Leo Skinner does Trance (8C)

Leo Skinner, with ten boulders 8B+ and beyond under his belt, has repeated Will Bosi’s Trance (8C) in Peak District. “Dropped the last move two years ago and dropped it another 18 times until now. Free from Badger Cove jail!!“

Can you tell us more about the ascent and what went into completing it?
In 2024 I had a run of good form and managed to get Bewilderness (8B+) done really quickly. After doing the moves on the extension straight away I thought it wouldn’t be too bad. To my surprise I struggled a lot initially largely with my skin burning or becoming too numb with how spiky the holds are. Towards the end of the season I started to get really close but ended up having to settle with getting to the last move. I started training with this and another project in mind in the winter which was going really well until I got sick which left me barely able to do a few pull ups for months and having no endurance at all for a long time, so I spent the entire 2025 season struggling with both fitness and numbing out and ended up giving up really early, being a bit burnt out and didn’t do much hard climbing towards the end of the year.

I came back this year and felt a lot better on the last section but was struggling with how wet the bottom was. Luckily after only 3 sessions this time around I didn’t punt the end when I got there, even if I had to dry the holds multiple times prior to pulling on with every attempt!

For how long were you sick and what was it?
I don’t actually know exactly what it is was I never went to a doctors about it because I wasn’t registered for one where I lived at the time! But was in bed for 2 weeks then just super weak for a while and would be able to have one attempt at doing more than a couple moves in a session then I’d be done. Then I got an eye infection and had insomnia for a while because of it😎 very fun times