Climbs

Some say 8c+/9a.

Although given E6 it is now typically done above a pile of pads at a highball ~7A. The pad-less version is a scary prospect!

Named after a big hold in the middle of the problem.

Trolldalen, Norway

An adventurous Pen Llŷn sandbag whose reputation far exceeds its modest grade.

Stevie Haston:

The accomplishments of Ray Kay and Dave Jones were very underrated at this time, they really carried the torch of on-sight climbing. I took a different attitude as I know I would die if I did too much. I did try Bobok before they did it, lowering-off five equalised pieces from up high, and then when I got down I just flicked all the runners out.[1]

Initially 8C+ was suggested and the first few repeats seemed to agree with this. In 2023 Katie Lamb climbed the problem, which would have made her the first woman to climb 8C+, but subsequent ascentionists have suggested that 8C is more appropriate and Daniel Woods (who made the first ascent) has retrospectively adjusted his opinion to 8C.

The problem is near Box Lake in Colorado which is where the name comes from.

The first 9A boulder problem in the world. Nalle Hukkataival made the first ascent in October 2016 and the problem received significant attention from many of the strongest boulderers in the world (Toru Nakajima, Shawn Raboutou and Aidan Roberts to name a few) before Will Bosi made the second ascent in April 2023.

The problem was initially found by Marko Siivinen:

At first it looked like it might be possible so we started trying the moves... Pretty soon it was obvious it was a bit too hard for us 😄 So next time we took [Anton Johansson] with us, who was the strongest man alive at that time. He looked at the problem and touched the holds a bit and said: "well... It looks really good but it also looks like 9A"😂 So the only thing left to do was to take Nalle there and the rest is history. [1]

In an interesting twist, the problem has become somewhat famous for replicas being made of it. Aidan Roberts made a 3D scan of the holds and problem on his phone during a working visit to try the problem, he then 3D printed the holds and worked with Core Climbing to cast copies of the holds in resin. Due to the relatively flat, consistent angle of the problem it was then possible to mount the holds indoors and effectively train for the real thing using the replica. Notably, Will Bosi trained on the replica for several sessions to train for the problem, then having done all the moves on the replica he booked a trip to try the real thing and made rapid progress, doing all the moves in his first session and then making the second ascent after ~12 sessions on the real thing.

References

[1] Marko Siivinen on Instagram, commenting on discovering the problem in 2013. April 2023. https://www.instagram.com/p/CrB1L4ctXrR/