If you don’t know who Shawn Raboutou is, you probably don’t care much about climbing. He’s a fairly elusive character, not posting a ton to his social media accounts and announcing some of his successful and incredibly impressive climbs months after they happen, but he’s more than likely the best current boulderer in the world.
Around four months ago, Raboutout announced the first successful ascent of Alphane, and in November, he announced the first successful ascent of Megatron. Raboutou graded both of those problems as V17, two of only four V17s in the world. If those gradings hold, he’ll be the only climber in history to have successfully ascended two problems with that difficulty.
Magnus Midtbø, one of the few fantastic climbing YouTubers out there, met up with Shawn. Midtbø’s videos are always awesome, so I definitely recommend you check out the rest of his stuff if you haven’t seen it before, but this one is especially cool, as it gives us a good look at the elusive boulderer, and Raboutou just casually climbs a V13 in one day while filming.
Go check out Mellow Climbing, Shawn’s company, and Shawn Raboutou‘s other stuff while you’re at it. I’m sort of fanboying here, but he’s a darn impressive individual who stays very humble and respectable in everything I’ve seen him in.
Image Credit: Magnus Midtbø via YouTube