If we go with the usual policy then this should stay at 8C+ but I think it's worth considering an exception here because the area is banned, so if it isn't getting ascents we might not get a consencus in the normal way.
Darth grader suggests 8C for The Wheel of Life and 8C (hard) for this.
Total armchair grade maths, but adding a 7C onto an 8B+ doesn't feel like enough to bump it to 8C+.
‘Personal grade’ is usually code for ‘I know I’m overgrading this but…’
Could be worth asking some locals about it before it was done. I feel like it’s quite harsh to downgrade a boulder just based on its breakdown like this.
Good shout, I'll try messaging a couple of people who have done the OG version.
Potentially worth asking James himself now the dust has settled on it.
I was having a discussion with remus offline as I actually feel it should be given the same grade as Wheel of Life (8B+) for a few reasons and he asked me to share my thoughts here.
The first reason is that the Wheel of Life and Wheel of Life Direct share the vast majority of their climbing. They are roughly 65 moves long and it is only the last 5 or so moves that they actually differ. Wheel of Life finishes out Rave Heart (7B+) whereas the direct finishes on Amniotic World (7C). At that difficulty the final boulder being 7B+ vs 7C should really have no effect on the overall grade, however, I understand that this is still somewhat speculative.
On a more concrete note, both of the ascensionist who did Wheel of Life Direct said it was the same grade as the normal exit to Wheel of Life. James Kassay FA'd the direct as an 8C+ boulder, however, he also called the normal exit 8C+ (https://www.climbing.com/news/wheel-of-life-v165-14d-repeated-by-kassay/). This grade came from the original grade proposal given by Dai Koyamade (which Dai later retracted) and was more or less the consensus for Wheel of Life at the time. Jorg Verhoeven gave it an 8C boulder grade, but also stated that he did not think the grades for the exits differed at all. At the time of his ascent the grade of the climb still had not settled but 8C boulder was around the consensus. To me the important conclusion to draw from this is not number grades given by the ascentionitss, since the consensus grade of all of the climbs in that cave have shifted significantly since then, but rather that they agree that Wheel of Life Direct and Wheel of Life are the same grade. For this reason I felt that to give the most accurate representation of climbing history it made sense to have it listed as the same grade as the original exit.
Finally, while I agree that for most boulders a good strategy may be to wait for more ascents for it to settle at the appropriate grade. However, the Hollow Mountain Cave where these climbs reside is closed to climbing, likely indefinitely, so it is unlikely we will ever see other ascents on this to form a better consensus.
Also something that maybe wasn't clear in the other message since I just copied and pasted it over, but Wheel of Life Direct does not add a 7C onto the end of Wheel of Life like was mentioned earlier in this thread. It just replaces the final 7B+ section with a 7C section.
Yeah I agree. Like it would definitely be strange to assign 8B+ given both of the ascentionists gave higher grades, however given the fact it's unclimbable it makes sense. Just need to give some explanation of this in the description if you do go that route.
I’d agree with most of what you’ve said to be honest. But I think it’s still worth reaching out to James and/or Jorg to hear there opinions.
This post was deleted at 21:13:06 on 10th February 2026 by remus.