Will Bosi Makes Progress on Unrepeated V17

Will Bosi, 24, is currently in Finland where he’s projecting Burden of Dreams, the world’s first V17. Bosi has been ivestreaming his attempts, of which he’s had three sessions now. The streams get thousands of viewers, and Bosi has managed to stick a few of the moves, including the ultra-hard crux first move. Watch his sessions below.

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 and it has yet to see a repeat.

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. With only a handful of moves and a grade of V17, Burden of Dreams may contain the most challenging series of moves on any established boulder problem in the world. Hukkataival said it has the hardest starting move he had ever attempted.

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 V14’s, twelve V15’s, two V16’s, and one V17.