Taylor McNeill Repeats Webb’s Engine Bloc (V14), Makes V14 First Ascent
Taylor McNeill makes the second ascent of Jimmy Webb's Engine Bloc (V14), and establishes Third Eye Awakening (V14) and Spreadin' Razor (V13) in Boone, North Carolina.
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![Taylor McNeill on <em>Spreadin’ Razor</em> (V13), Boone, North Carolina. Photo courtesy of Aaron Parlier.” title=”Taylor McNeill on <em>Spreadin’ Razor</em> (V13), Boone, North Carolina. Photo courtesy of Aaron Parlier.”> <b>When Taylor McNeill unlocked</b> a backyard boulder problem, <em>Spreadin’ Razor</em> (V13), in Boone, North Carolina,<br />
it set him in motion. Later that week, he made the second ascent of Jimmy Webb’s <em>Engine Bloc</em> (V14) and the first ascent of <em>Third Eye Awakening</em> (V14), which he described as his “hardest and best first ascent to date.”</p>
<p>“When I ticked this one off it started a chain of events, and I took down <em>Engine Bloc</em> and <em>Third Eye Awakening</em> that same week,” McNeill<br />
tells <em>Rock and Ice</em>. “Without a doubt that was the best week of climbing I’ve ever had!”</p>
<p>McNeill’s week began with <em>Spreadin’ Razor</em>, which is literally in his backyard. “This is one of the thinnest, hard climbs I’ve done,” he says.<br />
“All of the feet and hands are just barely there.”</p>
<p>It took McNeill “countless” days of effort to finish the boulder problem, he says, due it a low-percentage sequence. “This climb was so frustrating to<br />
work, because it almost felt as if it came down to pure luck,” he says. “Every move is hard, and the feet are so awful you never know when you’re just<br />
going to get spit off.”</p>
<p>With <em>Spreadin’ Razor</em> complete, McNeill moved on to <em>Engine Bloc</em>. “It was the ‘last great project’ smack dab in the middle of one of Boone’s<br />
most popular areas, Grandmother Mountain,” McNeil says. “[James] Litz had tried it, [Chris] Sharma had tried it, but it remained a project. When Jimmy<br />
Webb made the FA last year, it sort of opened my eyes that this thing was actually climbable.”</p>
<p>Webb opened the boulder problem in October 2015. “Long time coming for this one!” he wrote on his <a href=](https://d1vs4ggwgd7mlq.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/Article-Images/News-Photos/2017/March-2017/Taylor-McNeill-spreadin-razor-v13.jpg?width=730)
8a.nu scorecard. “One of the craziest low percentage moves I’ve ever done. Huge throw to a terrible sloper that has to be stuck perfectly.”
Grandmother Mountain, home of Engine Bloc, was one of the first places where McNeill had bouldered outside. “I remember being shown Engine Bloc and thinking how impossible it looked,” he recalls. “Throughout my climbing career, every season I would give it a few goes here and there, without
much luck. This climb is only like six moves or something, but really it all comes down to one move—an insanely huge jump to a terrible sloper.
“To be honest I’m still not exactly sure what happened. I jumped, slapped, and holy shit I was on the wall!”
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