Roland Hemetzberger reports great Christmas news on Facebook and attaches a picture by Stefan Kuehn, "Oh yeahhhhhhhhh what a f***ing rad XMas present / After 20 years as a project I was able to send it today. I invested so much time in this piece of rock I can't believe it... For sure my hardest climb I ve ever done and it's a big honor for me to freed this old project from "Stefan Fürst" I don't know how hard I would suppose around 9a+ what ever rad one... cheers" The Austrian did a dozen 8c+'s previously and a couple of 9a's, and also an 8c+ on pre-placed trad gear. Many of his FAs has not been repeated yet.

Ashima Shiraishi (14) comes with amazing news on Facebook, (c) Ikuko Serata "Santa Claus gave me the best Christmas present ever🎁! I sent Phenomena V14 (8b+) in Hinokage, Miyazaki!!! This was the 2nd ascent after @dai_koyamada and the first female ascent!! I once again surprised myself by sending it after about 30 MINUTES of working on it!!!" This was the 14-year-old's second 8B+ and one of the quickest 8B+ ascents in the history of bouldering. Adam Ondra and Daniel Woods are the only ones who have flashed an 8B+. In the 8a ranking game, Ashima is #2 in bouldering but if we take in consideration both routes and boulders, Ashima has been #1 in the world since she was 12 years old.

Joe's Valley from 8HOUSE on Vimeo.

Have a look at the first 4 releases here.

Edu Marin has done Directa open your mind R2 9a+ in Santa Linya. (c) Giancola "Yesterday was a great day for me! I knew my form was good but after a week in bed because of a nasty flu, I had my doubts for my project. Nothing is further from reality ... I got to take Direct Open Your Mind 9a + R2 and signing the fourth repetition to close a long and successful season!" In a Desnivel interview, Edu explains that he did the full line and he marked it R2 to differente it from the R1 version stopping mid-ways which Ashima Shiraishi and others have done. The R2 adds an 8c after the 9a R1 anchor.

In our database there are now 3.7 million rated ascents that could help you to find the best crags and routes/boulders in the world. Selecting the next destination, you can search the crag list and analyze average stars and onsight rating etc. In the Ticklists, you can select a grade and a sector and make a list of the routes or boulders you would like to try.

Some of you noticed login problems last week. This was caused by some updates we did to the site that had needed to be done in order to support our new server for routes.8a.nu. All is solved now and login (especially with cookies) should go even faster now :). In the weeks to come we are also going to start testing with support for https and hopefully roll out a beta prototype for the new design for the scorecard. Please add your email to our list at routes.8a.nu if you would like to be included in the (private) beta.