Daniel Woods no slouch on Off the Wagon sit in Val Bavona

"Top 3 power blocs in the world for me." Don’t take our word, trust Daniel Woods who up in Val Bavona has claimed the third ascent of Off the Wagon sit, the 8C+ boulder problem established towards the end of 2018 by Shawn Raboutou and first repeated by Jimmy Webb only a few weeks ago.

The bloc is located on the huge boulder at the edge of a pristine meadow in the picturesque Swiss valley, made famous by the excellent attempts carried out by Chris Sharma and Dave Graham about fifteen years ago. In 2012 Finland’s Nalle Hukkataival completed the first ascent at 8B+ and called it Off the Wagon, while six years later Raboutou managed to link a sit start from the cart. The single 8A move linked in to the rest warranted 8C+, the first of its kind in Switzerland.

Webb sent the problem with apparent shocking ease, while Woods battled his way through to make the third - American as it happens to be - ascent two days ago. After celebrating the 30-year-old concluded "One of the more exhilarating experiences I have had in bouldering. The power, precision, and accuracy needed to send is difficult to have align in unison."

Maybe one day this power and precision will be used to climb the bloc Off the Ground. Who knows.

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Off the Wagon (8C+) ______________________ . Back in the day, @chris_sharma and @dave_graham_ discover the "Wagon Proj." Chris gets very close to sending. ___________________________________ . 2012: @nalle_hukkataival makes the first ascent of "Off the Wagon" calling it 8C. Since the FA, the bloc has seen numerous ascents. 8B+ is consensus. ___________________________________ . Nov. 2018: Next generation prodigy @shawnraboutou establishes the sit start. This adds an (8A) intro move along with a couple setup moves into the start of "Off the Wagon". Swizzy's first 8C+ is born. ___________________________________ . 2k20: @jwebxl makes first repeat of the sit, and now I followed suit shortly after. One of the more exhilerating experiences I have had in bouldering. The power, precision, and accuracy needed to send is difficult to have align in unison. Each session I put 50/50 odds on myself if it would go down or not. This soon turned into a mental battle. I was pretty limit on the send, but somehow managed to maintain zone state and top it out. Top 3 power blocs in the world for me. Nice work shawn for establishing the blocs full line! Photos @marymeck

A post shared by Daniel Woods (@dawoods89) on Mar 9, 2020 at 7:55am PDT