Hardest Boulders

Bouldering is ubiquitous in today’s climbing world, but that wasn’t always the case. It was for a long time very much second class, only considered valuable as training for the golden disciplines of rope route climbing. It started outdoors, before something akin to bouldering was practiced in the privacy of one’s own garage, on wood contraptions, which only later would lead to the modern climbing gym.

DefinitionRetourner aux contenus

Bouldering’s definition is quite simple: climbing a relatively short route, without rope or other protection than crash pads and fellow boulderers ready to spot you. That still leaves an open grey area for the most intrepids practitioners, eager to commit to boulders high enough to discourage most. Those are called Highballs. What distinguishes then a highball ascent from a free solo ascent of a route? Not much, expect maybe the size of your chalk bag. Both are similarly impressive, just as the consequences of a possible fall, whether or not the landing happens on a pile of mats.

HistoryRetourner aux contenus

Bouldering was established mainly in France and the USA: Some early records from 1874 already describe climbing on the sandstone of the forest of Fontainebleau. But the activity had no specific name, and was left very marginal until much later.

Oscar Eckenstein (9 September 1859 – 8 April 1921) was an early proponent of the activity in the Lake District of England, and advocated “rock balance”. His climbing style was considered “supple”, and he would encourage people to try climbing small boulders in as many ways as possible, an oddity at a time when mountaineering was king, and summits the goal. He also perfected the crampons and shortened the unwieldy two-handed ice axe to a somewhat current size.

From 1910 Jacques Wehrlin and his Groupe Rochassier started climbing regularly in Fontainebleau, and Jacques de Lépiney established the first boulder of grade 4: La Prestat. It was the start of an area that is now world-wide known purely for Bouldering.

From 1930 Pierre Allain, and his group of self called “bleausards” emerged as a new regular group in Fontainebleau. He didn’t invent the first climbing shoe with a rubber sole, but his soft shoes were the first to become popular, and relatively close in shape to what we all use today for every type of climbing except on ice, and allowed the breakthrough of grade 5 with L’Angle Allain. The sticky rubber version would only come in the 70s from Spain.

By 1946, the first 6A was named La Marie Rose. Fred Bernik designed in 1947 the first formal bouldering circuits in Fontainebleau, even if it was still considered training only for those unable to access proper mountaineering or roped climbing.

In the 1950s, John Gill, known as The Father of Modern Bouldering, dedicated himself to bouldering in the USA. Originally a gymnast, he introduced chalk to the climbing world as a method of keeping the climber's hands dry, and put emphasis on dynamic movements, as opposed to the traditional climbing for mountaineering purposes, which was born as an extension to hiking. In 1969 he published an article to legitimize bouldering in its own right.

The sport definitely started to pick-up during the late 1980’s at Hueco Tanks in Texas, and in 1991, John “Vermin” Sherman published the “Hueco Tanks Climbing and Bouldering Guide”. The publisher, George Meyers of Chockstone Press, refused to publish the guide unless the problems were graded: that led John to develop and introduce his new open-ended V-scale, V standing for his nickname Vermin.

This is still one of the 2 most used grading systems today, together with the older Fontainebleau system. No exact date can be pinpointed for when the Fontainebleau scale was established, except that it was “decades” before the V-Scale.

In the 1980’s, artisanal bouldering mats had slowly emerged as a safety tool, but one would have to wait until 1993 to find Shermann selling the first commercially available. It was named the sketchpad, after Sketchy Tom, a climber notorious for always looking on the verge of falling.

In the 1990’s bouldering became increasingly popular. But only with the first international bouldering competition in 1998, the Top Rock Challenge in Val d'Isere (won by François Petit and Liv Sansoz, both from France) bouldering had found its place as a separate discipline in the climbing world.

Some of the notable historic first ascents in bouldering are the following, sorted by gender and difficulty:

Men BoulderingRetourner aux contenus

• V2-V3 1934 L’Angle Allain – Fontainebleau, Pierre Allain
• V4/5 1961 The Thimble 37-foot (11 meter), John Gill, without top-rope rehearsal.
• V8 1978 Midnight Lightning – Camp 4 (Yosemite National Park, USA) – Ron Kauk
• V14 January 1996, Radja,in the Valais region of Switzerland, Fred Nicole
• V15 October 2000, DreamTime, Fred Nicole
• V15 April 2002 Gossip, in Germany, Markus Bock
• V15/V16 November 2003, Byaku-dou (The Road to Heaven), Japan, Dai Koyamada
• V15/V16 December 2008, Gioia, Christian Core. opened as V15, then controversy V16 or V15
• V16 October 2010, Hypnotized Minds, Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park, Daniel Woods
• V16 November 2011, Terranova, Holstjn Czech republic, Adam Ondra
• V16 Creature from the Black Lagoon, Colorado, Daniel Woods
• V16 The Story of Two Worlds low start, Japan, Dai Koyamada
• V16/V17 December 2018, No Kapote Only - Fontainebleau (FR) Charles Albert, barefoot.
• V17 October 2016, Burden of Dreams, Nalle Hukkataival, sent after an estimated 4000 attempts

Women BoulderingRetourner aux contenus

• V8 Midnight Lightning – Camp 4 (Yosemite National Park, USA) First female ascent by Lynn Hill, 1998.
• V12/V13 May 2008, Pura Vida, Magic Wood, Barbara Zangerl
• V13 August 2010, Automator, Angie Payne. First woman to send a consensus V13.
• V14 October 2012, Catharsis, Tomoko Ogawa, Japan
• V14 2014 Golden Shadow - Rocklands (ZAF) 12-year-old Ashima Shiraishi
• V14/V15 2015 Phenomena, Hinokage (JPN) Japan 13-year-old Ashima Shiraishi since then regraded V14
• V15 March 2016, Horizon, Japan 14-year-old Ashima Shiraishi
• V15 May 2018 Kryptos, Basler Jura (CH) Katrin “Kaddi” Lehmann Second Woman at the grade
• V15/V16 November 2003, Byaku-dou (The Road to Heaven), Japan, Mishka Ishi 13-year-old

Hardest BouldersRetourner aux contenus

What better place to track hard boulders, their first ascensionist and repeaters than the world’s largest rock climbing and bouldering platform.

theCrag’s advanced search allows you to create any list of routes, by style, region or grade. As an example we have listed here the world’s most difficult boulders per grade. Feel free to play with the filters:

• Find the hardest boulders per country
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