Mellow Releases Return of the Sleepwalker V17

It is here. After nearly three months since the first ascent, the long-awaited send-footage of America’s first V17 has been released. It is radical.

This last year has seen numerous exciting films from the Mellow YouTube channel, but Daniel Woods’s Return of the Sleepwalker might exist as 2021’s quintessential bouldering film.

For those that followed Woods since the beginning, it came as a surprise to see the almost skate-style aesthetic of the 31-year-old boulderer transform into a sober approach to projecting. Despite the difficulty of such a transition, Woods expressed a desire to focus all of his energy into a single, limit pushing boulder problem.

The 14 move V17 adds two moves of V13 into a power resistant V16 established by Jimmy Webb in 2019. Daniel Woods would climb the second ascent in that same year.

Although many of the videos from Mellow centre themselves around difficult bouldering, this film appears almost as an ode to projecting.

Director Bobby Sorich opens in silence, almost asking the viewer to welcome the project as their own. Tactile shots follow bringing the audience deeper into the process. Woods appears to describe the boulder over the phone before the action begins.

The film breaks into a series of burns each pulling Woods closer and closer to the finish. Riding the emotive wave, the viewer follows Woods through his heartbreaking punt. Woods states that the hardest part became believing that he could do it. The impossibly strong American appears mortal in a moment.

Several attempts bring Woods closer and closer to the finish, each pushing him closer to the threshold of his ability. In the end, it’s a burn like any other. Woods stands atop the most difficult boulder problem in the United States.

After giving up his vices, Woods secured the first ascent of the world’s second V17.

Return of Sleepwalker V17