Daniel Fuertes, who started climbing in 1995 has done his first 9a+ at 36 years old, the FA of No Pain No Gain in Rodellar. The 40 m route out of which 30 m in a roof has been an open project since it was bolted 15 years ago. (c) David López Campe "And finally the day came! Very glad to get to the end of the process started when I was a kid with my good friend Alejandro Gimenez! We dreamed, visualized and bolted this fantastic line we thought we would never do! But finally we managed to close the project in the better way!"

Nautilus says that from a neuroscience point of view, Honnold's brain is "strange". In the very long article from last year, they present results from a scan from his brain as well as questionnaire Honnold answered. "Nowhere in the fear center of Honnold’s brain could the neuroscientist spot activity."

BMC reports that Steve McClure has done his long-term project in Malhalm, weighing in at 9b. Here is part of an article from 2015 describing him as a late bloomer, when we made a review of his autobiography - Beyond the Limits. Having trad climbed for 20 years, Steve started sport climbing when he was 24. At 26 he made his first 8a redpoint (in fact it was 8b) and within a year he went from 8a to 8c+. Two years later, in 1998, he made the FA of Mutation as an 9a but as nobody has repeated it yet, the community now considers it as perhaps 9a+. In fact, other than Jordan Buys (who repeated Rainshadow, 9a at Malham) the only person to have repeated any of his 9a's and harder FAs is Adam Ondra who already has said "The upper end of the grade for sure, 3 stars." for Overshadow 9a+. In fact, using the modern variation and link up thinking, Steve has done several more 9a's but just as a personal challenge as he wants all his routes to be of the highest quality.

El Cap Report has presented some mind-blowing pictures of Alex Honnold free soloing Freerider, almost 1 000 meters up to 7c+, in Yosemite.