It seems to me that the learning curve is much more of a precipice, no? Of all the gym bouldering problems, only a few are rated for absolute beginners - the rest are much harder. Even the V-grade of, "0" is compared roughly to a 5.10 roped climb. In at least my bouldering space, you'll simply run out of things to do, quickly, as a beginner.

It may be also where I train, as the gym isn't one specifically geared towards beginners, the grades may not be as inflated as other places, and the route setters read like a who's-who of American sport climbers (Matty Hong, Jon Cardwell, etc).

I think it's just your gym. I don't know about your grading system but with 2 being walkable, my bouldering gym has about a dozen 3s, a dozen 4s and a couple dozen 5s. Routes are replaced monthly or so.

Wow! That's almost a bit of watering down of the activity!

But again, I'm in a climbing epicenter (Boulder), so I can go outside and find V1's that are nigh impossible for me to do. Problems that have been put up by people like Pat Ament, John Gill - there's still boulder problems put up 40+ years ago that still haven't had a second ascent.

I guess maybe my sentiment is also almost: bouldering should be hard. It's a problem! I would love to see footage of your 3's or 4's - I'm almost in disbelief.

I don't understand - are you surprised there are some easy routes? 3s are mostly for first timers and warming up. I'm not saying there aren't also difficult ones.

I'm surprised there's "a dozen" that are one step above, "walk-able" - absolutely! I'm used to 1 or 2 absolute beginner/warmup problems set.

I do believe my gym has a V15 set at the moment. I was watching Dave Graham unsuccessfully work a tricky V12. Pros winter over and live in the parking lot of this place.

What gym do you go to?