Brian Squire Sends the Dali Boulder in a Day
On Saturday July 1, Brian Squire hiked alone up to Mount Blue Sky’s Area A (located at ~11,000 feet) and dispatched all of the problems V9 and harder on the Dali Boulder in a single session. The feat, which was first accomplished by British bone-crusher Aidan Roberts in 2020, involves climbing a V14, two V12s, two V11s, and a V9, all of which are storied Colorado classics. Squire, who’s 19 and just finished his freshman year at the University of Utah and is spending the summer on the Front Range, had previously visited the boulder just once, three years earlier, when he sent Ben Scott’s Dali (V9) and “was not even close” on the boulder’s king line, No More Greener Grasses, a V12 that was first established by Luke Parady in 2004 and, as the name suggests, is considered a contender for Colorado’s most perfect boulder problem.
Squire, though just 19, is already something of a lifer. His parents were climbers (his father helped found the Western Massachusetts Climbers Coalition) and he grew up climbing on a home wall in the garage before any proper gyms opened up in Western Massachusetts. His style, which revolves around strong fingers and body tension, is the result, he says, of the fact that he’s done most of his climbing on spray walls. In addition to his home wall, he spent hundreds of hours at the El Dojo, a climbing co-op in Northampton, MA, and he has spent this summer’s rainy days at CATS, in Boulder. “Growing up I was always really inspired by British climbing,” he told Climbing. “I was watching the Schoolroom videos, and those British guys are always keeping their feet on. They’ve got really good body tension. When you watch something like that really young, you try to recreate that, and it’s paid off.”
Still, sending the full boulder in a session wasn’t Squire’s original plan. It wasn’t even on his mind. Instead, he simply hoped the rain would hold off long enough for him to test himself on Ode to the Modern Man (V14), which was considered the hardest boulder in the state when it was first established by Daniel Woods in 2006.
“It’s a finger-strength testpiece, and I was like, ‘Well, if my fingers are strong, this boulder will tell me,’” Squire said. “I wanted to see if it was something that was worth putting time into. But then I got to Dali, and I basically hadn’t done any of the boulders, and they’re all fire. So I decided I might as well try all of them.”
He started the evening on James Litz’s Mental Pollution (V10), which he climbed second try, topping out at 6:01 p.m.. He followed that up with a flash of Harry Robertson’s Clear Blue Skies (V11), topping out at 6:14, and a first-try ascent of No More Greener Grasses at 6:31. “I’m a bit mad that I tried [No More Greener Grasses all those years ago] and didn’t save it for the flash,” he said, adding that those earlier attempts took place on his first ever day in Colorado, when he wasn’t acclimatized. “Who goes up to Area A on their first day in Colorado?”
After NMGG, he turned his attention to his primary goal, Ode to the Modern Man. Feeling the holds, Squire was pleasantly surprised. “A lot of people think the first move is pretty tough,” he said, “but when I pulled on for the flash go I was like ‘Oh, wow. I’m just going to do this.’ So I reached and then my foot slipped, but I was like, ‘well, I can do this move at least.’ I pulled on a second time, did the first move easily, then tried the second move, but I hit the hold wrong. So I was like, ‘wow, I can do this boulder, holy shit.’ That got me super psyched.”
After that he ran through the top sequence once, rested, fell once, and then, at 7:47, fired the boulder on his fifth attempt from the start. “I was definitely not expecting to do Ode that fast. I was all giddy, like, ‘Oh my gawd! No way!’ It was fun. I’m not one to get on the top of boulders and scream. I’m pretty contained when I climb. But I was pretty psyched.”
Then he realized that, with just Super Gui (V11), Mental Pollution Low (V12), and Dali (V9) left to do, he might be able to match Aidan Roberts’s 2020 effort.
Squire has always been interested in completist games of this sort. He was mostly a gym climber until 2020, when, at age 15, COVID forced him to explore more outside. He soon honed in on New England’s so-called Big Three or Hardboy Trifecta, which involves climbing three of New England’s hardest and most rarely repeated climbs: Ty Landman’s Chelsea Smile (V13), Dave Graham’s The Fly (5.14d/V14) and Child of the Storm (V13). By my count, Squire was just the second person to send all three of those climbs. “That was the first thing that I was really proud of in my climbing,” he said.
But it was nearly 8:00 p.m. and the fabled Blue Sky skin game was starting to be a factor. “I have pretty wet skin, and after doing Ode, I could immediately feel it,” he said.
On his first attempt on Super Gui, which climbs all of the hard moves of Dali, then veers left into Ode, “I was just sliding off of those holds.” He fell and settled for a painful second go send, topping out at 8:10. “At that point I was kind of just like ‘Put your head in the sand and just do it.’ ”
He followed it up with an even-more-painful third go send of Mental Pollution Low (FA Joe Kinder or Harry Robertson), then a victory repeat of Dali (8:48).
All in all, not a bad day of climbing.
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