Earlier this month, Noah Wheeler made the first ascent of the hardest boulder in Pennsylvania: Jorogumo V15 (8C) in Haycock. There are a couple of V14s in the state, but Jorogumo is the first proposed V15. The send was all the more special to Wheeler, as the problem was established at the very place where he began bouldering outdoors. Jorogumo is the sit version of the problem Orb Weaver V10, which Wheeler says was one of his first ever sends on rock. Sadly, Wheeler’s announcement of his FA of Jorogumo came with the news that he has sustained a pulley injury.
“Haycock, Pennsylvania is the crag in which I began climbing outdoors,” said Wheeler on Instagram. “The stand, Orb Weaver, is one of the first climbs I ever sent outside. My brother and I had known of the sit project – deemed the Venom proj – since this initial encounter. But I always figured the climb was legitimately impossible. The holds are tiny – 10mm at the largest. Worse yet, they are flat. Most of the force [registered] on the crux move comes from a 2 mm-sized opening you have to jam your skin into. It was only until I returned to the boulder this year, with a reshaped perspective and much stronger fingers, that I realized the boulder might be possible.
“The climb consists of a V8 or V9 intro move into one of the most difficult crimp moves I have ever done – what feels like a sharper, crimpier, left-handed Burden-style move. Maybe 1 move V12/13. The last two pictures in the slide are the left hand you throw to and cut on, and the right hand you throw from. From here, instead of matching into the stand start, the ideal beta is to load all of your weight into the flat 8mm left hand and deadpoint to a decent sloper – a 1 move 11 or 12.
“Unfortunately I am sidelined for the season due to a nasty pulley injury which occurred only a few days after the send – and possibly due to it. Despite a broadly melancholic feeling at the moment, I cannot but look forward to the unknown ways in which I will and must expand the depth of my climbing.”
Wheeler is one of the top climbers in the United States. On the final day of 2025, Wheeler achieved his first-ever V14 flash with Brass Knuckles in Dayton Pocket, Tennessee. He has sent two V17s, one V16, and one V15/16. His first V17 came at the very end of 2024, with the third ascent of Daniel Woods’ Return of the Sleepwalker in Red Rock. A little over two months later, in early March 2025, he made the second ascent of Sean Bailey’s Shaolin V17, also in Red Rock. Over a period of three days in July 2015 in Cascade, Idaho, Wheeler topped three V15s that were originally established last summer by Matt Fultz: The Final Empire, The Hero of Ages, and Death’s End.
Austin Hoyt’s on Orb Weaver V10