Jan Štipek, who in 2024 won a Euro Youth Cup in both Lead and Boulder, has done Mr. Big (9a) in Margalef. The 16-year-old first made an onsight attempt, then fell on his second go before clipping the chain on his 3rd try.

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
Climbing Mr Big was actually a spontaneous decision. My original plan for this trip was to focus on Wild West (9a), but when I tried Mr. Big, I instantly fell in love with the route. It has powerful and dynamic moves, which are exactly my style, so I decided to give it my all.

How come you did not send any hard routes in 2024?
As for 2024, I had a very long competition season, which didn’t leave much time for outdoor projects. However, even during that time, I managed to climb a few 8c routes here in Margalef, which kept me motivated for this trip. I will log them now.

What are your plans and ambitions for 2025?
My plans are both on the rocks and in competitions. I’ll be competing in the World Cup, but I’ll keep my goals there to myself for now. On the rocks, I definitely want to climb more 9a routes, an 8C+ boulder, and also something hard back home on sandstone.

Pietro Vidi has made the second repeat, after James Pearson, of Jacopo Larcher’s Tribe in Cadarese. None of the climbers have chosen to suggest a grade but based on their comments and how much effort they put in, 9a is a possible speculation. The 22-year-old Italian, who was #14 in the European Boulder Championship, is #3 in the ranking game including having done two 8C+’. (c) Camilla Moroni

Can you tell us more about the ascent and how dangerous it is?
I already checked out the route at the end of last season and immediately got hooked! As soon as the temperatures dropped I immediately went back to it, made some good progress and thought it wouldn’t take long. Turned out the route is incredibly condition dependent and gets really wet, this with a technical and low percentage crux made for a real battle that lasted way longer than I expected!

The route is actually pretty safe and the crux is well protected, but there are still some no-fall zones like the 7a intro or right after the crux where you place 2 ballnuts that I still don’t know if they would catch a fall, you probably wouldn’t hit the ground tho.

About the grade I really respect Jacopo decision [to not grade it] and the route was much more complex for me than a simple grade can express but I can definitely say it was one of my biggest fights and had a pretty hard time on the second boulder!

I got a reel on my profile of the fall from the last hard move I took many times, around 8 meters or so I think. For protecting the crux I used a grey C4 and an offset alien, placing gear was pretty pumpy for me and opted for a faster placement that popped once, so I switched back to the same placements as Jacopo and James 😅.

Did you first work it on top rope and how did you clean it before each redooint attempt?
Yes, but just for 2 sessions I think, it’s actually pretty annoying to work some of those moves with top rope, once i could make decent link I tried the crux with previous laced gear and the pretty soon started with red point attempts.

Definitely pretty annoying to jug up every time and clean it with the static rope, but is just part of the process of trad climbing I guess.

Allison Vest, who last week sent her 15th 8B, has done Meadowlark Lemon Stand (8A+) in Gateway Canyon. In September 2023, she got a hand injury [Dequervains Tenosinovitis] and it was not until five months ago she could start climbing on jugs.

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
I tried this boulder a bunch last year, not realizing how bad my hand was and feeling frustrated that it was feeling out of reach for me. Stoked to have returned healthy and feeling like myself!

Ann Tiempetpisal has done Lethal Design (8A+) in Gateway Canyon. ”I’ve heard this called anything between 7C and 8A+. It’s the first climb I’ve done harder than 7C so I have no basis for weighing in on grades and decided it doesn’t really matter to me. It’s morphological neutral and seems to be the same difficulty no matter the beta; my 5’2” spike crimp beta, the 6’4” person pulling straight up through the underclings, or the 8 year old grabbing invisible holds - that’s pretty neat. This process was an uncommon experience for me and I had a lot of fun. Thanks, everyone :)”

Can you tell us more about the ascent and the process behind?
I first tried the climb 2 years ago when my friend encouraged me to work it with him; he sent it shortly afterward and I came back last season to work it myself. It was a bit challenging to project a climb 1800 miles away; I flew out for long weekends, was rained out 3 trips in a row, I got sick for 6 months. It was feelings like I wasn’t supposed to climb this boulder, that I didn’t deserve to because I wasn’t properly respecting climbing since I hadn’t sent the grades below it.

I moved to the area but didn’t go back until a month ago when I went to support another friend. I was able to match my high point and resumed working the boulder however, I didn’t rest properly, overworked myself, and became very mentally negative. My partner told me I seemed stronger but looked as if I no longer believed I could send. I decided I needed to either get my head back in the right place or stop trying the boulder. I wasn’t ready to give up so I decided to tell myself every day that “today is the day” until I sent. Coincidentally, the first day I did, it was!