Dreamtime (climb)

In early 2000, Swiss bouldering pioneer Fred Nicole began projecting the boulder Dreamtime in the gneiss bouldering area of Cresciano, In November 2009, Italian climber discovered that the crux pinch hold had broken off, thus changing the route. In December 2009, Nalle Hukkataival repeated the damaged route and logged on the climbing database, 8a.nu, that the "standing start" version was now , and that Nicole's "sit start" version was "a real 8C now". In November 2024, American climber Michaela Kiersch made the first female free ascent of Dreamtime, The Story of Two Worlds In June 2005, Dave Graham sent The Story of Two Worlds on the other side of the Dreamtime boulder, proposing a grade of . After the heated debates on Dreamtime, Graham wanted to develop a route that would be the "new standard for 8C". The 21-move route is a sit-start that links up with Toni Lamprecht's The Dagger, which is graded as . In 2010, Dai Koyamada made the first repeat but confusion over the start position led Dai to return in 2012 and make another repeat but from a much lower position than Graham, creating The Story of Two Worlds Low Start, and at . With subsequent repeats by Paul Robinson, Jernej Kruder, and others, there was a consensus that the grade was at . The Story of Two Worlds became the first boulder to have a "consensus" grade of , both solved in 2002 on a trip to Rocklands, South Africa. ==Variations==

In February 2023, German climber Yannick Flohé created a direct finish that starts with Dreamtime, but at the crux, he goes right and directly up the boulder, following the line of Jimmy Webb's Somnolence . He named this variation Return of the Dreamtime and proposed a grade of . ==Legacy==

In a 2009 article on Dreamtime, PlanetMountain said: "So beautiful and important, the Dreamtime immediately did as its name suggests, it made everyone dream and, in doing so, it became a reference point for cutting-edge problems, one of the most famous boulders in the world, second perhaps only to Midnight Lightning, freed by Ron Kauk in 1978 at Camp Four in Yosemite". In 2015, Climbing listed Dreamtime and The Story of Two Worlds in their "Climb of the Century" for the bouldering category, saying: "In 2000, Fred Nicole gave the world its first 8C (V15) boulder with Dreamtime—arguably the first internationally famous boulder problem since Midnight Lightning. The Story of Two Worlds (Dave Graham, 2005), on the same boulder, became the new standard for V15 after Dreamtime was broken and downgraded." In a later 2017 piece, PlanetMountain said: "But the one that more than any other captured the imagination of climbers at the beginning of the new millennium was most certainly Dreamtime". Repeating Dreamtime is considered a rite-of-passage for major boulder climbers. In 2017, Outside listed the ascent of Dreamtime in its "12 Great Moments in Bouldering History". In 2020, when German climber Alex Megos repeated Dreamtime, he wrote on his Instagram page: "This one has definitely been on the bucket list! DREAMTIME. Possibly the most famous boulder problem in the world!". ==Ascents==

Dreamtime has been ascended by (and their proposed grade): Pre-hold break • 1st Fred Nicole on 28 October 2000; • 2nd in April 2001; • 3rd Dave Graham in January 2002; • 4th Chris Sharma in August 2002; • 5th Christian Core in February 2003; • 6th Thomas Willenberg in April 2003; • 8th James Litz in March 2004; • 15th Daniel Woods in November 2007; • 17th Kilian Fischhuber in December 2007; Post-hold break The first ascents post the break of the hold include: • 1st Nalle Hukkataival in December 2009; • 2nd Adam Ondra in December 2009; hard • 4th Paul Robinson in November 2010; The first female free ascents include (FFFA): • 1st Michaela Kiersch in November 2024, first female free ascent of Dreamtime, Other notable post-break ascents include: • Jan Hojer in February 2013; • in March 2013; • in January 2015; • Jimmy Webb in February 2018; • Jakob Schubert in February 2018; • Simon Lorenzi in January 2019 • Jernej Kruder in November 2019 • Alex Megos in December 2020; • Yannick Flohé in December 2020; ==See also==