Tara Hayes has made the first female ascent of Isles of Wonder (f8B), at Carreg Mianog Boulders, Gwynedd, Wales.

Offering steep, crimpy, and compression-y climbing, the boulder, which was established by Pete Robins in 2012, is often spoken of as one of the best at the grade in the UK.

In 2021, Aidan Roberts went on to establish a lower start, Isles of Wonder SDS (f8C+), which - at the time - was the hardest boulder in the UK.

Isles of Wonder is Tara's second boulder at 8B, having made an ascent of Fat Lip (f8B) towards the end of 2023. In making the ascent, Tara joins an exclusive list of just three British women to have climbed multiple boulders at 8B or harder.

We got in touch with Tara shortly after she made the ascent, to find out more:

Congratulations on climbing Isles of Wonder! You said on Instagram that this was the most you've ever put into a climb, what was it about Isles of Wonder that made you commit so much to it?

Thank you! I think the climb itself is very inspiring, it's a very pure straight-up line in the mountains, with cool moves and good holds. In general, I'm also more psyched on shorter climbs where the difficulty comes from the individual moves being really hard, and this boulder basically revolves around three moves, so it was the perfect challenge really.

I also felt close to doing it after a few sessions, so I wasn't going to stop trying it until I'd done it, regardless of how many sessions it would take. 

What was your process when working the boulder? Did you have help from anyone along the way?

To begin with, it was quite relaxed and I tried it with various people to see if it was possible, work out the moves and learn some of the intricacies. I think it's good to have other people around for this to share beta and make it light-hearted and fun.

Over the last month I committed to having regular sessions on it to give myself the best chance of making fast progress. At that point, I was really close to doing it and actually preferred to try the boulder on my own, so most of those sessions were by myself.

I found it much easier to get in the right mental zone to focus and try hard without other people around, which is actually the first time that's been the case. Normally I welcome a distraction to take the pressure away and stop me from over-thinking.

What was the crux for you?

I think for me it was the big move up to the right hand edge. That was by far the most committing move and the distance is also far, so it doesn't feel very controlled. Naturally that made it quite a low percentage move for me, which meant linking it from the start was surprisingly hard, despite the move not feeling near my limit on its own. The first move suited me very well, so once I learnt the position it wasn't too bad.

Tell us about the mental challenges that you faced when climbing Isles of Wonder?

With the crux being the last move for me, that meant it was inevitably going to be a hard link, despite it being a short boulder. In the end I think I dropped the big move from the start over twenty-five times, which as you can imagine was very frustrating.

It's also maybe the first hard boulder ever where I've actually been confident that I'll do it. Unfortunately, this made each failed session harder to take and quite demoralising because I couldn't figure out why I couldn't piece it together. 

I tried various things to get in the right head space where I had the confidence and commitment to give it 100%. In the end I actually climbed it with headphones in to help me try harder. This is the first time I've had to do that, so I think it shows how much of a challenge it was mentally as well as physically. 

This is your second boulder at the grade, how did your time on Isles of Wonder compare to your time on Fat Lip, 8B?

In terms of difficulty, they're very hard to compare. Fat Lip is sustained but doesn't have an obvious crux, whereas Isles of Wonder is very short and powerful, with harder moves. 

I'd say my progress on Fat Lip was more linear because the key to linking it was improving efficiency and gaining fitness, which naturally happened from just having time on the boulder. Once I had the moves dialled, my execution was really good which took away some of the physicality and made the link go fairly smoothly. 

I naively thought that Isles of Wonder would be much easier to link because it's only three moves long (excluding the top out), so efficiency isn't as important and there's basically less that can go wrong. Unfortunately this wasn't the case, and having the crux at the end of the boulder made it really hard to finish. It was also harder to make improvements on because there wasn't as much to refine, so the progress was way slower. I hit the finish hold from the start on maybe my third session, but it took about another ten to actually stick it.  

Fat Lip is also quite local to me and stays dry in the rain which made it logistically easy. Isles of Wonder is a long drive away and a fairly long walk so it required a lot more commitment in that respect too. The weather this year has also been terrible so finding time to try it between the rain, setting, and training was really hard. 

Last time we spoke, you mentioned that climbing 8B was a big goal in spite of having previously focused mainly on comps. Where would you say your focus is currently in relation to indoors vs outdoors climbing?

I'm definitely mainly focusing on outdoor climbing now, I'd like to keep trying hard boulders and see where I can push to. I'm thinking of possibly doing some sport climbing too, as I've not done any for about ten years now...

How did it feel to top the boulder out?

Honestly so good! It was a combination of happiness and relief. I was so used to going for the big move and then finding myself back on the mats, so it felt a bit surreal to finally stop on the hold. Luckily I held it together and did the top out quite smoothly, I was actually a bit nervous about dropping that!

Any other projects you can tell us about, or trips lined up?

I've not really decided on my next project, but it'll probably be a more local one this time. I'm going to Switzerland in November so I'll be training hard for that too.