BURSTRitsu Kayotani recently sent No One Mourns the Wicked V17 (9A) – it was his first of the grade. This comes only a few days after he sent the original line of the boulder, Defying Gravity V15. Kayotani has now sent over a dozen boulders V15 or harder, according to his 8a.nu page.
No One Mourns the Wicked is located in Thunder Ridge, Colorado. The problem is a low start to Daniel Woods’ Defying Gravity V15, a wildly dynamic problem that features one of the single hardest starting moves of any problem anywhere. Clocking in at around V14, Defying Gravity’s first move is a coordinated throw to a glassy rail. A few different methods have been discovered for sticking the rail, but each one is as difficult as the next. After moving to a higher set of edges, a huge deadpoint follows, where climbers have to fight to hold the cut-loose swing.
The low start to Defying Gravity had been a longstanding open project and the original vision for the line. The added opening sequence is roughly V13 according to Nathaniel Coleman, the problem’s first ascensionist. The moves are fingery and require a lot of tension, fatiguing the forearms and zapping power. Immediately following the low start, one of the hardest single moves in the world awaits.
The V17 has now been topped at least five times. Hamish McArthur made the second ascent and confirmed the grade – he famously climbed the problem in a single session in less than 3 hours. At only 16 years old, Beckett Hsin made the third ascent and called it V17 soft.
Yannick Flohé made the fourth ascent and proposed an assessment of V16 instead. On Instagram, he shared that he battled with conditions most of all. About the grade, he said, “I don’t think that this climb is [V17] considering this was more a battle against conditions and dry skin than with the Boulder itself. I’ve sent no [V17] yet, but I know what other [V17s] feel like and therefore I suggest [V16].”
Kayotani appears to agree with Coleman’s assessment. “Glad I tried till the end,” he said on Instagram (his quote has been translated from Japanese using Google Translate). “It was great.”
Kayotani has had a very successful climbing year in 2026. In February, he climbed Jimmy Webb’s Sleepwalker V15/16 in Red Rock, Nevada. The next month, he established Tanpopo V16 in Shiobara, Japan. It was his first FA of the grade. Tanpopo is very steep – Yuta Imaizumi is the only other climber to repeat the problem so far. Shortly after in the spring, Kayotani sent three V15s (all located in Japan): Mandoragora, Nehanna, and Flux.
Nathaniel Coleman’s FA of No One Mourns the Wicked V17
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