Zach Galla Sends Return of the Sleepwalker, His Second V17 in a Week
"Bouldering grades at the top end are at a weird spot right now," said Galla after his ascent
On December 11, American climber Zach Galla climbed Return of the Sleepwalker V17 in Red Rock, Nevada. The problem is a sit-start version of Sleepwalker, a V15/16 put up by Jimmy Webb in 2019. Daniel Woods established ROTSW in March 2021. His first ascent was historic, as ROTSW became the first V17 in the United States. Will Bosi made the second ascent in February of 2024. Noah Wheeler was the next to top the problem, followed by Simon Lorenzi. Last month, Ryuichi Murai made the fifth ascent of the line.
Galla’s ascent comes one week after climbing his first V17, Sean Bailey’s Shaolin, also in Red Rock. Until recently, V17 was the hardest bouldering grade in the world. Just last month, on November 10, Elias Iagnemma established Exodia in Italy and proposed the first-ever V18.
“Finishing up Shaolin feels like it took a literal weight off of my shoulders,” said Galla on Instagram. “My mind was finally free and all of my self imposed pressure went away. Return is always one I tried on the side because the beta I thought I’d need to use felt like it would make the full line out of reach. Coming back this year it felt totally different (and with how soft Vegas sandstone is, it probably is). I was able to use a right hand crimp in the stand that I couldn’t before that allowed me to skip a few undercling shuffle moves and the intermediate holds for the crux move to the sloper. Once I had found my new method, the links came quick.
“My process on this one this year was almost the complete opposite of Shaolin. I only had a few sessions before sending Return where I thought I had a real chance of doing it that day. It’s kinda weird because Return felt substantially more physically difficult than [Shaolin] on the send go, but it came together so much quicker. The style of Return made it far easier to control my outcome, while the accuracy component of Shaolin made it harder to send, but it felt so much easier when it came together.
“Bouldering grades at the top end are at a weird spot right now. In my mind there is a pretty clear soft, solid, and stiff of every grade until V16. From my experience the V16 grade doesn’t feel very deep because there are seemingly so few climbs in the upper end of it. V16 stiff and V17 soft are very minutely different, and small things like finger size or wingspan can change so much about how a climb feels. If I compare Return and Shaolin to the V16s I’ve done, they are both an obvious step up but with my current experience at that level it’s hard to say for certain where they lay exactly. It will be interesting to me to see how they stack up with the other proposed 17s when I have the opportunity to try them.
“Numbers aside, Return of the Sleepwalker and Shaolin are two of the highest quality and definitely the hardest boulders i’ve done. Getting them both done exactly one week apart feels like a dream.”
Galla, 25, is one of the strongest boulderers in the United States. In September, he repeated America’s first V16, Daniel Woods’ Hypnotized Minds in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. In addition to Hypnotized Minds, he has several absolute classic V16s to his name, including Grand Illusion, Sleepwalker, Sosa, and perhaps most impressively, the long-awaited second ascent of The Process. He had a very successful trip to Squamish last spring, with highlights being repeats of Seven V14/15, Zazen V14/15, Room Service Low V14, Deadlift V14, and Offenders of the Faith V13. He also flashed Shelter V12 and Room Service V12. On a short visit this year, he topped The Singularity V16.
