Hamish McArthur made the second ascent of Megatron V17 (9A) in Colorado’s Eldorado Canyon back in April 2025. A video of his ascent was released a couple of months later – it was described on Mellow’s YouTube channel as a “visual collaboration [that allows] Hamish to take the viewer into an incredibly personal space exploring his mental process and his ideas around awareness.” McArthur has now also just released the uncut footage of his send.
Megatron was the second established V17 in the United States, the first being Woods’ Return of the Sleepwalker in Red Rock, Nevada. Shawn Raboutou made the first ascent in 2022. With his first ascent, Raboutou became the first climber in the world to send (and FA) two V17 boulders. The line is an extended, harder version of Daniel Woods’ Tron V14, which he established in 2017.
American climber Drew Ruana put over 100 sessions of work into Megatron, but has not yet sent it. Ruana described the V17 as follows: “To me it breaks down into [an eight-move] V15/16 that’s on nasty crimps and underclings that feel like they’re gonna rip your pulley. There’s one right-hand throw move to where the [V14] starts that’s one of the hardest moves I’ve ever done and you basically have to climb V13/14 into a hard V12+ single move. Then do a bunch of foot moves and weird cut to establish on the [V14]. From there, the [V14] stand is guarding the top – you’ve already done a fucked up hard boulder (took me more days to link the sit than any other V15 and most V16s have taken me) into a nasty series undercling thrutches with bad feet. The [V14] is wireable but having the energy to own those underclings at the end of basically climbing V17 is hard.”
Megatron has only seen two repeats so far. While Raboutou made the FA in 2022, the boulder remained unrepeated until McArthur’s second ascent in April 2025. It took McArthur five sessions. One year later, in April 2026, Zach Galla made the third ascent.
McArthur is one of the best boulderers in the world. He has two V17’s to his resume: Megatron and Nathaniel Coleman’s No One Mourns the Wicked at Thunder Ridge in Colorado. He has also topped at least two V16s: Big Z in California (another Raboutou FA) and Flower of Sulphur, a new line he established in May this year in Squamish, which has yet to be repeated. Other hard ascents of his include Fool Me Once V14, Backside Blowout V14 (FA), and Sword in the Stone V14, The Singularity V15, and Se7en V14/15, all of which are located in Squamish.
Hamish McArthur’s Uncut Footage of His Send of Megatron V17
Hamish McArthur Climbing Megatron V17