Ale Zeni, who last year put up the world's first 9a+ slab, comments his passion for slabs, his 9b FA Cryptography from January, and his big MP project. He woks in the military section of high mountains. "I love climbing on the slabs for some reason. The first one is because near my house in Primiero (Dolomites) there are just slabs and I grow up with the Manolo's routes. Also because I love the feeling of my body when I search the perfect balance, and I love looking for the really small crimps on the walls that in the beginning seems like a mirror. For Cryptography I made on my wall the crux of the route (replicas). Where I try it with the wight west to improve my finger power. I don't know exactly how many attempts I did. But approximately something like 40 attempts, during 14 trips, I including the attempts on Bain the Sang and Bimba Luna. The mp project is in Val Nuvola a beautiful 250 mt wall. Riccardo Scarian and I started bolting this new route from the ground with long runouts some years ago. We have already completed the first 4 pitches that could be: 7c+, 8b (8a obligatory); 7c, and the last one 8c. Then there are more 3 pitches that could be harder.

Angy Eiter, the only female who has done a 9b, started bolting in Leonidio in 2015. The last year, the four time Lead World Champion, took it to a new level and made the FA of Schatzinsel after four days of bolting and in total four months of projecting. (c) Claudia Ziegler "It was such a great experience to bolt this steep and long line. It was tough work and at the same time, a wonderful thing to free it and give it a name :-) The route has a mixture of different moves (crimps, slopers, pinches, underclings, shoulder moves, etc.). It begins on a slightly overhanging wall, then it traverses to the left into a roof and finishes with a slightly overhanging wall. Altogether the route is about 40 meters long, with mostly hard moves and three crux sequences. My husband Bernie regularly lives out his passion for bolting and is already quite experienced. I made the most of this knowledge and asked him to coach me in bolting my own line. We searched for a virgin wall and after some time, found a place not far away from my home region Imst. In the beginning, I was worried about the bad quality of this rock there, but at the same time, I loved this place. Bernie was ready to help me bolting. It took me a while until I found the ideal beta for me and could start real attempts to complete the line. I failed many times, but on one day I could put enough effort into the line, I found my flow and found myself overjoyed as I clipped the chains. I managed to complete my line that I called „Schatzinsel“. Concerning the grade, it’s not my hardest route but belongs amongst the hardest ones I have climbed. Repetitions are needed to find a consensus."

Climbing Canada have decided to not send any youth team to the Youth WCH in Russia in August. They do not think their athletes will be able to prepare good enough and, " logistics to travel to Russia in August are very difficult and health and safety concerns in Moscow are significant." They have also listed several criteria in order participate in World Cups like, "Medical advice indicates health risks to athletes and staff related to COVID-19 and the travel/logistics of the event are zero."

Jana Vincourkova has come back stronger than ever after the lockdown with two 8A+', Rigger in Blansko (video) and the FA of Dab Police in Zelená Hora (video) In 2012, she won a Euro Cup and last year she started climbing again after two years break. "Since there is the lockdown and I am working from home already for two months. I had/have quite some time to do hang boarding. We have the PUC series and it is way harder than the fixed ones like Beastmaker for example. It improved my core by miles. And finger strength for sure to. A lot of pizza helps as well. We started to visit less frequented granite areas that offers small crimps, which is the thing that suits me the most. One of them I managed to do in a day only. It is a variation of a 7C+ in a roof where you skip the biggest jug, creating even harder crux-moves in super tiny finger crack. It is really hard to avoid any dabs. It was a project and since I saw it I knew I had to try it, so that is my first 8A+ FA."

Matt Fultz has done the second ascent of Daniel Woods' Everything Gneiss in Clear Creek Canyon suggesting an upgrade to 8C.

Jakob Schubert reports on Insta that he has made the second repeat, after Adam Ondra, of Alex Huber's Weisse Rose in Schleier Wasserfalle from 1994. "Austria is making good progress fighting the virus and consequently we are allowed to climb outside again. Still keeping it to a minimum but it feels so good to crimp hard on rock after all the pull ups and backyard training." Huber called it XI (8c+/9a) at the time but Adam said it was a solid 9a and maybe even 9a+. (c) Alpsolut pictures