Cathy Wagner started climbing 30 years ago and now, being 50 years old, she is having her best year ever with 55 routes 8a and harder done. Just during the last two weeks, she has done three 8a's and two 8a+'s including Nosferatu in La Palais, which she did yesterday.

Based on some 4 000+ votes, we present the results of the opinion poll Who are your female climbing heroes?: 23% Lynn Hill 10% Alex Puccio, Ashima Shiraishi 07% Anna Stöhr, Nina Caprez, Josune Bereziartu 05% Jain Kim, Shauna Coxsey, Sasha Digulian 04% Mina Markovic, Angela Eiter, Juliane Wurm, Janja Garnbret 02% Robyn Erbesfield-Raboutou, Allizee Dufraisse, Muriel Sarkany Comparing to a similar poll from 2012, Alex Puccio, Ashima Shiraishi, Juliane Wurm and Janja Garnbret are getting higher numbers. Kind of surprising is that many of the highest numbers are given to the boulderers, which is the opposite to the male, where route climbers were most popular. The 23% for Lynn Hill can be compared to the #1 male, Chris Sharma, who got 13%. The names most frequently mentioned among "Others", were Catherine Destivelle and Barbara Zangerl.

Gorka Karapeto has done Estato Critico 9a in Siurana, which is the famous route Alex Megos onsigted some years ago. The 34-year-old Spaniard did three 9a's previously.

Calw Bouldering, Zickenalarm 8a+/b. from Chris Davies on Vimeo.

Mina Markovic, who won the World Cup 2015, has done the FFA of Popolni mrk 8c in Osp/Misja Pec. (c) Luka Fonda, who decribes the route. "The route is about 35 meters long where the first 15 meters are pumpy followed with a long and very hard boulder on small crimps and bad footholds in gently overhanging wall. After that you get a decent rest on small tufas and exciting steep boulder to finish on top of the wall." During the last two weeks, Mina has done eight routes 8b and harder in Osp/Misja Pec including three flashes and one 8c+. In the 8a preliminary climber of the year list Mina is #4 after Ondra, Shiraishi and Megos.

Utah Bouldering Trip from 8HOUSE on Vimeo.

Cody Roth has done the 3rd ascent of Rupesh Chhagan's I Me Mine, in central Texas. "Anytime I take down a line at my limit it's hard not to doubt myself. Was it really that hard? It's never the top that I thought it was going to be. Climbing is a beautiful curse." Previously he did some 30 routes 8c and harder out of which two FA's about as hard as I Me Mine. In 2003, Cody was #6 in his World Cup debut but later during seven more events he did never better than #14.

Chris Sharma goes Back to the Future on "Magie Blanche" (8b+) 1986 from Petzl-sport on Vimeo.

Domen Škofic has done Seleccio natural 9a in Santa Linya on his 3rd go. Having done this and onsighted Rock fucks, he goes to the 4th place in the ranking game. His first 9a he did when he was 15 years old and since then he has developed in an interesting way. This year the 21-year-old was also #4 in the Lead World Cup and being from Slovenia, he is a part of their success story.