Noah Wheeler Makes the Long-awaited 3rd Ascent of ‘Defying Gravity’
This article originally appeared on Climbing
Almost exactly ten years ago, on November 16, 2013, Daniel Woods yarded on one of the world's least likely crimps and made the first ascent of Defying Gravity, a 20-foot-tall 60-degree boulder at Thunder Ridge in South Platte, Colorado. He graded it V15.
Almost exactly a year later, Jimmy Webb, who'd worked the problem with Woods and Austin Geiman a year earlier, returned and--using a heel-hook-to-double-clutch method that he described as "the most low percentage move I've ever tried"--made the first repeat of the problem.
And that was followed by... nothing. No ascents. Few publicized efforts. For nine long years.
But then, on November 13 this year, three days shy of the climb's tenth birthday, 21-year-old Noah Wheeler, a junior at nearby Colorado College, campused the crux move and climbed the problem to the top.
*
Originally from Pennsylvania, Wheeler started climbing competitively at age 8. He made the podium at Nationals multiple times, then earned a slot at Worlds in 2020, but when that comp was canceled thanks to COVID, Wheeler began turning his attention outside, almost immediately establishing his first V14, Stockholm Syndrome, at Haycock Mountain. In 2021, he moved west for college (he's studying political science on a pre-law track), which helped cement his transition away from competitions. Before Colorado he'd never tried a V14 that he hadn't done the first ascent of. Since then, he's done 14 more V14s and multiple V15s.
During a trip to Rocklands last summer--perhaps the world's most board-climb-y bouldering area--Wheeler put on something of a show, flashing Sky (V13) and the Guest List (V12/13), doing El Corazon (V13) on his second try, and making quick work of three V14s: Amandla, Menage a Trois, and G-Master (originally graded V15).
But even though Colorado College lies just an hour from South Platte, and even though Wheeler suspected that Defying Gravity was in his style, he held off trying it. "It was sort of a legendary climb," he explained to me over the phone. But perhaps because the problem essentially boiled down to one very hard, very low-percentage move, followed by a potentially heartbreaking V10 or V11 sequence, "everyone had this conception that it almost doesn't go," Wheeler said. It was only when he heard that Nathaniel Coleman and Charlie Barron were planning to check it out that he finally headed down to Thunder Ridge.
Arriving at the boulder, he almost immediately realized that he'd have no hope on any of the three conventional betas. One method, found by Austin Geiman, who originally worked the problem with Daniel and Jimmy,* involves dynoing off a very sloping low foot, and Wheeler found the foot too small and too low to generate momentum from.
*Geiman actually stuck the move early on, using a foothold that has since broken, but he fell on the upper part of the climb and has yet to connect with the move using the lower foot. Wheeler says the Geiman is still trying.
The other method, used by Jimmy Webb on his second ascent, involves coring into a slippery heel hook and generating into a double dyno--and it felt unreasonable to Wheeler.
The final method, used by Daniel Woods, revolves around high feet and a terrible crimp, and is basically never tried anymore. "Daniel is extremely good at holding those kinds of lock-off positions," Wheeler said. "But no one seen on Defying Gravity has really tried that beta. It's insane. It's crazy. The hold is so bad."
Stymied by the existing solutions, Wheeler tried another method: to campus it.
"It felt better than expected," he said. "Once I found the campus beta, I could hit the hold pretty well, even though reeling in the swing felt almost impossible at first."
On his second day, he found some micro-beta (high-angle crimp the starting left hand) that helped him get closer to the wall and seemed to give him a better chance of controlling the swing. Even though he hadn't stuck the move, he was feeling pretty confident going into his third day. "I'd say I had a 50-50 chance," he said, "and I got lucky."
Finally connecting with that move was "surreal." Though he'd rehearsed the top moves--which includes a precise dyno to a slot jug--he gave himself a 40 percent chance of falling there. But he kept it together and topped out "the best climb I've ever done."
When I asked Wheeler why Defying Gravity--a problem that generated some of the more iconic bouldering photos and videos of the 2010s--went nine years without a repeat, Wheeler said, "Honestly, I'm not sure. But I have a theory that the harder a single move is, the stronger you have to be over it. For instance, I think it would be very hard for a V11 climber to do a one-move V11. But if you're a V13 climber it wouldn't be that difficult. So to do a one-move problem like Defying Gravity, the move has to be considerably in your style, and you have to be considerably stronger in that style than the move, in order for it to feel like the grade."
So is it harder than V15? I asked. Or is it just a very compressed, very hard-to-do V15?
"Personally I would give it V15, though some people might think it's harder. But on moves that hard, you're going to get shut down, no matter how good you are. During parts of my first session, I got shut down. I was like, 'There's no way I can do this move ever.' And if you feel that there's no chance in hell you're going to do the move, you might not put in the time."
Indeed, speaking to 8a.nu, Wheeler admitted that he wasn't actually 100% sure that the move was physically possible as a campus move until he stuck it, since until that moment the swing felt impossible to control. Even so, he kept trying.
There's a lesson in that.
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