William Bosi did the second ascent of Daniel Woods’ Return of the Sleepwalker (9A) in February. This was the third 9A for the former competitive climber who has already completed Burden of Dreams (9A) and Alphane (9A). The 25-year-old stopped competing in 2021 after having had his best year in 2019, twice placing fourth in the World Cup.

Back in 2022, Theo Blass sent Trip tik tonik (9a) and became the youngest climber to have done a 9a.

Marco Müller has repeated L'isola che non c'è (9a) in Amden. (c) Moritz Waldleben

”The route "L'isola che non c'è" is a hybrid boulder/sport climb first climbed by Fred Nicole 15 years ago. It is located in a cave near Amden, Switzerland, and it sit-starts at the lowest point following a logical and natural line about 15 meters long to the exit of the cave. It can be divided into three parts. The first part being a crimpy roof boulder [Ragtime (8B+)]. Then there's an easier middle part which goes straight into the last boulder, which is quite powerful. After that, there's an easier climb to exit the cave.”

Siara Fabbri has done Forever More sit start (8A+) in Brione. "Good send vibes and lovely feeling learning how to make the bottoms moves feel natural." (c) Simone Tentori

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
We came back to Ticino after a long time away and I was psyched to try this line! Fun climbing on smooth holds next to the river, with some crimps and a mantle. The process on this boulder was really nice. In my eyes, the first 2 moves (to arrive at the crimp) are the hardest and then it is fine after that. These 2 moves initially felt weird and difficult but ended up being technical, where drop knee, full crimp, and squeezing the pinch at first instead of crimping (focus on where to apply force) made them feel natural. Motivated to one day have this so intuitive to be able to flash a boulder like this!

Ana Belen Argudo reports on Instagram that she over the last four weeks has sent Open your mind (8c+) and La Novena Puerta (8c+) in Santa Linya, as well as, Joe Blau (8c+) in Oliana. (c) Javi Pec

The 21-year-old competed actively up until 2021 when she was #7 in the Combined Youth World Championship. Her progress sport climbing has been dramatic since leaving competitive climbing, and here is a mini-doc of her sending Cordia Maleficarum (9a) two years ago.

”We came to Catalunya at the beginning of February, to visit Patxi Usobiaga at his house and to climb around. The first crag was Oliana (just 10 minutes from Patxi’s house) and my first time ever at the wall. I tried the super classic ‘Joe Blau’ 8c+ A 50 meters route, a style out of my comfort as I’m not used to climb routes of this type of endurance and length that often. So at that moment we combined Oliana with Margalef and the 23/02 on my 4 day on the route I sent it.

After that I came for the first time to the famous cave of Santa Linya and I tried ‘Novena Puerta’ 8c+ a completely different style with kneebars, and very physical. So at that moment we started to combine Santa Linya too and the 03/03 I sent it. So I wanted to find a new project till the very top of the cave, so I tried the second pitch ‘La Novena enmienda’ but it has a veeery long move for my span. Patxi was trying ‘Direct open your mind’ so I decided to try ‘Open your mind’ 8c+ and I like it very much because this one was pockets style with various monos and very physical. I struggled with the boulder on the last part till after falling a few times there I decided to change the beta and the next day with very high temperatures and humidity I sent it (19/03).

So now we are back in Margalef to start to combine with ‘El raco de la finestra’ projects. Day 1 to try first “Perfecto Passat R2” 9a a route that I already give it a few attempts last year. And the Day 2 to Santa Linya to try “Rollito Sharma R3” 8c+ as I want to get to the very top of the cave.

In the past I have been always focus on just on one route at a time till I sent it. But this new way of face the projects, mixing styles and different crags keeps my motivation very high all the time and relieve some of the pressure or the mental fatigue that you have when you are trying just one route. I also feel myself a lot more complete as a climber and that I’m just getting better and improving in so many ways, and at the same time I’m happier during the process of working the projects.

From the end of 2022 and till April of 2023 I was injured and there were 5 months I could not climb. When I recover from the injury and could climb again, between May and December I did 15 routes of 8c and 8c+ in six different climbing destinations. This started from my desire to climb a lot after being a long period with out not being able to do it, so for my head sounded better the idea of climb as many route as possible than to focus on only one harder project. I set the goal on doing 10 routes what seemed very ambitious, but after doing 6 or 7 I thought that I could put the aim on 15 and the 28/12/2023 I could do the last one, very close to the end of the year.

During the last 3 years I have done 26 routes between 8c and 9a. One of my lifetime goals is to send 8c or harder in as many places as possible.”