William Bosi is the second repeater of the Swiss topboulder „Alphane“ in the Swiss bouldering crag „Chironico“ in Ticino. Aidan Roberts got the first repeat of the top boulder „Alphane“ in October and confirmed the grade [9A]. This makes „Alphane“ the first confirmed 9A boulder in the world. Will also rated the boulder harder than his top first ascent „Honey Badger“ [8C+].

I dedicated this trip to work just on Alphane and came out with no expectations. This meant that I was really focused on each session; trying to learn as much as I could about every move. I was hopeful I might get close but didn’t expect to end up climbing the line.
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Progress was fairly slow through the first couple sessions but by session 7 I realised I had a very good chance this trip and started to get pretty excited! What’s interesting is each move feels crazy hard initially but each session as you learn the micro beta better they seem to keep getting more consistent. I feel like the level of progress you can make on every move is very rare and not something I’ve come across much.
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The line can be broken up into 3 parts, roughly 8B+ into 8C finishing on a 7C+. Both the first two parts took me a good few days to link and definitely felt their grade and linking them seemed a long way away! However a few days later they were feeling a lot easier and I was starting to get on redpoints.
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This makes the process of grading extra hard for this boulder I think and I genuinely don’t feel I have the experience to give a specific number but it’s definitely really hard! I think it was more of an overall challenge than my FA Honey Badger but maybe not quite as physically hard with my limited experience Id be happy to keep the grade as is and hopefully make a better judged opinion at some point

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 „Alphane Moon“ 8B+ boulder followed by nine hard moves in grade 8C.

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

Will is currently one of the world’s best boulderers. He sends the first ascent of „Honey Badger“ in the English lake district „Badger Cove“. The 22-move boulder problem is probably the most difficult boulder problem on the island next to Aidan Roberts‘ boulder „Isles of Wonder sit“. Since the beginning of the year, the 23-year-old has climbed an incredible 30 boulder problems in grade 8B or harder.

Will caused a sensation last year with the first ascent of „King Capella“ (9b+). He is only the fifth climber after Adam Ondra, Alexander Megos, Jakob Schubert, Stefano Ghisolfi and Chris Sharma to climb a 9b+ route and was of course the first Briton. However, the route was downgraded by the repeaters Alexander Megos and Jakob Schubert.

Photo: (c) Samm Pratt