Southeast’s First V14? Woods Unlocks Aggravated Assault
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Daniel Woods has done what may be the first V14 in the Southeast. Aggravated Assault, located in Griffin Falls, Alabama, climbs a 60-degree roof on holds that are “flat and angled the wrong direction” Woods stated in an e-mail to Rock and Ice. Jimmy Webb, who nabbed the second ascent, enticed Woods to try the line by e-mailing him photos of the boulder.
“I was planning on going to Chattanooga for five days before heading to Arkansas with Jimmy,” writes Woods, “but the day I got in, we went straight to the line and psych was high.”
The problem is 12 moves long and begins as a crouched start, with a right hand on a sloping pinch and the left hand on a flat edge. “The moves that follow are violent,” Woods writes.
“For me, the crux was taking the first move right hand mini-pinch and stabbing left hand to a slippery, ‘non existent,’ mini-pinch. Just doing these two moves clocks in at around V12,” writes Woods.
But is Aggravated Assault really the first V14 in the Southeast?
Woods speculates: “It is not the first in the South, but maybe the first in the Southeast. To be honest though, Jimmy got the first by establishing Tall Tee [given V13] at LRC [Little Rock City]. This thing is hard.”
Woods is now wintering in Arkansas and trying Chris Sharma’s Witness the Fitness. Likely the first V15 ever established in the South, Witness the Fitness was put up in 2005 and repeated a year later by Fred Nicole, who reported significant breakage.
Woods confirms this, writing, “It has broken numerous times since Sharma has done it. Today we scoped it and we were able to do the crux section. It is totally different now. Bigger moves, worse holds, and possible!”
Check out this video of the first and second ascent of Aggravated Assault.
Aggravated Assault – Daniel Woods and Jimmy Webb in Alabama from John Gass on Vimeo.