Zach Galla does two 9A’s in a week

Zach Galla reports on Instagram that he, within a week in Red Rock (NV), has repeated Sean Bailey’s Shaolin (9A) and Daniel Woods’ Return of the Sleepwalker (9A). (c) Finn Stack

The 25-year-old, with four 8C+’ to his name, says that Shaolin was his hardest challenge ever, especially mentally. He fell some 25 times on the final jump last season and then he did it on his fourth session this winter.

”Finishing up Shaolin feels like it took a literal weight off of my shoulders. My mind was finally free and all of my self imposed pressure went away. Return Is always one I tried on the side because the beta I thought I’d need to use felt like it would make the full line out of reach. Coming back this year It felt totally different (and with how soft Vegas sandstone is, it probably is). I was able to use a right hand crimp in the stand that I couldn’t before that allowed me to skip a few undercling shuffle moves and the intermediate holds for the crux move to the sloper. Once I had found my new method, the links came quick.

My process on this one this year was almost the complete opposite of Shaolin. I only had a few sessions before sending Return where I thought I had a real chance of doing it that day. It’s kinda weird because Return felt substantially more physically difficult than shao on the send go, but it came together so much quicker. The style of Return made it far easier to control my outcome, while the accuracy component of Shaolin made it harder to send, but it felt so much easier when it came together.”