Yannick commented:

Yannick Flohé konnte sich jetzt die 3. Wiederholung von „No One Mourns The Wicked“ in Thunder Ridge Colorado,holen – einen der derzeit meistdiskutierten schwierigen Boulder in den Vereinigten Staaten. Ursprünglich auf 9A vorgeschlagen, hat Flohé nach seiner Wiederholung den Schwierigkeitsgrad 8C+ vorgeschlagen. Vermutlich hat der Planet nun einen 9A-Boulder weniger, denn vor fast genau einem Jahr konnte Hamish McArthur die Zweitdurchsteigung in einer einzigen! Session schaffen. Danach konnte sich der 16-jährige Becket Hsin im Februar eine Begehung holen

Der Boulder „No One Mourns The Wicked“ wurde im 2024 von Nathaniel Coleman erstbegangen.

Yannick verbrachte den größten Teil des März und Anfang April mit Klettern in den USA. Als seine ursprünglichen Pläne, in Red Rocks zu klettern,
durch eine für die Jahreszeit ungewöhnliche Hitzewelle durchkreuzt wurden, machte er sich auf den Weg in die höher gelegenen und kühleren Gefilde von
Colorado.

„I came to the US for a Red Rocks trip but had to change my plans due to an unexpected heat wave. My specific
goal was to get my hands on Shaolin as it looks very much my style and I was also looking forward to climbing
somewhere different than Switzerland where I spent most of my bouldering trips the past years. I found out that
March was supposed to be the best season not too warm but not too cold. I don’t like climbing in the cold as I’ve
got very dry skin and can’t try hard with too many layers on. The weather in Vegas turned out to be the opposite
though. Unlike last season, March sucked. 35 degrees Celsius in the city and sandstone that never cooled down
already ended my plans on the first day.

I decided this was not the time to get into a long term project and I spent a week on vacation, before heading to
Colorado – without any specific projects in mind.

On my first day I checked out ‘Defying Gravity’ with Daniel and Collin. Defying is in the middle of nowhere, about
two hours driving on small and dirt roads from Denver followed by another 45 min hike. After a pretty good first
try I tried a couple of grip types for the campus start move and sent shortly after.

After the send I started playing around on the low start „No One Mourns The Wicked“. NOMTW adds around 8A
into Defying Gravity and I immediately got psyched.

There’s no really hard single move but the main crux for me was getting into the stand start position and keeping
my feet on the wall to execute the Defying move. Hamish and Nathaniel used a high right heel for the move into
the stand and the big crux move. The heel felt too reachy for me so it took me a couple of sessions switching
between different betas to find the way that suited me best. I ended up using a micro foot to give me a little push
for the campus move.

The main challenge was dry conditions, crazy wind and my dry skin which made climbing on this glassy polished
rock very challenging. I’ve had days with 15% humidity and crazy wind where I couldn’t even do the stand moves
and other days with clouds and rain that felt so sticky that I was able to do the Defying move multiple times in a
row for warm up. The day I sent I walked to the crag in the rain with low wind and very high humidity which made
the holds much stickier than in the sessions before.

Foto: (c) Griffin Appel (@griffinkeen)