Tokio Muroi

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First ascent.

First ascent.

By December, snow had begun to fall and the days left were dwindling — it became a race against time. On December 9 I finally solved all the moves, but the conditions were far from favorable. At minus 2°C, strength dropped, shoe friction declined, and the rock was so dry my fingers began to slip off. Luckily, the climb demanded little explosive power. By moistening my fingers slightly beforehand, I could offset the dryness. When I finally sent it, I was at the limit. Entering the last mantle, my fingers were bone-dry, slipping to the verge of failure. But by focusing all my nerves into the tips of my fingers and toes, latching onto tiny dimples and crystals, my body moved exactly as I had imagined, astonishingly smooth. It was an ideal climb. Standing on top of the boulder, all the tension drained away and I just collapsed there. […]

A tree grows right alongside the line. It adds a sense of fear when you fall backward, but thanks to this tree I was able to probe holds and break down the moves. I’d like to call it the “Accompanying Tree.”

I felt it was clearly harder than Winter’s Day and about two full grades harder than Zutsū, so I graded it 5-dan. In the V-scale that would likely be around V15, though since I don’t have much direct experience with V-grades I can’t be certain. With so few confirmed 4-dan problems, it’s difficult to benchmark a 5-dan honestly. But as bouldering progresses, I think it will naturally find its confirmation.

References

[1] http://www.bouldering.net/japan/closeup/5dan/5dan.html

First ascent.

First ascent.

Line D on the topo

First ascent.

With no pads.

First ascent. Over 100 sessions.

Without a pad.

Journal Asagimadara, and Beyond

It was to be my final project. One of my early Mizugaki discoveries, it was overwhelming in its beauty and power, but I quickly realized how difficult it would be, and allowed it to slumber for many years. After all, there were other problems to work on first. When all else was done, this would be the culmination - the perfect end - to my efforts at Mizugaki. But why, in the end, have I never stopped going to Mizugaki? Why do I still find new problems to develop?

In 2007, most of my other projects were climbed. There was nothing holding me back, so it was finally time to face this problem. I began with a sense of excitement and determination, feeling ready to climb this, my final Mizugaki boulder. However, my plan to send it by the end of the year soon crumbled. The second move, where I had to stretch my body to its limit, was harder than I'd imagined; for the first year, and then the second, I reached the end of the season without sticking the crux move even once. The autumn season of the third year seemed to arrive under a dark cloud. I willed myself to focus more, and decided that this would be the only problem I worked on. Summoning everything I had, I would try six, or seven times. When that didn't work, I used a stepladder to practice the moves, then went back the next day, or the day afterwards. From September on, I repeated this two-to-three-hour routine religiously before heading to my shift at the gym.

Autumn deepened, the rock grew drier, and my body position gradually stabilized. But I still couldn't stick that second move. Impatience and irritation built, and the stress began to weigh on me. I was unsure whether I could maintain my motivation for another year, and felt the first stirrings of doubt. What if I can't climb it? Is that how this will end!? Once I allowed these thoughts to surface, the nightmare that would keep me up at night crept into my consciousness, and I felt heavy-hearted on the way home.

I lifted my head, looked at the landscape around me, and thought of my other first ascents. Mizugaki had given me so much - it was impossible that I would be rejected now. This was my final test on the way to completion. it was time to shake off the nightmare.

In November, I finally stuck the second move. I felt a surge of willpower unlike anything I have known before, and I knew I would send. After that, nothing. The next thing I remember is standing on the ledge, my entire body suffused with a terrible fatigue. Sending this problem had drained me of everything I had, including my capacity for thought and memory. I staggered up the final slab and collapsed on top of the boulder, exhausted. When describing the moment of topping out, many climbers write of feeling relief and liberation, rather than joy. For me, it was the same. The gratification of having climbed my final Mizugaki boulder, the euphoria that I had expected - those feelings never came. I was filled with relief that I had overcome this last challenge; I was freed from the impatience and irritation that had been weighing on me. I no longer had to try, and the nightmare was gone.

Before finishing a problem, I feel vexed, impatient, irritated. Afterwards, I feel relieved and liberated. Where is the pleasure and joy in climbing? What am I seeking, and why do I pursue a climb if it means going through this suffering?

Why have I been doing this for decades? I sit up on the rock, allowing my body and mind to relax. I look at the landscape with unfocused eyes as I ask myself these questions. As I do, a nebulous understanding begins to take shape. This is like an ouroboros loop. Where one problem ends, the next one begins. Once I have grasped a hold, there will be another hold beyond it, and there will be no end until I stop climbing. I will continue to reach into the unknown, towards the next challenge.

I close my eyes for a while. A flicker of hope - that I can advance to the next problem, the next climb - begins to stir inside as I feel the strength return to my body and mind, and I stand up on the rock.

References

[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2016/10/asagimadara_8c_by_ryuichi_murai-70742

[2] Muroi’s journal published in Mizugaki Guidebook 2024

First ascent.

No pads.

It’s exciting to find a massive boulder, but cleaning it using ropes is an exhausting task. I can still tolerate the physical effort—but in some ways, there’s a joy in unearthing a hidden treasure. Still, my frustration comes from a deeper, long-standing problem that continues to follow me.

“Brave New World” is a problem that was completed after such a long development process. One day, as I followed the forest road, I happened to glance at a slope and saw something cliff-like in the distance. I ran up to it and saw a massive boulder far bigger than it looked from below – and I could clearly see a potential line. This looked promising.

I immediately took out my rope and began cleaning, filled with a mixture of hope and unease. I knocked off the big loose debris first, then carefully brushed all the holds again. By the time I was done, more than two hours had passed; it was a huge job. Sometimes you clean in hope that good holds will appear, but end up with nothing but wasted effort. Other times, there are so many holds that after an hour or more of cleaning, you cruise it and find it’s just a V1 to V5. But this rock revealed exactly the kind of holds I had hoped for, right from the bottom. My excitement stayed high throughout the cleaning.

A glorious line that lets you experience the full span of a giant boulder, with perfectly placed holds and natural angles, as if it had been designed just for climbing. With every move upward, your sense of height grows and the tension builds. It’s a perfect line.

After cleaning, I sent it in a single try. I was deeply moved: by the climb, by the experience, and by the nature surrounding this quiet forest. That such a line had been sleeping so close to the road – what a surprise, what a thrill. That thrill is the very force that drives me to seek out new climbs.

And yet, even after establishing what I could call a “perfect” problem, the issue that has haunted me for years still won’t leave my heart in peace. Using a rope to clean means, inevitably, that you see all the holds ahead of time. You come to know everything: where the holds are, what they feel like, how you’ll move. It becomes a game of imagining the moves, mapping them out from every angle, calculating what’s reachable and what’s not. The moment you cross the line where downclimbing becomes impossible, the real challenge begins. But even if you haven’t rehearsed the moves, the cleaning process itself steals away the adventure of stepping into the unknown on your own.

How luxurious would it be to try this problem ground-up, to experience it onsight? Just imagining that fills me with excitement and joy. And this problem has the right conditions to make that possible, it provokes anyone who stands before it.

That’s why I won’t write any hints here: nothing about where the crux is, what kind of holds to expect, or how it climbs. If you feel inspired to respond to this climb, I hope you don’t start by working just the lower part, or by scouting with a rope, or by watching a video. If you look up and think, “That’s impossible for me,” then train and come back.

Of course, I have no intention of carelessly encouraging others to take on dangerous challenges. But to those climbers who welcome adventure and are ready to put themselves on the line, I make this promise: if you manage to finish this problem by relying solely on your own ability, ground-up, if you onsight it – then a truly Brave New World awaits you.