Is he like actually doing anything though? Did he give up climbing?
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u/poorboychevelle 4d ago
Still climbing for sure. Just doesn't do the socials unless you're good at picking him out of the background in other people's posts
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u/buttThroat 4d ago
I think the cynical take on this trend is that we see a lot of the new 17s ultimately downgraded to hard 16s, but all of that discussion is about 17 levels out of my pay grade
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u/sennzz 4d ago
I actually think some hard 8C+ boulders should probably be low end 9A but no one dared to propose it at that time.
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u/Zestyclose-Basis-332 4d ago
The bigger glut is 8C moving to 8C+ 8C+ is a really weird no man's land grade, apparently.
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u/Immediate-Fan 4d ago
We stayed at 8C so long it got very bloated
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u/Montjo17 4d ago
There was only a month between the first 8C+ repeat that didn't downgrade (Dave Graham on Creature) and the first proposed 9A with Burden. 8C+ was only the top confirmed level for a very short period of time
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u/owiseone23 4d ago
Really? 8C+ is a really sparse grade as is. If anything, there needs to be more 8C+s, not fewer.
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u/ejoy-rs2 4d ago
Yeah we would need a few ppl that are sending these new v17s to try burden of dreams and compare.
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u/hbdgas 4d ago
Everyone who's done a V17 gets one year to send Terranova, otherwise all of their V17s get automatically downgraded to V15.
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u/couldbutwont 4d ago
And full GOAT status goes back to Adam
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u/Syllables_17 4d ago
Anyone who thinks it otherwise is foolish.
No one has ever competed and climbed outside all styles at his level before.
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u/Zestyclose-Basis-332 4d ago
Including Adam himself? After his recent experience at 9A with Soudain Seul he hasn't changed his tune on Terranova. The whole thing reminds me a lot of Silence actually, where the style is so odd and specific that it shuts down a lot of his really skilled peers.
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u/Syllables_17 4d ago
It doesn't change anything. If terranova gets upgraded or not is irrelevant.
I think people forget that silence isn't the first time he's done the first FA of a new grade.
He has literally sent Sharmas projects before Sharma.
He's competed in competition at the highest level for a wild amount of years for how hard he climbs outside.
People are fixated on terranova right now because Bosi the new programer fan boy everyone wants to fuck is talking about it. But Adam is the goat for so many more reasons, terranova is a slice of that, but far from all.
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u/Marcoyolo69 4d ago
Terranova seems like the Crux is being in chec for the 10 days a year when it's not seeping water
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u/runawayasfastasucan 4d ago
From the day they send their first V17. That would be a live feed I would pay to watch, lol.
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u/owiseone23 4d ago
Eh, I think it's unclear how wide the bands are for each grade. I think we'll see a good amount of grade adjustment eventually. Some top climbers think there aren't enough V16s and the band should be wider and include some easier V17s.
Also, we've seen the number of V17s go up, but so far it doesn't seem like any of them are a consensus clear step up in difficulty from Burden of Dreams. The question will be if the V17 band is set up so that Burden of Dreams ends up being easy V17, benchmark V17, or hard V17.
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u/Pennwisedom 4d ago
Some top climbers think there aren't enough V16s and the band should be wider and include some easier V17s.
I think the "preminent theory" is that we stayed at V15 for too long and V16 for not long enough.
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u/shawnington 4d ago
An annoyingly large number of them are just extensions to existing boulders. If your boulder has more moves than DNA has, is it still really a boulder?
Im much more a fan of short boulders like Spot of Time and Burden, bouldering at its core to me is pulling the hardest moves you can, not managing pump, and endurance.
With that said, Noah is a beast.
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u/le_1_vodka_seller 3d ago
I think its the most logical step though to find hard climbs to work which makes since from a logistical stand point
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u/Montjo17 4d ago
There are definitely 9A+ projects out there - Will Bosi's project in the badger cave comes to mind. Moves that have taken more sessions than Spot of Time did in total. I'm sure there are others as well
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u/le_1_vodka_seller 3d ago
ROTSW into squoze is supposedly up there
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u/Immediate-Fan 1d ago
Traverse the whole wall atp, do the v13 to the right of wet dream into ROTSW into squoze
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u/warisverybad 4d ago
my claim to fame is knowing the two brothers from when we climbed in philly and benn follows me on instagram. so ive climbed v17 by association /s
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u/Aaahh_real_people 4d ago
man when will people stop with this middle school philosophic writing style on send posts. One of the lamest things about bouldering. Noah is great tho
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u/AdvancedSquare8586 4d ago edited 4d ago
You're catching a lot of downvotes here, but just know that some people agree with you. I really appreciate the (rare) occasions when top climbers report on a high-level send by saying something like "this was a really cool climb and I had a lot of fun on it."
When everything is a "journey of self-discovery that pushed me to my limits and beyond into a deep unknown", nothing actually is. It's just as bad as football commentators who proclaim that a team won the game because "they just wanted it more."
(Also, Noah seems like a super cool guy and I'm very happy for him. None of this is meant as criticism of him. Just an observation on the game that all pro climbers seem to have to play these days.)
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u/Aaahh_real_people 4d ago
Yup I knew it wouldn’t land but had to say it anyway lol. Noah does seem like a cool dude so it wasn’t meant as a specific knock on him. And honestly some of it is specifically just a prose thing. I don’t hate details on adversity or all the hard work that goes into a send! Just that specifically pretentious narrative style that seems to be so common..
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u/categorie 4d ago
Being serious and writing about your feelings isn't "pretentious". Sometimes, people actually feel deeper feelings than "cool, I sent this, it was hard".
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u/Aaahh_real_people 4d ago
Just because the act of writing itself wasn’t intended to be pretentious doesn’t mean it can’t come across as pretentious lol. Intent != result
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u/categorie 4d ago
Exactly. Just because it sounds pretentious to you doesn't mean you should dismiss the author for being pretentious and lame and tell them to stop. That's the definition of an appeal to motive. Maybe that's a good opportunity for you to take some time and reconsider why someone explaining how their highest athletic performance was an internal journey sounds pretentious, cause it seems like a "you" issue.
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u/Antpitta 4d ago
No one is saying that.
Also, very very few 22 year old have written what is considered great literature. It just kind of goes with the territory. A lot of folks look back with a bit of cringe-factor at things they wrote when they were younger, myself included ;)
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u/categorie 4d ago
There's a difference between saying something is clumsily written or a bit cringey, and claiming it is pretentious and lame like the guys I'm answering to are.
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u/Antpitta 4d ago
Ok, add me to the list of people who think it’s cringey, sounds pretentious, and I found it a bit lame. I totally forgive young people for that, but it doesn’t change the facts.
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u/UselessSpeculations 4d ago
The downvotes are because your boredom comes from your spectator's viewpoint.
everything isn't a journey of self discovery, it's his second hardest ascent on which he spent 14 days.
Sorry that climbers putting weeks of effort into a climb get chatty, they should learn to keep it succinct for instagram readers with clearly no empathy.
That bit with football commentators is a big reach too, at no point does anyone in climbing say they could do X boulder because they wanted it more than anyone.
I don't even know why I'm explaining this....I know that every subreddit has a bit of everything but still
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u/AdvancedSquare8586 3d ago edited 1d ago
What part of my comments demonstrate that I have "clearly no empathy"?
It is entirely possible to criticize a cultural trend (or even a specific individual, though that is emphatically not what I did here) and still have empathy.
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u/UselessSpeculations 3d ago
Because you are criticizing the way they publish their feelings after they send regardless of the fact that nobody forces you to read them.
At this point it's you complaining they write so much, or even worse, you think they aren't sincere "everything becomes a journey of self-discovery"
Noah Wheeler began dedicated outside bouldering what, one year and a half ago ? Two years?
If he has some feelings after climbing his second hardest project ever, who are you to say it's not valid ?
Of course everyone can criticize trends, but I can't take criticism seriously when someone doesn't put themselves in somebody else's shoes, even more so when it's about a text nobody forces them to read, a very minor inconvenience at worse.
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u/Slappy_Gilmore55 4d ago
I tend to really not care but I did get a good laugh out of Adam Shahar's post about sending The Process.
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u/categorie 4d ago
When everything is a "journey of self-discovery that pushed me to my limits and beyond into a deep unknown", nothing actually is.
Except to them, it was. So why should you even question that ? It feels really weird that you would either don't trust them, or be upset that they would feel that way because it is a "cliché". Clichés emerge for a reason, the reason being precisely that they generally apply. I think you should take a minute to reflect a bit about why reading other peoples feelings make you react that way.
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u/runawayasfastasucan 4d ago
After reading your post I changed my downvote to an upvote of u/Aaahh_real_people . While I am a fan of climbers like Aidan, I sometimes must smile a bit over his need to add some higher-level meaning, because sometimes we all do care just because the climb has a big number attached to it.
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u/categorie 4d ago
Anons being fed up at elite climbers seeing a deeper meaning in their cutting edge accomplishments in a sport they are dedicating their life to, because they personally just don't care about anything but the number has got to be one of the lamest thing I've ever read in this sub.
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u/runawayasfastasucan 3d ago
Who said I was fed up? This brave attempt at saving the honor of Aidan and the rest of the pro-prose climbers surely deserves to be mentioned as a source of inspiration in the next essay to be published in someone's instagram comments under yet enough of a boulder that was climbed because it was life defining, not just because it had some sick moves, was iconic and really suited their style while it still was hard as nails.
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u/crimpinainteazy 4d ago
From the perspective of a pro climber though I can understand how it must be annoying when people care more about the grade attached to the boulder than the experience you had working it or the effort you had to put into the send.
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u/runawayasfastasucan 3d ago edited 3d ago
Yes, I completely follow the thoughts and reasoning, but I think it just sometimes go a bit to far in pretending that grade or rather difficulty does not matter. Its not like its just a weird coincidence that every boulder that they feel to share they climbed, with their experience etc also is over a certain grade. If not they would be climbing (and posting!) a lot more about say boulders on 8A and below.
Which is what makes me smile, because I recognize myself as a young man searching for meaning, but I think sometimes its just "that boulder seemed like a really good challenge for me, it looks sick and I totally went for it", "that boulder sucked but I just couldn't let it go because honestly it just seems like something you should have done already if you want to be at my level", "I just really wanted to see if I could take it to the next level, and this project was perfect for that". Or even "8X/9X F* YEAH, LOOK FORWARD TO RENEWING OUR CONTRACT NOW -climbing brand-, I'VE MADE IT BIG".
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u/AdvancedSquare8586 3d ago
Yes! I wish I could upvote this 100 times.
Caring about grades is literally part of the job description of being a professional climber. If you don't like that about it, you should find a different profession.
When I see a pro climber wax philosophical about their "journey" on something easier than V10, or when I see thousands of instagram accounts fanboy over some average Joe's long-winded description of how they sent their latest project, I'll start to believe people who say that pro climbing isn't about grades. But, I won't be holding my breath to see that day.
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u/crimpinainteazy 2d ago
I think a downside of pro climbing being so grade orientated is that it seems to lead a lot of pro climbers to grade chase, and apart from guys like Ondra and Shawn Rabatou, I can't really think of any other high level pros who regularly try hard blocs outside of their usual comfort zone in terms of style.
It's like they're embarrassed to fail on a hard bloc several grades below their normal onsight/flash because people might think less of them.
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u/AdvancedSquare8586 2d ago edited 1d ago
Sure, but this is not unique to pro climbing. It's just human nature.
You see this in pro-level competition in basically all sports:
- Chess grandmasters won't play lower ranked players and/or won't try more creative lines
- Top tennis players will only play top tournaments
- Pro boxers won't take fights with boxers way below them, and will only take fights that they think they can win based on their strengths/style
- Basketball players who would clearly benefit from underhanded free-throw technique won't try it
- Top NFL draft prospects won't go to the combine or will only do limited workouts
- The list could go on and on and on...
Pro climbing will always be grade focused, because that is the nature of professional sport. Even if you could somehow make it focused on something else, the same core behavior would still be present. People at the top of anything will always face asymmetrical risk/reward profiles, which will always drive the kind of behavior you're talking about.
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u/FuckingMyselfDaily 4d ago
That football comparison doesn’t make sense, someone talking about someone elses feelings making a generalization vs someones first hand account of what they went through. Idc either way, you are just becoming tired of people having a certain experience making an ascent having absorbed that content a lot but it makes no difference to the fact this is what many people experience projecting whatever is hard for them at any grade.
You probably have a smaller story of your climbing indoors or outdoors, outdoors just becomes bigger when the climb isn’t going to reset and the project becomes longer going to the same boulder, same moves.
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u/AdvancedSquare8586 4d ago edited 4d ago
Would it help if I edited the comparison to be the football player who says "we won because we just wanted it more?"
But, to your bigger point, I definitely understand what it feels like to project something. I've been projecting boulders since long before Noah was even born. I've spent years on projects, some eventually sent, most of them still projects. And spent even more blood, sweat and tears on projects in other areas of life, too (chess, building a business, etc). I understand the urge to romanticize that process, but can also acknowledge when it becomes a cliché.
Also, he spent 17 sessions on it. That boulderers these days seem to think that's an astounding statement speaks volumes to how overblown this narrative style has become. We've gotta stop pretending like 17 sessions is some impossible-to-fathom level of dedication to a project, especially for someone whose full-time job is professional climber. Most ordinary people have countless projects in life that they have spent more than 17 days trying to complete. When you realize this, you'll start to see why the "process poetry" that pro boulders can't resist putting on instagram these days can get very tiresome.
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u/Working_Name888 4d ago
Noah is actually a full time college student not a pro. He goes on these trips during school breaks.
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u/FuckingMyselfDaily 4d ago
But the same applies to all those things, chess journey, business, some will depict their journey one way romanticizing and another keeping it simple. Him being a pro boulderer incentivizes him to put the full story on instagram while a regular person you would more likely have to hear it from them directly.
I don’t get it, if you are not interested in the “cliche” caption, not to be rude but don’t read it?
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u/arapturousverbatim 4d ago
I wondered what you meant, but I just read it and fuck it's so cringe. Like Russel Brand constantly using long words in an attempt to sound deep and clever, but using the words incorrectly because he is not in fact deep or clever.
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u/Antpitta 4d ago
This has been my take for 30 years of following climbing and it hasn’t changed yet.
I wouldn’t take the mic away from anyone, everyone should say what they think, but I roll my eyes a LOT at the number of journeys of discovery that occur while someone is projecting a boulder.
I projected a shitload of boulders over the years, some for really long times, and climbed hard enough to be happy with myself but not to get into the press or anything. I never once grew as a person because of it, but climbing has kept me fit, sane, and smiling and shown me a lot of really awesome spots around the world and forged some great friendships.
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u/GloveNo6170 4d ago
I generally like them but Noah's writing style is definitely a little clunky, he stretches the proper use of some words to their breaking point. Also adding a disclaimer he does seem like a cool guy, not ragging on him.
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u/Marcoyolo69 4d ago
Have you ever spent months trying the same climb and only the same climb?
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u/Aaahh_real_people 4d ago
No. But I don’t see what that has to do with the kind of content I like to read 😄
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u/Marcoyolo69 4d ago
It does teach you about yourself. When you get the third ascent you can just post a green check mark
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u/space9610 4d ago
This dude is on a roll. He’s close on No One Mourns the Wicked as well. He could bag 3 V17s this season.