The climbing world is really blowing up this new year. First the Dawn Wall, and now a second groundbreaking ascent at the hands of Daniel Woods on the hardest problem yet in the Californian Bishop’s Buttermilk boulder field, an area well-known and -loved by the some of the best climbers today.
Woods, a 25 year old American boulderer, has officially added the Buttermilk area’s most recent “mega project” to his already ridiculously impressive resumé. The project, which clocks in at a difficulty rating of V16 – the highest in the world so far – has presented a long-standing challenge to Woods and fellow climbers like Dan Beall and Carlo Traversi. Woods, along with these other hopefuls, have been pushing their limits on the project for years now without success. It seemed as if this feisty line, now titled “The Process”, would prove to be too far beyond even the strongest in the crowd.
However, Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson’s plans for a free ascent of the Dawn Wall got pretty much the same bleak diagnosis before they went on to make history. Maybe that victory sent some motivational sparks into the air for Woods, who sent “The Process” on January 19 just days after Caldwell and Jorgeson summited the wall.
In honor of his new accomplishment, check out some videos of Daniel Woods crushing it on a few of his other major projects both near and far.
