Noah Wheeler 9A’s interview

Noah Wheeler started climbing outdoors in 2020 due to the pandemic at the same time his Youth World’s in Russia was cancelled. The first boulder he did, in three tries, was Proximity Infatuation (8A). Two years later he had done nine 8B+’ and, in one session, his first 8C. His rapid progression culminated in 2025 with ascents of both Return of the Sleepwalker (9A) and Shaolin (9A). (c) Isaac Greenwald

What is your climbing background and how was your progress?
I started climbing at age 8, through my local climbing gym’s summer camp and then youth team. From when I began climbing up until early high school, I exclusively trained for competition and climbed indoors. Progress within my first few years of climbing is honestly pretty hard to track, partly because I was so young and partly because, as I was exclusively youth competition focused, my opponent’s skill level would scale with my own progression. It was not until I began board climbing and outdoor climbing in middle-late high school that I began to feel more palpable progression, which worked in conjunction with my growing passion for climbing.

How can you best explain your great progress outdoors?
I’m not sure - I was always inherently much better at outdoor bouldering than indoors and my progression outdoors was much faster. I suspect my strengths - good fingers, contact strength, and fast twitch muscles - just worked better for outdoors. Whereas my weaknesses indoors were always blaringly obvious in competition. I also started board climbing around the same time I started going outside, cultivating those strengths.

How does a normal climbing week look like?
When I’m not on a trip, I generally train 2 days on 1 day off. The first day often consists of less intense board climbing and project workshopping, while the second day is often a longer, more intense session where I try some established board climbs and then project what I workshopped prior. Once a week, one of these days will be an outdoor session.

What is your next plan?
Not sure! Probably just keep training and see how Megatron (9A) feels. There’s some stuff in South Platte, CO that I’m semi interested in checking out, but I’m primarily focused on feeling some of the established legendary boulders I haven’t tried/done in CO.

I’m going to try to get out to Switzerland sometime in the colder months after the summer.

What about climbing with a rope?
Haha I’m still deep in the bouldering psych. But I could see myself being psyched on rope climbing in the future.

I am not doing any complimentary training at the moment. Usually, I weight train when I know I won’t be climbing outdoors or trying harder projects for a few months.

Can you tell us about your project strategy while redpointing and flashing at your max level.
My strategy for any project really depends on the project itself and how I’m feeling at the time. I generally go 1 day in 1 day off, but aside from this, it really just depends on the climb. I will say I always give decently long sessions. Even if the temps are way off, I will usually go through the same routine as if they were good.

For the first few days on [Shaolin] I tried to really dial the top 2 move link. Once I could do it 50% of the time or so, I started giving start rips. Most sessions I would have to relearn my exact positioning and orientation on the first crux throw in iso before I gave start rips.

What are you doing beside climbing?
I am a senior at university majoring in Political Science. When school is in season, most of my time and energy is spent on schoolwork. I recently interned for my state governor as well.

How do you handle having progressed into being one of the best boulderers in just a couple of years?
Haha, since I’m still in college I feel a nice amount of separation from the community to where it doesn’t feel too different from a few years ago. I am starting to take media and sponsorships more seriously though, both in my day-to-day tasks and in my future aspirations.