Highball Bouldering with a Helmet On
A route first climbed with a rope and trad gear was recently repeated as a highball boulder
In 2020, we ran an article by U.K. climber Pete Edwards that suggested that some highball bouldering is really just free-soloing above bouldering pads. But he concluded it with, “However, the over-riding factor is the participant themselves and if highball boulderers are happy to say they’re playing the bouldering game, we are in no position to tell them they’re wrong.”
Two recent repeats of a route in the U.K. demonstrates that it could be a highball boulder, a free-solo or a trad line. It’s also one of the first times that we’ve seen a climber wear a helmet on a highball boulder. Angus Kille and James Taylor just climbed Mat Wright’s Eternal Fall, an E8 6c in the Ogwen Valley of Snowdonia. The steep line follows an overhanging wall above a steep drop.
“This is Eternal Fall, a micro route from Mat Wright by the river below Ogwen Cottage,” said Kille. “It’s like a highball boulder problem with a terrible landing. Come off at the top and you might just end up riding down the waterfall. I don’t know how you go about grading this sort of thing, but even with a tonne of pads it felt sketchy!”
Read about Timmy Kang’s epic highball boulder day in Bishop where he ticked five classics in less than 24 hours here.
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