Aidan Roberts sends the first repetition of the topboulder „Alphane“  in the Swiss bouldering crag „Chironico “ in Tessin and confirms the grade [9A]. This makes „Alphane“ the first confirmed 9A boulder in the world.

Aidan had the opportunity to try the boulder this spring with Shawn, but he fell twice on the last hard move.

The boulder, an old project of Dave Graham, was successfully climbed by the strong US-American Shawn Raboutou, currently probably one of the strongest boulderers in the world, in April after about 25 sessions. „Alphane“ is the boulder „Alphane Moon“ 8B+ followed by nine hard moves in grade 8C.

This beautiful sunny autumn day saw me stand atop this epic boulder.

This one was a pretty amazing experience to live. As with almost all of climbing, that one attempt where all the factors fall into place, that moment of flow where moves feel effortlessly, when time feels irrelevant, it makes up but a negligible fraction of our experience. And yet this attempt often holds all of the power over our stories of success.

Alphane however, was a pleasure throughout. Every day of effort, on rock or replica, felt to bear fruit with lessons of subtleties in movement, intricacy of holds and optimising mindset. I’ve got nothing but positive memories surrounding this climb and lots of days sharing methods with friends. It feels as though every session has been a success, almost a shame that there won’t be more to come!

But I’m in the valleys of endless projects. I’ve got good friends to cheer on. I’m a kid in a candy shop and excited to see what the coming weeks hold.

Cheers to @shawnraboutou for this inspiring contribution to climbing! To @will_bosi and @samm_pratt for the support and snaps 🙂

If you would like a few more insights, check out the link in my bio for a brief chat we had on the podcast

So far, all 9A boulders have been dowgraded by their repeaters. Only the unrepeated boulder „Burden of Dreams“ by Nalle Hukkataival, the first boulder proposed for 9A, as well as „Return of the Sleepwalker“ by Daniel Woods are still resisting a repeat and have therefore not yet been confirmed in grade 9A.