“Definitely felt a little real” – William Moss Talks 5.14 Trad in the Gunks

Nineteen-year-old William Moss made his first climbing moves at a bouldering gym he wandered into at 10, a couple of blocks from his home in Manhattan. He started climbing with his father, but soon branched out to bouldering in Central Park and roped climbing at The Cliffs gym. He started trad climbing during COVID when his friend Carter took him to the Gunks. “I did mock leads,” said Moss, “and followed Carter. My first lead was a 5.3, then a 5.6, then I think, a 5.12, a well protected one.” He sent Ozone 5.14 in three working attempts that fall and worked Brozone for another three sessions, sending it the following spring.

“I wanted to sport climb,” says Moss, “but Rumney was the closest and it’s six hours away.” Moss noticed that Gunks climbs, however, had more in common with sport climbs, in terms of climbing style, than trad routes that are usually cracks. Hard boulder problems to jug rests and roofs made the Gunks climb a lot like sport crags. The complication was learning to rig clean protection, which gets farther apart the harder you climb.

When Moss saw the video The Lifer, about Gunks legend Russ Clune, that also showed Sam Elias trying The Brozone, a 5.14a on the overhanging Twilight Buttress in the Gunks, he was inspired. Moss took a leap upwards in terms of difficulty and started working Brozone, worked it for three sessions and sent it in the spring, when he also started to work on a hard variation in the middle of the route, Friend Zone 5.14c, which he did in spring, 2023.

Best Things in Life Are Free, which Moss graded 5.14dR, is an even harder variation to Brozone, was the first mixed 9a route in the world. “At the crux I am runout by about 20 feet above my last piece of protection,” Moss told 8a.nu. He wore a helmet because of the risk of an upside-down fall from the crux. He took the fall twice before sending. “This thing,” he said, “definitely felt a little real.” Moss said he’ll be working on routes in Colorado and Yosemite this summer. For now, he’s left the Twilight Buttress and other scary Gunks lines to locals like Dash Peacock, Char Feterolf and Mike Fineberg.

Moss has just finished his freshman year in college. Recently, he’s been climbing with touring the west and ticking off all of the trad 14s in Colorado. He has four left. He was especially stoked to send a Hayden Kennedy line in Indian Creek he’d seen Brad Gobright climbing in a video. “Hayden called it 5.13+,” said Moss, “but Gobright said it might be the hardest route he’d ever tried and it felt hard to me too so I think it’s more like 5.14a.” He’s also onsighted Astroman, Westie Face on Leaning Tower, 5.13-, He plans to return to try Freerider, which was wet during his visit.

Moss is a Black Diamond ambassador.

5.14 Sends by Moss

Kokanee Corner 5.14aR
Viceroy 5.14bR
Cheating reality 5.14aR
Best Things in Life are Free 5.14dR
En Passant 5.14aR
Friend Zone 5.14c
Brozone 5.14a
Trebuchet 5.14b (flash)
Child’s Play 5.14c
Wacka Flacka 5.14b
Cold War 5.14a
Omaha Beach 5.14a

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