Pepa Šindel, with 15 routes 9a and beyond under his belt, has sent Maitre Vauban und der Basilisk (9a) in Höllental. The 18-year-old repeated Chiroptera (9a+) in 2022 which has still not seen a third ascent.

Can you tell us more about the ascent and the process behind?
The first time I tried Maitre Vauban und der Basilisk was last summer. I gave it 3 tries when it was 30°C in the shade, and I hadn’t trained for 2 months, so you can imagine how it went :) But I knew I would return because the line is really beautiful, and I’m surprised it has so few repetitions.

The route is very endurance-based, with 5 boulders and 4 kneebar rests in between. The crux is right below the anchor, after you’ve already climbed 30 meters to get there. It’s a really strange sequence revolving around a small sidepull and getting over the lip with poor high feet, then bumping to 2 small crimps before reaching the final jug.

I did it second go, not remembering any beta from last year, and I also did Versehrtendachl (8c+), but I was too weak and tired to finish the second pitch, which is a 9a.

Emil Abrahamsson, who sent The Story Of 2 Worlds (8C) back in 2023, has now added Biologico (9a) in Arco to his list of sends. The Swede began his climbing journey a bit overweight at 158 cm and 75 kg and has since grown to 183 cm and 82 kg, becoming a motivating example for everyday climbers. His YouTube channel now counts 342K subscribers and around 270 videos since launching in 2018.

What is your climbing background?
I began climbing the year I turned 16, which will be 14 years ago this year. My obsessive nature led to decent progress during my first few years of climbing, resulting in our first interview nearly 9 years ago after I climbed one of my first few 8B/V13s after about 5 years of climbing. Over the years I've predominantly been a boulderer, with the occasional sport climbing excursion here and there. Between 2020 and 2024, I juggled competing for the Swedish National Team with rock climbing and my YouTube channel. Spending 40-50 hours editing videos and another 20-25 hours training each week, plus adding YouTube filming sessions, was quite taxing on my body. I realized it was a bit much and decided to cut back on competitions because I was always either overtrained or overworked. Ultimately, that resulted in a long streak of injuries, and I stopped trying to perform at my highest level between 2024 until the beginning of 2026. Don't get me wrong, I've been training hard and have climbed stuff I thought were difficult in that time, but I put performance goals on the back burner in favour of my health and to focus on the YouTube channel.

How have you progressed over the years and what is your progress philosophy?
My progression has been pretty steady, although strictly based on grades I guess not quite as much. I have increased my level a little bit every year, leading me to climb 8C/V15 as my hardest. I try not to use grades as a definitive form of measurement, although I find grades incredibly fun to chase. Grades are the equivalent of leveling up in a video game. It's fun to level up, you can be psyched about it, but they do not tell your full story about how good you are at playing the game. As an example, sometimes people will call me a "9a" climber or "8C boulderer", but truth be told I don't climb harder than 7A/V6. I say that because if you put me on a slab with pebble feet that's probably the grade I max out at. I believe the best way to progress is to stay open to how much there is to learn as a climber, at any difficulty. PS. I projected a V4 when I visited Joshua Tree last year. Didn't do it.

What is most important for being a relatively big climber?
I'm 82kg/180lbs, which I guess constitutes relatively big. That being said, it's easy to fall into the trap that being lighter is important for climbing, because if I added a 20kg weight vest then climbing would be harder, naturally. However, if you take away 10kg from my body I'd struggle with all kinds of health problems and feel fatigued, weak and overall bad. I know this from experience, I should add. So, the most important thing for me is remembering what climbing well and feeling strong is like for my body. I can rarely use other people's beta, and I have to analyse what my body can do well and adapt to that.

Can you tell us more about Biologico and the process behind?
I had quite a rough year 2025 health and injury wise, and in August last year an orthopedic surgeon even told me I should consider retiring from climbing, as he suspected I had arthritis in my shoulder. I waited anxiously for my MRI results for over a month. That turned into quite a soul searching month for me, where I realised more than ever just how much I love the ability to climb. Once the doctor received the results, it turned out his initial thoughts were severely exaggerated; in fact, it just seemed to be that a muscle had checked out, forcing the surrounding tissue to compensate. This injury prevented me from doing as much as a single pull up, so between July - November I focused on just recovering and climbing with a straight arm. I managed my first pull-up in about 5 months in the middle of November, and I was very grateful for that pull-up. Quite quickly after that I could go fully into training mode, and I really wanted to dedicate myself to a new goal in climbing. That ended up being my lead climbing ability.

I moved to Arco in December for a few months to be closer to nature but also for this goal. I had spent some time in Flatanger the previous year and although I ended up mostly working out how to place a kneebar and not really climbing any routes I learned a lot from that experience. After an encounter with the first ascensionist of Biologico (and legend of our sport) Adam Ondra, he recommended the route to me. It was a perfect recommendation, and I did all the moves on the first session and got it in three overlapping links on the second session. However, piecing all of this together took many more sessions in the end. Throughout the process I learnt a lot about effeciency and how to recover on the wall, and I'm very grateful for my time on the route.

Biologico was an interesting process because I had very little experience with what it takes to climb routes close to my limit before this. I'd tried some harder routes before, but never adapted my training specifically for lead climbing for an extended period. Climbing individual parts and climbing a whole route are very different things. Thinking about it now, outdoors I've only done 10 routes between 8a-8b+, and the majority of those were done in 2017 before bouldering completely took over my climbing focus. It took me a while to figure out how to combine my bouldery style of climbing with lead climbing, but once I did, the route came together and felt incredibly satisfying to climb. However, I've never climbed an 8c or 8c+, so I guess that's next!

Moritz Welt, with 13 routes 9a and beyond under his harness, only in Frankenjura, has done Unplugged (9a). (c) Daoud Sadlowski

Can you tell us more about the ascent and the process behind?
I am currently having my annual spring home season. As I have done most of the established routes in Frankenjura I'm interested in, I am recently more focused on developing new lines here. But as most of these are so hard that I am not ready to give send tries yet, I need to try something else in the meantime that feels actually doable :)

Luckily there are still a few classics missing on my ticklist, and Unplugged was one of them, maybe even the most prominent one. It's the second 9a in Frankenjura (FA by Markus Bock 2003), so notably the first one after AD, which was established 12 years earlier! I had tried it before but was a bit intimidated to try again, because there was this last boulder that felt quite hard for me. Turns out this season I was finally ready! Took me 2 sessions to do the top crux from the left (which makes it a hard 8c) and 3 more to finally link everything together from the Unplugged start! :)

Andrea Lostia di Santa Sofia, who did his first 9a in March, has made the first repeat of The Watchtower (9a) in Lecorci. ”The queen of Ulassai, hardest line I ever climbed.”

Can you tell us more about the ascent and the process behind?
I started trying this route last september, after sending the last 8c+ in Ulassai I wanted to look for something harder, this route caught my eye. Initially I wasn’t sure the route was possible, nobody had done it and the wall looked blank. The only reason I didn’t give up is because this feeling reminded me of the first time I tried ‘Fear Is The Mind Killer’ in Lecorci, which I then first ascended, I knew not to trust the part of me that told me it wasn’t possible.

In november my friend Giorgio Tomats came to visit and we tried the route together, we worked the moves and found solutions, in that trip we also made some FA’s in Isili such as Terzo Tempo 8c+ and Free Bronx 8c+, but The Watchtower was still too hard.

Giorgio decided to come back to sardinia just to send it, and he did, claiming the FA to Ulassai’s first 9a, during this time I kept trying the route, always falling on the same move from the ground.

It was extremely frustrating and I considered giving up multiple times, which had never happened to me before on a route. Just when I was about to abandon all hope, I stuck the move and fought my way to the top, battling numb toes and pump.

This is my second and hardest 9a after Estado Critico, and it’s very important to me as Estado Critico was the first 9a climbed by a sardinian, and The Watchtwer is the first time it happens in Sardinia.

The route is a prow towering above Lecorci, it follows a black stripe. The hard section starts after a kneebar with a phisical boulder followed right after by an extremely tricky 2 move boulder, where I fell for months coming from the ground. Stuck the move there is a third and final boulder on small crimps leading you to a rest before the final, potentially heartbreaking, easier section.

Marco Müller, who in February sent his first 8C+, has done Power of Now Direct (8C) in Magic Wood.

Can you tell us more about the ascent and the process behind?
Power of Now (8B+) was at the top of my list to try this spring. Surprisingly, it went down in the first session. I then tried the first move a bit and knew the direct start was possible, but my skin was already worn and the power was fading.

It took me three more sessions to climb it from the direct start. It only adds one move, but for me the launch into the second jump felt much harder, as I couldn’t quite hit the holds perfectly. Plus, I felt more tired for the last jump coming from the direct start, where I fell a couple of times.

Yannick Flohé has repeated Nathaniel Coleman’s No One Mourns the Wicked (9A) in Thunder Ridge, giving it a personal 8C+ grade. The first repeater, Hamish McArthur comments on Yannick’s Instagram post. “The downgrade seems to make sense.” Last year, Yannick became the first boulderer to flash 8C. (c) Griffin Appel

“I came to the US for a Red Rocks trip but had to change my plans due to an unexpected heat wave. My specific goal was to get my hands on Shaolin (9A) as it looks very much my style and I was also looking forward to climbing somewhere different than Switzerland where I spent most of my bouldering trips the past years. I found out that March was supposed to be the best season not too warm but not too cold. I don’t like climbing in the cold as I’ve got very dry skin and can’t try hard with too many layers on.

The weather in Vegas turned out to be the opposite though. Unlike last season, March sucked. 35 degrees Celsius in the city and sandstone that never cooled down already ended my plans on the first day. I decided this was not the time to get into a long term project and I spent a week on vacation, before heading to Colorado – without any specific projects in mind.

On my first day I checked out Defying Gravity (8C) with Daniel and Collin. Defying is in the middle of nowhere, about two hours driving on small and dirt roads from Denver followed by another 45 min hike. After a pretty good first try I tried a couple of grip types for the campus start move and sent shortly after. After the send I started playing around on the low start „No One Mourns The Wicked“. NOMTW adds around 8A into Defying Gravity and I immediately got psyched. There’s no really hard single move but the main crux for me was getting into the stand start position and keeping my feet on the wall to execute the Defying move.

Hamish and Nathaniel used a high right heel for the move into the stand and the big crux move. The heel felt too reachy for me so it took me a couple of sessions switching between different betas to find the way that suited me best. I ended up using a micro foot to give me a little push for the campus move. The main challenge was dry conditions, crazy wind and my dry skin which made climbing on this glassy polished rock very challenging. I’ve had days with 15% humidity and crazy wind where I couldn’t even do the stand moves and other days with clouds and rain that felt so sticky that I was able to do the Defying move multiple times in a row for warm up.

The day I sent I walked to the crag in the rain with low wind and very high humidity which made the holds much stickier than in the sessions before. From the first day I was sure that I could send NOMTW, but in the end it took me 7 sessions. Anyway I don’t think that this climb is 9A considering this was more a battle against conditions and dry skin than the boulder. I’ve not sent 9A yet but I know what other 9As feel like and therefore I would suggest 8C+. For sure a magical place and one of the best boulders in the world."