Yannick Flohé repeats No One Mourns The Wicked at Thunder Ridge, USA

Germany's Yannick Flohé has completed an ascent of No One Mourns The Wicked in Thunder Ridge, USA. Originally proposed at 9A by Nathaniel Coleman in 2024, the second ascent was made in a single session in May 2025 by Hamish McArthur. Flohé has now suggested a grade of 8C+.

Yannick spent most of March and early April climbing in the US. When his initial plans to climb in Red Rocks were thwarted by an unseasonable period of hot weather, he headed to the higher ground and cooler temperatures of Colorado.

Flohé commented: "I came to the US for a Red Rocks trip but had to change my plans due to an unexpected heat wave. My specific goal was to get my hands on Shaolin as it looks very much my style and I was also looking forward to climbing somewhere different than Switzerland where I spent most of my bouldering trips the past years. I found out that March was supposed to be the best season not too warm but not too cold. I don’t like climbing in the cold as I’ve got very dry skin and can’t try hard with too many layers on. The weather in Vegas turned out to be the opposite though. Unlike last season, March sucked. 35 degrees Celsius in the city and sandstone that never cooled down already ended my plans on the first day.

I decided this was not the time to get into a long term project and I spent a week on vacation, before heading to Colorado – without any specific projects in mind. On my first day I checked out ‘Defying Gravity’ with Daniel and Collin. Defying is in the middle of nowhere, about two hours driving on small and dirt roads from Denver followed by another 45 min hike. After a pretty good first try I tried a couple of grip types for the campus start move and sent shortly after.

After the send I started playing around on the low start "No One Mourns The Wicked". NOMTW adds around 8A into Defying Gravity and I immediately got psyched. There’s no really hard single move but the main crux for me was getting into the stand start position and keeping my feet on the wall to execute the Defying move. Hamish and Nathaniel used a high right heel for the move into the stand and the big crux move. The heel felt too reachy for me so it took me a couple of sessions switching between different betas to find the way that suited me best. I ended up using a micro foot to give me a little push for the campus move.

The main challenge was dry conditions, crazy wind and my dry skin which made climbing on this glassy polished rock very challenging. I’ve had days with 15% humidity and crazy wind where I couldn’t even do the stand moves and other days with clouds and rain that felt so sticky that I was able to do the Defying move multiple times in a row for warm up. The day I sent I walked to the crag in the rain with low wind and very high humidity which made the holds much stickier than in the sessions before.

From the first day I was sure that I could send NOMTW, but in the end it took me 7 sessions. Anyway I don’t think that this climb is 9A considering this was more a battle against conditions and dry skin than the boulder. I’ve not sent 9A yet but I know what other 9As feel like and therefore I would suggest 8C+. For sure a magical place and one of the best boulders in the world."