Winter in Colorado can be a depressing time as snow and cold temperatures effectively shut down all but the most motivated climbers. The pros usually pack up and head for more temperate climes, and those sentenced to jobs sequester themselves in the gym. But this winter, thanks to anomalous warm temps and low snowfall, the usual suspects have stuck around and continue to rage, climbing a slew of new, hard projects that had repulsed the efforts of all comers for years. The most notable protagonist has been the indefatigable and peripatetic Dave Graham, who seems able to discover and send the earth’s hardest boulder problems anywhere he lands. His contributions to Colorado bouldering are especially notable with 14 V13 or harder first ascents.

Graham kicked off the Colorado bonanza in October by sending The Ice Knife (V15) at a seldom-visited boulderfield at Guanella Pass. This compression problem took Graham two years and 11 trips and could be one of most difficult problems in the world of this type, but his December 31 first ascent of the stunning Memory is Parallax (V14) outshines The Ice Knife despite the lower grade if only because of its accessibility (located at Nicky’s Boulders just outside of Estes Park) and beauty.

Also perpetually killing it in Colorado, Daniel Woods and Carlo Traversi opened famous long-standing projects this winter. In early January, Woods nabbed “The Bridge Project” a line located right off Bear Lake Road near Moraine Park in Rocky Mountain National Park. This line had repulsed the attempts of many strong suitors, including Graham, who told Woods about the problem. Woods, who had flashed Entlinge V14/15 in Switzerland in November, dispatched it quickly and renamed it Mirror Reality (V14).

Carlo Traversi set his sights on another notorious problem located in the sandstone  Flatirons above Boulder. The longstanding project was well known to locals and had bouted the best for years. A tall red block with V10 climbing to a harder lip encounter, this beautiful line is both difficult and committing. Traversi dispatched it this week, named it The Altruist and graded it a tentative V13, commenting on Facebook that this was “the infamous project of the Flatirons” and that he was “very unsure of the grade.”

Dave Graham sending Memory is Parallax (V14). Music mixed by Dave Graham.

Memory is Parallax V14 FA from BEAR CAM MEDIA on Vimeo.

Check out this video of Daniel Woods trying hard on the second ascent of Dave Graham’s Memory is Parallax (V14).