Climb	Type	Suggested Grade	Date of Ascent	Notes
Return of the Sleepwalker	Boulder	9A/V17	30th Mar 2021	Instagram Post Video
Hypnotized Minds	Boulder	8C+/V16	21st Oct 2010
The Ice Knife SDS	Boulder	8C+/V16	2nd Nov 2013
The Process	Boulder	8C+/V16	18th Jan 2015	Video
Creature from the Black Lagoon	Boulder	8C+/V16	27th Sep 2016	Instagram Post
Box Therapy	Boulder	8C+/V16	29th Oct 2018	Instagram Post
Sleepwalker	Boulder	8C+/V16	21st Jan 2019	Instagram Post
Off the Wagon Low	Boulder	8C+/V16	9th Mar 2020	Instagram Post
Grand Illusion	Boulder	8C+/V16	7th Jun 2021	Instagram Post
Insomniac	Boulder	8C+/V16	1st Sep 2022	Instagram Post and Video
Adrenaline	Boulder	8C+/V16	12th Feb 2024	FA, proposed a soft V16 grade Instagram Post
The Game	Boulder	8C/V15	10th Feb 2010	Daniel initially suggested 8C+ but later revised this to 8C.
La Force Tranquille	Boulder	8C/V15	15th Oct 2011
White Noise	Boulder	8C/V15	18th Sep 2012
The Nest	Boulder	8C/V15	18th Dec 2013	Video
Noise vs. Beauty	Boulder	8C/V15	18th Jun 2015
Everything Gneiss	Boulder	8C/V15	23rd Apr 2016
Defying Gravity	Boulder	8C/V15	2017	Instagram Post
Direct Hit	Boulder	8C/V15	Jun 2019	Instagram Post
4-Low	Boulder	8C/V15	Mar 2020	Instagram Post
Death Star	Boulder	8C/V15	Apr 2020	Instagram Post
Dicktopia	Boulder	8C/V15	3rd Sep 2020	Instagram Post
Desperanza	Boulder	8C/V15
Terremer	Boulder	8C/V15	30th Jan 2010
Monkey Wedding	Boulder	8C/V15	13th Aug 2012	Video
Hydrangea (Pre 2016 Break)	Boulder	8C/V15	14th Feb 2013
The Bridge of Ashes	Boulder	8C/V15	10th Mar 2013
Delirium	Boulder	8C/V15	18th Sep 2013
Lucid Dreaming	Boulder	8C/V15	28th Jan 2014	Video
The Finnish Line	Boulder	8C/V15	30th Jun 2018	Instagram Post
Pirate’s Code	Boulder	8C/V15	Aug 2018	Instagram Post
Black Eagle Assis	Boulder	8C/V15	16th Aug 2018	Instagram Post
Squoze	Boulder	8C/V15	2019-2020	Instagram Post
La Rustica	Boulder	8C/V15	6th May 2019	Instagram Post
Primitivo	Boulder	8C/V15	Mar 2020	Instagram Post
Traffic	Boulder	8C/V15	11th May 2020
Pegasus	Boulder	8C/V15	3rd Apr 2021	Video
The Multiverse	Boulder	8C/V15	Nov 2022	Instagram Post
Witness the Fitness	Boulder	8C/V15		Video
Echale	Boulder	8B+/V14	2004
Jade	Boulder	8B+/V14	19th Jun 2007	Video
Sky	Boulder	8B+/V14	2008
Tron	Boulder	8B+/V14	13th Mar 2017	Instagram Post
Mystic Stylez	Boulder	8B+/V14
Esperanza	Boulder	8B+/V14	2005
Practice of the Wild	Boulder	8B+/V14	16th Apr 2011
Entlinge	Boulder	8B+/V14	28th Nov 2011	UKC Post
Oliphant’s Dawn	Boulder	8B+/V14	8th Aug 2012
The Ice Knife	Boulder	8B+/V14	19th May 2013
The Wheel of Wolvo	Boulder	8B+/V14	9th Sep 2013
Meadowlark Lemon	Boulder	8B+/V14	5th Dec 2013	Daniel suggested a soft 8B+
Bhai Bon	Boulder	8B+/V14	2018
Skadoosh	Boulder	8B+/V14	18th Aug 2018	Instagram Post
Off the Wagon	Boulder	8B+/V14	Apr 2019	Instagram Post
The Kingdom	Boulder	8B+/V14	16th Apr 2019	Instagram Post
Compass North	Boulder	8B+/V14	1st Oct 2022	Instagram Post
Evil Backwards	Boulder	8B/V13	28th Jun 2010
Terre de Sienne	Boulder	8B/V13	5th Jan 2007
Good Hope	Boulder	8B/V13	1st Aug 2015
Versace	Boulder	8B/V13	19th May 2020

Learning the Ropes

Daniel Woods first started climbing as a 5-year-old child with his father on a trip to Texas’ Mineral Wells State Park. Although he started to dabble with indoor gyms in Dallas, it was after his family moved from their native Texas to Longmont, Colorado that Woods joined the Boulder Rock Club’s junior climbing team. 

The team was coached by Justin Sjong and Jimmie Redo, two accomplished climbers and route-setters who also have an impressive rap sheet of transforming young climbers into professional athletes, with former students including Woods and Emily Harrington.

Competition Climbing

Just two years later, at 16 years old, Woods won the American Bouldering Series in 2005. Over the next decade, he would go on to win 8 Bouldering National Championships and 2 Lead National Championships in 2006 and 2013. These wins made Woods one of the most successful American boulderers in history, holding a national record that can only be trumped by Alex Puccio.  

On the international stage, Woods competed for over a decade at over 18 IFSC-recognized competitions and became the first American to win a Boulder World Cup after taking gold in Vail in June 2010. Wood’s last international competition was in 2017, with a 45th-place finish in the Meiringen, Switzerland World Cup.

Notable Ascents

Throughout his decade long competition career, Woods was also making a name for himself as a world-class crusher with some repeats of notoriously hard boulder problems. At the age of 14, he made a repeat of Fuck You Finger and claimed his first V11 boulder (8A). A year later, he made the ascent of Echale and awarded it the grade of V14 (8B+). In June 2007, he made the first ascent of Jade, a project in the Rocky National Park that he had been working on with Dave Graham for several years. He awarded the problem the grade of V15, making it the hardest ascent of his career at the time, although it has since been downgraded to a V14.

In 2008, Woods moved to Innsbruck, in search of new challenges and to create a climbing documentary Welcome to the Hood with fellow climbers Paul Robinson, Guntram Jörg, and Anthony Gullsten. It was in May of that year he made the first ascent of In Search of Time Lost, an ascent that finally marked his ascension into the V15 realm. 

The next big breakthrough for Woods came in 2010, a year that not only saw him top out four V15 boulders but he also made an ascent of Hypnotized Minds, a route widely considered the first V16 in climbing history. 21-year-old Woods began working on the problem in early 2010, although a busy schedule of competitions and climbing trips only allowed him 2 days to work on the problem. He returned in October of the same year, and after 6 more days on the problem, he made his first V16 ascent on the 21st of October 2010. Although Woods originally graded the boulder a V15, the problem was repeated by Rustam Gelmanov 6 years later, who suggested Woods had under-graded the problem. Since this ascent, Woods has gone on to claim several first ascents of iconic V16 boulders, including The Process, Creature From the Black Lagoon and Box Therapy. 

Of all his bouldering achievements, it’s his ascent of Return of the Sleepwalker that marks the pinnacle of Daniel Wood’s climbing career. The sit start, 16 moves extension of Jimmy Webb’s Sleepwalker (V16) became a project for Woods in November 2020. After almost 3 months of climbing nothing other than this problem, the line became the longest project of his career, far exceeding his previous longest time on a project of 15 days. 

Daniel sent the problem on the 2nd of April 2021, giving the problem the name Return of Sleepwalker and the elusive grade of V17. This, Nalle Hukkataival’s Burden of Dreams, Alphane and Megatron are the only problems to receive this grade.

Although Woods is best known for his bouldering achievements, he’s also an accomplished sport climber too with ascents of La Capella (5.15b/9b), Papichulo (5.15a/9a+), and Thor’s Hammer (5.15a/9a+). He also dabbled with Biographie, but has not managed to clip the chains yet.

Tattoos

Daniel’s unusual collection of tattoos has become a topic of interest for many climbers. 

The first to appear was a tribal lion on the right side of his torso in 2014. Although it’s unclear what the origins of the tattoo are, it is possibly one he picked up on an early trip to South Africa. The tattoo got touched up and some extra additions in 2017.

Shortly after, a large spider on the left side of his abdomen quickly joined the Woods’ tattoo collection. Spiders are clearly a topic of interest to Woods, who has shared some on his Instagram page over the years. The tattoo took 7 hours to complete and was done by artist and fellow climber Hunter Damiani. A year later, Daniel requested Hunter to add a large skull to his collection that would encapsulate the spider tattoo. This took 3 sessions to complete.

Next game his neck tattoo in June 2019. The eye was done by Tyson Taumaoe, an artist out of Las Vegas. Less than 6 months later, Daniel then got a hand tattoo of a grim reaper, which is thought to represent his iconic ascent of Hypnotized Minds. 

The latest tattoo was a snake, sitting below the Lion on the right side of his abdomen. It is thought that this is meant to represent the year of the snake, which includes 1989, the year Woods was born.