is the singularity sorry i'm not actually i'm not afraid yeah okay i

can like give a little bit of a yeah

you should know this this is british history i'm just pretending like that for the for the listeners guys come on yeah no i never fade ignorance so that is i generally don't know okay iconic

but yeah it would be great to hear about it yeah yeah

i'll give like a quick summary um so before it was known as the singularity it was known as the room project so right under dream catcher in the grand wall boulders which is like a three minute walk from the parking lot um there's like this one boulder enclosed in the cacademon boulder so this like huge chunk of stone fell off the chief it seems like it broke in a few pieces and kind of like created almost this like i'm totally blanking on the word but it basically made a room um and in the middle of this room with like walls over hanging on every side it's this one boulder and then you walk through this tunnel and you're like in the room you're staring at this boulder and on the right side is um what was known as the room project there's like this perfect starting jug rail and then like four holds and then another jug and then that's the problem um so it was like a notorious project i know talking with like tim doyle it seems like stew whirl back in like the late 90s had maybe tried it a little bit with tim just it's such an obvious line that it's like you're kind of curious and it looks a lot easier than it is um and then you kind of understand the difficulty when you try it. But anyways, it was known as the room project to like start matched on this jug and then climb up. And then in 2007, the Brit Tim Clifford like had moved over here to finish this thing up and climb what he called the singularity starting not matched on the jug rail, but with like one hand higher. So one move in, to be fair, this is like the easiest move on the problem but it wasn't like the full vision for the singularity anyways he called that ap plus um it went unrepeated for 10 years and like not because people didn't try it it just was unrepeated like the list of pros that were in the area and like how to crack at it it's like quite long um and then in 2017 yeah go ahead i was

just gonna say um for people to get a vision of the boulder as well when you describe the logical nature of where it starts it's like it's kind of an overhanging face right and the jug is kind of a footlet it looks like i'm assuming the holds that you use higher up are so bad that you kind of require this foot ledge because it's yeah absolutely it's a it's a real shelf which i think you like heel hook kind of like takes a load of weight so the starting jug is like a really obvious like head height looking rail kind of thing yeah

i guess to add to that it's like shoulder height and the cool thing about like the shape of that wall too is it's kind of like a wave and then at the base of that wave is like the protruding ledge um and i guess i'd describe the style of it almost as like an overhung slab where you can't move any further with your hands unless you're like solid on your feet kind of thing um so it's this really cool style yeah yeah like that

looks like you really like suck your hips like in on the edge yeah yeah exactly uh

but yeah no

no worries good

good visuals these people don't have the the video i guess it's all audio But yeah, Nale did the first descent from the mat start in 2017 after climbing it from Tim's start, I think. So he did it Tim's way, and then I think he went back the next day, apparently, and did it then for cameras. And then, yeah, he called that V14 slash 15, then still went unrepeated for like a long time after that. And then I think I first tried the problem in like 2020. And then, yeah, my buddy Lucas climbed it like two years after that. And then I just kept sieging it. Yeah. And then recently, I don't know, I hate spraying for him, but Andy Lamb also made an ascent like a couple weeks back. So there's just like a couple of us now that have done it. But I think the cool thing is like, everyone who's done the problem has had to come here for like, you know, a good chunk of time, I guess Nolly being here for like two weeks would be the shortest, but it's kind of one of those problems where you like need to sit around for a bit and understand it. It'd be cool to see someone like come here and just like do it fast i think that like showcase their ability uh of like a granite rock climber and not necessarily like their strength yeah

because it does seem like uh it seems like one of uh i kind of like i've not been to either so maybe this is quite uninformed. But it seems like kind of analogous to like Yosemite climbing and that there's a really like nuanced style to it. I've heard a lot about staying with Kenan and Katie, and they've obviously done a lot of bouldering around Yosemite. And the style looks like moving on the granite like the features are quite vague and like kind of there seems to be a really like specific style to learn and so it doesn't look like one of those which you just rock up in board climbing shape and it applies super directly yeah yeah absolutely and he seems pretty understated because there's so many things i hear about for other people that he's done but he seems pretty low-key himself so

much I mean I guess not to spray but I won't spray more than this for him and I feel bad because like it's not really public or it's like kind of public knowledge like if you're in the know and it's not public knowledge because I haven't like finished making the video for this yet um I

think i maybe heard about this from our discord oh

really that's crazy is

this is this a room service thing yeah

event horizon is what it's called um so for like as long as i i've been living here that's actually where i met andy was he was in there trying to like sit start project to room service. And it was kind of fun. Like while he was trying that and sieging it, I was sieging the singularity. And then like the week that I climbed the singularity, he fell on the last move of event horizon. And then like the next week he finished it up. But that's like by far the hardest problem in town and definitely like the first D16 in the country but also it's just one of the best problems out there i think of the grade having like tried no other v16s really um it just seems like it's really high quality like amazing rock i think there's like 17 hand moves so you get a lot out of it. And like really cool movement. And

from what I've heard, it sounds like the hardest thing over in Canada, but actually a contender for one of the hardest boulders around. Like it sounds pretty stern at 16 as well.

Yeah, there was definitely a time when we were trying it where like, there was some talk of like, oh, wow, could this thing actually be like 9a maybe um and then i think just from all of us trying it a little bit more um it kind of seems like it's pretty stern for 16 um but our buddy lucas is like a good bit shorter and that's definitely a problem where yeah it's like the grade becomes quite morpho and maybe it's 9a for people that are shorter and have to do a couple extra moves on it is

is andy i have actually not met andy but i didn't think he was that tall or maybe i'm mistaken it's

like 5 10 5 11 okay

yeah relatively tall for a climber yeah yeah so is that something that you would like to try or is the idea of i mean because i'm imagining if you spent like 60 days in this cave sometimes it can be quite hard to be like let's sign me up for another 60 you know yeah

totally

um

i've put like maybe 70 to 80 days on it so far in my time living here because i would kind of try both in my time on singularity just because like the singularity really comes down to like just one hard move um and then it was a lot easier to just like throw some pads over on event horizon and just kind of like faff around and i had climbed like nale's d14 start which is kind of like the logical stand to event horizon maybe in like 2023 and then after that it was really obvious like i gotta go from the bottom and kind of just like kept trying it pretty consistently up until june and in june i did it from like three moves in um but then i just started like climbing on a on the cobra crack after that and just like kind of lost my fitness on it and just haven't really gained it back because the weather's been pretty shit this year but yeah that's one that I'm like really hyped to put more effort in uh in the springtime when I get back from the states and definitely next fall too I think it's like kind of it's kind of like the distillation of what like Squamish bouldering is about to me. Like hard, powerful movements, but also like extremely finicky and subtle. And I remember like when I climbed the V14 version, feeling like I was in such a deep flow. Because for that problem to like be executed, you kind need to hit every crystal and body position perfectly. And it was this really cool experience to have it all come together. And the same thing happened when I did that three move in link on Event Horizon. So for me, I kind of just want to pursue that moment of perfect flow and execution. Because I know that's kind of what's going to be required for me. um and yeah it's just like it's definitely like when you see it it's pretty mega yeah oh

okay i feel like there's loads of things you could talk about there but um uh just before we move on from uh this singularity because i feel like it kind of alludes a lot to that like kind of attitude of a climber as well um you said you worked it for like 60 days something around that it's a bit of a siege um yeah but uh uh and i because i read the post you put up uh you wrote about that and um it actually seemed relatively late in your process of trying it that you even actually did the crooks move or it seems like you tried it a lot prior to doing the crooks move and like we kind of briefly spoke about um optimism at the start of this conversation and i kind of wonder if that like applies to yourself as a climber and in the projecting process because i feel that's another thing where climbers vary you get the climbers who like generally and maybe it's an over generalization but like have like all the physical tools sam not to uh put you in a box but i put you in this like department like someone who sounds physically really impressive and like i've climbed with him on a board and like physically has all the tools to climb probably yeah

not to interrupt i was just moonboarding last night and i was going through some benchmarks and i stumbled across a couple like pens that sam had set yeah

always sandbag yeah yeah sorry continue but yeah basically um i think comes with that sometimes a burden of like perseverance i don't know if that's fair to say sam like as in like yeah usually like uh if you are if you don't do a move in like we have a kind of a bit of a joke that sam like has never really tried something he's done for like more than four sessions or something um so like four sessions is like a project for you yeah i have

done a bit more than four but yeah yeah

yeah but like it's kind of this like uh dynamic is quite interesting because like in terms of obviously climbing is more than just the physical thing and like the difficulty of the things we try comes not just in the physical challenge but also like the psychological perseverance is such a key component of climbing things this difficult and just from like reading that uh it felt like it was maybe quite telling to like kind of stylistically how you climb or your approach but I don't know uh if that like kind of resonates with you I don't want to like put you in a box yeah

no I think that's quite accurate um I think the part that's maybe more interesting to look at is like why I was so dedicated to trying it for so long um because I moved here with like the intention of coming here to like live here so I could try to do this thing. And then the why is like an interesting question. In all honesty, I think a lot of it was like rooted in the fact that it's such a rarely repeated problem. I guess at the time when I was going to try it, like just Nolly had climbed it from the map start. And for me, I kind of moved out here being like I was 19 and just young and psyched and I was like all right not going to school I'm just gonna move to Squamish and like try and make a name for myself kind of thing and like you know see if I can figure out how to become a pro climber and do all that um and so doing the hardest boulder in town kind of made sense. I hadn't climbed V15 before, so I was like, all right, I'm going to try and climb V15. And so I kind of ended up there. And to be fair, the problem is also really aesthetic and it's really easy to get drawn into trying it. But I think a lot of why I was trying it was kind of rooted in objective numbers and like what I thought would come from climbing it. And then throughout the years, like that definitely shifted. I think when it really shifted for me was around like 2023. There was like this really weird falling out with like a really good close friend of mine who ended up like lying about some problems and then running some scam businesses and kind of used like lying about this first ascent to like then fund his businesses and like bring more money in and attention and kind of take it to the next step. And when all that happened, I was like, kind of really jaded by the industry in a way. And like how easy people are, you know, or not how easy, but like how willing people are to support people for the number and just simply that when they don't really know who this person is. And so that definitely like kind of kicked in a shift for me. And I think then I started going back to the singularity where it was like, I really just want to finish this thing because I've like already put like 20, 30 days in on it and it'd be silly not to now. And then in that end process, it started coming down to just then shifting to enjoying like the quiet time there. Like no one really wants to show up to like hang with you on like day 40 sort of thing. So like a lot of that time was just like spent in like solitude, like staring at the problem. And I have a lot of like really special memories just like looking up laying on the ground out like the little kind of window in the room and just like I don't know just enjoying the quiet and I think I started enjoying that process too while also being like provided a challenge um and like a pretty specific challenge too like I was saying earlier it kind of boils down to like one move and so to have like the difficulty of all of this like distilled down to one move kind of made me realize that like it needs to be executed almost perfectly and that was really interesting to me especially as someone who like grew up climbing in a really powerful style with like very little technique. It was obvious to me that like I think for a long time when I was trying it, strength was a limiting factor. But then it got to the point where I did have the strength, but I was starting to like miss a lot of elements. And I was kind of like drawn to the idea of trying this thing a lot because it would force me to become like a better and more attentive rock climber and like understand what the rock and the problems are trying to teach me and then like test my ability of being able to perceive that and so i think trying it for a long time honestly was also just like it's an easy one to go try by yourself and i think it just plays to like what was interesting to me about climbing at the time um but yeah it was like really special um kind of getting it done in the end and just like i've reflected a lot on it since and just you kind of see how much you like grow through those really long sieges um yeah it's good i've been i

was gonna say yeah no go ahead it seems like that boulder is like kind of uh been quite a long process it feels like it's spread over quite a few formative years as well um because just as you were describing that i thought it was quite interesting how uh it almost sounded like your motivations for doing it changed throughout the process as well which i actually think is really sometimes quite challenging to manage because uh uh often i've asked myself the like the way you're reflecting on it now and it feels like you're really asking yourself the questions of yeah the why um and i've often found that really important in my own climbing when questioning what I'd committed to but it usually feels a bit more like a compartmentalized into specific goals and individual problems almost I will set myself a goal and try and consider the real why of why I'm doing it in the first place and I'd almost only i'd make the judgment call at the start of that process and then commit to it until i'm done and then i reflect kind of on like what i've learned from that process and like whether i was in any denial about the reasons i was doing it or the why but it sounds like you kind of went through this process quite seamlessly through one entire project as well and so i kind of like wondered like whether there was like real fluctuations in motivation because i kind of feel like if i were to like be trying one thing and then partway through trying it reassess the why i'm committed to it obviously like when you're questioning the why and there's like doubts as to why you're doing it whether it feels a legitimate reason to do it maybe legitimate's the wrong term there, but like a reason to do it, which you would deem as helpful or healthy. If I have these questions, I would kind of anticipate that the outcome, the motivation to try it would change throughout that process as well. So I'm wondering, is that something you experienced?

Yes and no. I mean as you were talking there you kind of just like prompted me on something i forgot to mention about the problem and i think it's maybe a good explanation to like being able to try it through such changing motivations um it's gonna sound like kind of silly to a lot of people but when i moved to town you know it was kind of like i'm gonna go and try and do the singularity like two months into living here i was at this house party and the host had this astrology book um and it was basically like a book of birthdays and so you like open a page and you know it's like two pages about every day of the year and what it means to be born on that day and all this like horoscope stuff um which i've never really believed in and still kind of don't but i flipped to my birthday october 21st and below every like date is uh thank you um kind

of recent yeah

kind of yeah Yeah. But below every date is like a word. So it'd be like March 15th, the day of courage. Kind of like that. And I opened October 21st and it's the day of singularity. And I just like jaw fucking dropped. And I just like put up and ran to my homies and was like dude it's fucking destined like i have to do this thing and so that was always in the back of my mind and weirdly enough i climbed it in like my 21st year of life um after my like champagne birthday so that was kind of another cool thing um

it would it would have been amazing if you climbed it on october the 21st i was

trying to i

don't really i don't really question my skepticism around astrology at that point yeah but

yeah i guess that was like the constant that was like i guess more in my heart than in my mind through those years um and maybe those changing motivations were more like fluctuating through the mind I guess it's kind of like I don't know when you're trying a problem that you really want to do like sometimes you're just like not an explanation for why you want to do it you just like it's a feeling like you're drawn in by like the shapes of the rock or the line or the history or something but it's not like at the forefront of your mind like other things are and i think for me there was always this like passing of thoughts and emotions that we're always just moving throughout like i had my highest highs and like lowest lows around that folder but like throughout it all like for some reason there was this thing in my heart that was just telling me that I kind of like needed to be there and trying it and that like I really wanted to do it and I think my like reasonings for why I wanted to do it was maybe more so just a reflection of where I was in life at that time and then watching those reasons shift I think it's actually like a pretty good way to reflect on like what was happening in my life at the time and like where I was at with climbing I

think one of the because as you were saying there it's like when people talk about motivations for climbing especially over like a long project, it's quite hard to pin down because like our opinions and the way we look at things changes all the time.