Nicholas Allan FA’s Whiplash (8C)

Nicholas Allan, who did his first 8C last summer at age 17, has done the first ascent of Whiplash (8C) in Topside. ”This is undoubtedly my proudest send to date and by far the hardest boulder I’ve ever done. So happy to have gotten the first ascent of this king line. What a crazy journey!” (c) Brendan Kuhnert

Can you give us more details about the ”crazy journey”?
I first tried this boulder in December 2023 and was blown away by how perfect it was. It had been a known project for a while and was definitely the next level for Cape Town bouldering and was (and still is) the hardest boulder I had ever tried. It’s a 12 move power endurance beast, with each move harder than the previous, that can be split into a 8A+ and a 8B+ with a low percentage dyno as the last move.

I spent the beginning of 2024 just trying to piece all the moves together but it was seeming out of my range at the time and I had to put the dream on hold to train for youth worlds and rocklands season.

The next time I went back to it at the end of 2024 I was feeling better than ever and was finally able to piece together all the moves. Season then came to an end and I was only able to get back to it at the beginning of this year were I was making promising links and started to give bottom rips. But then a fire came along and I wasn’t able to try it for a month.

On my first session back after the fire, while I was linking the crux to the top, I jumped to the lip but it broke and I landed head first on a rock, having to get stitches and take a little break from falling. After my head healed I then injured my toe and wasn’t able to put climbing shoes on for a couple of weeks. But as soon as I could fit my feet into my shoes I was back on the project and that session I managed to have a breakthrough and dropped the final move.

The next session all the pieces were finally able to align. As I pulled on for my first send burn of the day, I blinked and the next thing I knew I was standing on top of the boulder, exactly one and a half years, to the day, from when I first tried it.

Did you do any special training during the process and what about the landing?
I had to train lots of power endurance to get fit enough for the boulder, as you don’t get a good rest and I couldn’t imagine doing the last move from the ground. I didn’t build a better landing after the incident, just took more pads up for the next few sessions to be extra safe.