Will Bosi claims the second ascent of Spots of Time (Font 9A)

• Monday 21st October 2024

Will Bosi has claimed the second ascent of Spots of Time (Font 9A) at Helvellyn in the Lake District. With this ascent, Bosi becomes the first person to climb four different Font 9A boulders. Bosi’s ascent took him eight sessions to master the moves and he made his successful ascent on Saturday 19th October.

Spots of Time was first climbed by Aidan Roberts in February of this year (2024) and is considered the hardest problem in the UK. It wasn’t until May that Roberts wrote on Instagram about the grade of the problem; “It took me quite some time to reflect on the difficulty of this line. I feel that the landscape of grading is an easy place to get lost in right now and I preferred to take time to reflect and appreciate my commitment to this boulder independent of validation from others. I do feel there is a value of grades for relating difficulty to others and between places though with this comes the potential personal incentives of climbing ‘big numbers’. For the sake of this latter point, it’s felt important to consider this carefully to ensure honesty, as much to myself as to everyone else too.

“So I can only share my opinion based on my own experience. Indeed, most of my time climbing here was solitary and I slightly lack input from others. I will however propose the grade of [V17], feeling that it compares in difficulty to others which I have tried, and harder than the confusing blurry pot of [V16] lines I’ve sampled. At this level, where style becomes specific and finer details so important, it feels at best a good guess and I feel open to be humbled by missed methods or simple overconfidence in my own ability.”

Fast forward a few months and commenting on his own ascent Bosi said: “Ever since Aidan completed this project, I have been psyched to give it a go. What an incredible line! I had a really fun process finding my method as although there are only a couple of holds on the wall it’s a very technical boulder and each move takes time to work out the right beta for you. Everything about the boulder makes it amazing, from its quiet location up on Helvellyn to the fact it is a pure face with only one line and just the perfect amount of holds.”

Commenting on the grade of Spots of Time he further remarked: “I am pretty confident the problem is Font 9A and is very similar to Burden of Dreams in quite a few ways. I think the sequence I used was a bit easier than what Aidan did however I think both sequences suit our styles perfectly so I’m not sure if what I did is actually easier or not. I honestly think the boulder is one of the best hard lines in the world and I hope it attracts more people to come try it!”

This ascent is Bosi's fourth at Font 9A and his second boulder at this grade this year after his ascent of Return of the Sleepwalker in Red Rocks, USA. Bosi has also climbed Shawn Raboutou’s Alphane in Chironico, Switzerland,  in 2022 and Nalle Hukkataival’s Burden of Dreams in Lappnor, Finland in 2023.

The ascent makes Bosi the only climber to have climbed four Font 9A boulders. Simon Lorenzi has climbed three boulder problems graded at Font 9A. Lorenzi climbed Soudain Seul in Fontainebleau in 2021, Alphane in 2023 and Burden of Dreams earlier this year. Aidan Roberts has also climbed three boulders at the Font 9A grade with Alphane, Spots of Time and Arrival of the Birds.

As for what is next, Bosi commented: “I am shortly heading to Japan to explore some of the outdoor climbing there for the first time so I cannot wait to see what a country with such a rich heritage of hard climbing has to offer”.