Noah Wheeler completes Defying Gravity (8C)

Noah Wheeler has completed Defying Gravity (8C) at the South Platte. This was the 21st 8B+ and beyond for the 21-year-old.

”With campus-board beta because my span is slightly too short to keep good tension on the low feet. Amazing how there's so many different ways to do the boulder dependant on one's body type, each providing similar difficulty and top-tier nuanced movement. Proudest send so far.”

Can you tell us more about the ascent and that “campus-board” beta?
Ever since I began going to school at Colorado College 3 years ago, Defying Gravity has assumed this place in my mind as a sort of evasive boogeyman of the South Platte. This is owed both to its closer proximity to the city I live in and in its ambiguously grand difficulty. Despite knowing that the climb fits my style (dynamic upper-body generated throws to edges), I still had this idea that I could not possibly send such a historically elusive climb. Earlier this year, however, I decided I would at least check the climb out as I had been feeling a particular lack of luck in my other projects.

In my first session I was aware of 2 betas for the crux move: a direct throw beta with a low slippery foot and a throw from a heel with a tensiony establishment. I tried both betas for a few minutes, but upon pulling on the start holds without feet, I realized that my box best fit a direct campus throw. The second session consisted of finding a lot of micro-beta for this throw, primarily concerning how I grab the start holds, the direction of the swing, and the orientation of my arm as I hit the hold. Ultimately, however, it largely a matter of brute forcing the same beta and making slight progression in comfortability with the move and the holds that made the difference. I was actually unsure as to whether the move went with a campus throw before I stuck it, as the swing felt near-impossible to keep most tries. Altogether, it feels as though my process on this climb was a good guideline for how I want to approach difficult problems in the future - both in mediation of mindset and in progressive analysis of intricacies and comfortability.