Will Bosi Climbs Burden of Dreams V17
This highly anticipated second ascent of the problem comes six years after the first ascent
Back in 2016, Nalle Hukkataival made the first ascent of the “Lappnor Project” in Finland. He named the problem Burden of Dreams and assigned it a difficulty of V17 (9A), making it the first problem in the world at the grade. It took him nearly four years to send the problem.
After six years with no repetition, U.K. climber Will Bosi has finally completed the second ascent. He’s been working on the problem for the past few weeks, live-streaming and posting his attempts after each session. Several other top climbers have given attempts over the years but all have come up short. New V17s have been established in the meantime, including Daniel Woods’ Return of the Sleepwalker and Shawn Raboutou’s Alphane.
Burden of Dreams is a five-move crimp line on an 45-degree overhanging face that resembles board climbing. Everything about the problem is difficult. The holds are small and faced in awkward directions, requiring very specific finger and thumb positions. The moves are long, especially to the final three-finger crimp, necessitating powerful, dynamic movement. And the foot holds are lousy demanding an immense amount of body tension. Another big factor contributing to the lack of repeats is that the problem is located in an obscure location with a short climbing season and finnicky conditions.
Over the past few months, Bosi has been training specifically for Burden of Dreams on a plastic replica in Sheffield using 3D printed holds. While the replica is not identical, the training helped and Bosi did the first crux move on his third try and dialled in the other few moves and their tricky footwork. In October, Bosi also repeated Alphane V17. In December, he redpointed V15 and flashed V13/14 in a single day. Last month, he threw down three hard problems in Germany in a single session—a V14 flash, a V14 redpoint, and a V11 flash. In 2022 alone, he climbed eleven V14s, 12 V15s two V16s, and one V17.
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