｜ Can't Believe This Exists in New York City

So, I'm in New York City right now, and in this video, I'm going to check out what the climbing scene is like here. New York, arguably the most famous city on the planet, is hiding a climbing secret. Most people know the New York climbing scene for its huge gyms and strong climbing community, which I'll be checking out in this video, but that's not all. Hidden right in the heart of Manhattan, amongst the skyscrapers, is a huge network of outdoor boulders, right in Central Park. And this is no gimmick. With the problems going all the way up to V13, there's some seriously hard climbing there. Do I have what it takes to conquer Central Park's hardest boulder? Oh, and I'm not going alone. A very special guest is joining me. These boulders had a notoriously hard reputation, so I decided to warm up at one of New York's highest-rated climbing gyms. And these gyms are not like your normal climbing gyms. They have a pretty unique twist. So, as far as I know, this gym chain is all about having fitness and climbing all in one. Here is like a little section. This is like what normal climbing gyms have, you know? They have gym sections like this, but in this gym, you also have the upstairs where there's a ton more. Inside here, there's a big gym as well that you have access to. Haven't seen that anywhere. Usually, climbing gyms have a small gym section, but not this big. Which means you can just have a membership to your climbing gym and not have to worry about a normal gym. So, this is considered one of the best gyms in New York City. Yeah, you see just how big this is. It looks very modern. And the last video I made from New York where I did the best-rated climbing gym is six years ago. And a lot has happened since then. I mean, COVID hit. I think most of the gyms were closed during that period. And then they opened, and they got more modern and bigger. And I think also nowadays, there's a lot of big companies buying up smaller gyms and making it into a big franchise. I don't know how I feel about that. You know, I like the small, personal-feeling climbing gyms as well. But also, when you have a lot of money, I guess you can make cool ---- like this. So, green is the easiest, white is the hardest. White is, I guess, V9 and up. Yeah, it would be cool to do a white today. I guess there's a lot of strong climbers in New York. So, I'm expecting the white to be hard. Okay, yeah, this one looks sick. The orange, yeah, I can... I don't know if I'm the best person to show you the best way. Oh wait, it actually looks pretty hard, the last part. It is so slippery. That's hard for an orange. Yeah, yeah, of course. Not easy though. I was feeling pretty warm now and ready to go outside. But first, I just wanted to see if I could get a white, the hardest grade in the gym. Not wanting to waste too much energy, I decided I'd just give it one go. And with that, it was time to head outside. I was ready for Central Park's hardest bowlers, but I couldn't do this alone. I needed some mats, spotters, and someone who actually knew where the bowlers were. So, I decided to reach out on Instagram to the people of New York to see if anyone was willing to help. And I managed to find someone who you might recognize. Hey, how's it going? Hey man, nice to meet you. This is Josh, better known as After Hours Climbing, famous for his viral climbing TikToks. Together with him and his friend Darren, an expert on the area, we were going to first tackle some of the park's most popular bowlers before finishing on the hardest bowler in all of New York City. So lately, I've been getting back into training hard. And right now, I would say I'm in the best shape I've been in at least a couple of years. One thing I've learned from training for so many different challenges is that working hard is not really enough. 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I'm not really even that good at bouldering, if I'm being honest. I'm kind of like a content creator. We are a B10 boulderer, right? On a good day? You know, people compare me and you every once in a while. Oh yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we both climb hard. We both film content. Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we're both young? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just slightly bigger online, you know, just slightly. I've been looking up to you for a few years now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think many people know that there's bouldering in Central Park. Or like, especially like people that don't climb. Like, it's the most random thing that climbers are even out here. Right. Oh, there's a lot of people here. Oh, this is beautiful. But yeah, the most famous line here is Polish Traverse. You start right here and you traverse all the way out to the right. That's pretty sandbagged. Pretty sandbagged. Would you say that most of the boulders here are pretty sandbagged? Oh, well, in this part of Central Park. Yeah, everything here is. Oh, you collabed with Jason Momoa. I haven't. What? That would be a great, that would be a good collab. Yeah, I know. Do you have any other like dream collabs? Like somebody that like, you would like. I mean, I used to think that would be cool to do something with Jared Leto. But he's in a lot of controversy right now. Really? Oh, ----. I don't think that'd be, yeah. Magnus, can I borrow a little bit of your chalk? Go for it. This was, this is going to be a before MagDust and after MagDust. There you go. Nice one. Glad I could help. Okay, so this is the V10. You go to this or? Uh, Magnus, you go right hand first. Oh, you go right hand first. They go to, right hand's the shitter and then they bump. I think Daniel Woods tried it and thought it was V12. Really? He thought this was V12? Daniel Woods? Back in the day, I think so, yeah. Yeah, how, like it feels more natural going up left. We have to start like this then. How the heck do you start this? Okay, this is a hard V10. I think you're just getting your butt off the ground is the crux. Flash it. I lied, actually. I'm actually a V10 climber, so yeah. That's what it says on your Instagram. Yep, yep. I actually do climb V10 though. Yeah, just like how you prank other people. You think that we're only doing a video of Central Park, but this is actually an exposed video. We're exposing Josh for not being a V10 climber. Yeah. Claiming to be a V10 climber. No, no, no, no. This is, this is real. I climb V10. How old were you when you started YouTube? Pretty old, 27. And what is performing like the best on your channels? Like is it YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok? Like TikTok. I've seen you climb with like only fence models and stuff. Oh my goodness. Oh, that's, oh, that's embarrassing. He knows. But is that what gets the most views or? Not necessarily. I mean, like it's actually kind of crazy. Because, I mean, we filmed like one where we went to like a fair and like was like trying to make as much money at the fair as possible. I think for me, it's all just creative video ideas. Like the more creative the idea, the better, you know? If you start at one move in, it's apparently V8. Okay, I can start. Yeah. So you start in this then? Yeah. Okay. Oh, come on. Oh yeah, come on. Oh my gosh. And now just straight up? Just straight up, yeah. Hell yeah. Like when you go home and you relax, like what you said you're looking forward to, what else do you do other than climbing? Just working out. Recently, I bought a motorcycle. That's kind of my hobby now. I want to learn how to do a wheelie on a motorcycle. This is cool. The fact that we're in the middle of New York and then there's boats, there's bouldering. Of course, yeah. You can take off the video. All right. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, no worries. What is your reach, Josh? Oh, I have a little bit on you. I have a lot of on you. Like an inch maybe? How tall are you? Like five, 11, six foot. In the video, six foot. Six foot. Yeah. Yeah, I'm actually like 5'9", I think. Okay, but you say 5'11". Yeah, yeah, because nobody would expect me to lie about 5'11", right? But is that on your dating apps as well? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, Josh, professional climber, V12 climber. This is off camera, right? This isn't going in. Yeah, yeah, it's not recording. Oh, okay, good, good. Now it was time for the final boulder, the hardest boulder in all of New York City, which only two people had ever climbed before. So it's down here. It's kind of secret, like I would never have been able to find this on my own. The sit start to this boulder was V13 and the stand V11, so we thought we'd start with the stand start. But after cleaning the boulder, we encountered a slight problem. It is really bad. If we fall and land on this, that's gonna destroy our ankles. I think we should have one person always just like, well, one person spotting, one person like moving pads. Come on. Yeah, come on. Where's that? Yep, come on. Find it, dude. Spot him. Come on. Oh, that's f****** rock. Yeah, we should probably push that. Come on, man. So solid. Oh, yes. Nice. Come on, dude. Come on, man. Move out. Just make sure there's no gap. Come on, dude. Oh, dude. No, it's not the spot. Oh, it was a little bit lower. I got you. Come on. Yes, I'm moving back. Come on. Where the f*** is it? Yeah, yeah. Do you ever see yourself competing again? No, not in the IFSC. Not IFSC, yeah. It's just the level is crazy high. I don't think people watching my videos probably think that, oh, you're close to that level, but it's miles. You know, it's like running the 100 meter sprint in 11 or 10 seconds. It sounds the same pretty much, but the difference is just huge. Have you climbed with any World Cup climbers? I climbed with Xander Waller. That was the closest. Because when you do, you realize just that. Yeah. Doing the hardest bowlers in your gym is not enough. He was playing around on them. You know, he's like doing eliminates. But I am doing a video at the World Cup in Salt Lake City. I want to do a video with the Japanese team, kind of behind the scenes to see how they train and why they're so much better than anyone else. And then maybe another video where I like try some of the bowlers or something. I'm so curious on how you're going to do on that. That is going to be like a very like... I will be tuning in on that one for sure. Come on. Let's get it. Back that back. All right, I got them over here. Let's go, man. Holy ----. You saw the top right there. Dude, but it feels so far though. When you look up, you're just like, holy crap. I don't know if it comes across like just how big it feels. Not move. Oh, where's the front? Come on, man. Come on. I'm chilling. Yo, good spot. Yeah, that's great. Thank you. This bowler was super hard and pretty sketchy. Everyone was really struggling on it. Me included. And with all of us getting tired, it just felt like none of us were going to get it. Come on. Yes, come on. No way, dude. Holy crap, that's scary. It looked like today just wasn't our day. Come on, man. Oh yeah, so solid. Make sure you haven't spotted. Yeah, nice, dude. Holy crap. Good job, dude. Dude, that was strong. That was also very brave. Yeah, I kind of just like went for it.