Pleun Frank has done her first 8A, Pressure drop in Zillertal. The 18-year-old is from the Netherlands and has only been climbing outside a handful of times before. Last summer she did three 7C's.

"I initially did not come to Austria for climbing outside. I competed in the World Cup in Innsbruck first. My coach Michiel, teammate Don and I did plan to go climb outside for three days because we were already there. We tried looking for a hard boulder to see what I could do in it, but I never thought I would climb 8A that fast! Together with Michiel and Don I was able to find out the right beta in an hour. The day after I fell from the top hold, took a day of resting and on the third day, it rained so I had no choice but to do it.

Even though the competition didn't go so well, I was able to end the trip with a nice new outside boulder on my list. I hope to come back soon to Zillertal to try more boulders and enjoy the beautiful surroundings."

Adam Ondra has published his chat with Pietro Dal Pra, who has been working in La Sportiva for 20+ years, on AdamOndra.com. Interestingly, both Adam and Pietro, think that resoled shoes are better than a new one. La Sportiva has 41 official authorized resolers spread out in Europe including one at their factory in the Dolomites.

Adam: I’d also like to get to resoling the shoes. I climb almost every day and I consume 12 or 14 pairs a year. That’s a lot....The good thing is that it’s not only good for the environment, but it could actually be a better shoe. It could perform better!
Pietro: I think, after the first resoling, you’ll have the best shoes you can get. Because the upper part already has the shape of your foot, it’s already a bit softer, and we resole the sole. We are really pushing, as a company, in the direction of resoling. Because environmentally…we have to do it.
Adam: Maybe a good advice would be to send it for resoling before it’s completely destroyed.
Pietro: This is a very good point, actually. Many climbers would like to save some money, so they climb a little bit more, and a little bit more, and so on. But in the end, they would have saved more money if they had sent the shoe to be resoled earlier.

Chuck Odette, who did his first 8b+/c last year at age 64, shares his story of getting umbilical hernia after a weird fall.

”The fall was diagonal, moving right to left, on semi steep terrain. Maybe 20-25 degrees over hanging. In was about 8 feet past the crux bolt. I stuck the hard move but my left hand popped off a small hold and my body corkscrewed outward so I was facing away from the rock. I fell about 20 feet sideways. At the end of the fall my harness waist belt rode up into my lower left rib area with heavy impact. This caused the torn connective tissue damage on my left side.

I continued climbing but eventually had to stop due to the pain and discomfort of both injuries. Two weeks later now, my side is still healing and super sore. I can push the hernia back into place but it pops back out with any exertion. Evan a sneeze or cough will pop it back out.

I'll be better after surgery for the hernia which happens on 12 July. Off for a couple of weeks of recovery after surgery then some rehab (2-4 weeks) and I will be back in action.

Turns out umbilical hernias are common among climbers of all ages. They're only fixable with surgery. Left neglected they can get worse and become life threatening. The surgery is minor if done early after diagnosis. I've encountered a few climbers who have been dealing with this injury for a while. Not good. Might be good to get this message out.

Symptoms of abdominal hernia are a lump near the navel. Hernias can also appear in the upper and lower abdominal area as well as the groin. It's basically a section of small intestine being forced out through the abdominal muscles creating a permanent hole or weakness, thus the need for minor surgery. The condition is more uncomfortable than painful. However, if untreated, can become incredibly painful obviously.”

Antoine Kauffmann has made the FA of Le théâtre et son double 8c+ in Kronthal. It has been a project since 2007 but even so, Kauffmann only needed 4-5 tries over two days. Uncut video (c) Yann Corby, explains that one possible reason for this is that he found a new very good rest due to the use of a knee pad. The difficulty consists of a four moves 7C boulder going into the rest, followed by an 8c. Previously in 2021, Kauffmann has done The Big Island, for which he suggested 8B+, as well as Aloha 9a (+) in Kronthal. The next stop for him is Flatanger.

Hazel Findlay, one of the best female trad climbers in the world, has done Muy Caliente in Pembroke which she thinks is 8a+. At the same time, she calls it R/X meaning there is a big risk for a very bad fall that could even mean death. Originally the climb was graded E10 7a but later consensus has reached E9 6c, UKCreport.

In the UK, trad climbs are given an overall E-grade based on their difficulty and how dangerous they are to onsight. A very safe 7b+ climb can be graded E5, and so can a 6c with the potential for a lethal fall. An E9 can vary in difficulty from 7c to 8c+ based on how dangerous it is. In some cases, this has meant that due to the use of crash pads, downgrades have been suggested as some routes have become less dangerous.

About 15 years ago, I suggested that you should skip E-grades above E7 and replace them with the American trad grading system. This created a long debate but in the end, the UKC editor-in-chief agreed with my thoughts. For some reason, UKC and the climbing media has kept the E-grade tradition and reported that Muy Caliente is E9. In a follow-up interview on UKC, Hazel says that the American trad grading system is more informative.

"I often think that when it comes to harder routes, maybe E7 and above, using french grades plus the American system of PG, R/X and X is more informative compared to the UK trad grades. The technical grade in UK trad grades don't make sense to me and the single hardest move never really tells you that much about the rest of the route; there could be one of those moves or there could be 10 in a row. So using this system Muy Caliente would be 8a+ R/X."

Lisa Klem has repeated Christof Rauch’s Whiskey in the Jar 8A in Maltatal. The 16-year-old’s previous personal best was 7A+!

“I was very excited for this trip. I had only been to Fontainebleau a couple times before. I don’t climb outdoors very often because I’m a competitive climber. Because of the corona pandemic the last time I climbed outdoors was last summer.

Maltatal is located in a beautiful valley with a fantastic view. The temperatures are perfect for bouldering. At the top of the road it was about 30 degrees in the bus. As soon as you walked down and arrived at the boulders with a jacket it was 10 degrees. This was due tot the glacial stream that was next to the boulders, which provided colder conditions.

Actually I didn’t came to Maltatal to do a 8A at all. I never did higher than a 7A+ in one go before. On day 2 I did my first 7B in one go, on day 3 a 7B+ and the day after that my first 7C and on day 5 my first 8A. When I started on the 8A the crux felt impossible. Together with Tiba and Paul we searched for the beta for the crux. After trying all the moves I did the boulder in one go.

When I was little, 8a seemed tot be impossible. It was my biggest goal to achieve this. I worked hard for it and it paid of. ”

During the last 19 WC's and World Championships in which Janja Garnbret has participated, the 22-year-old Slovenian has won 15 events and been runner up three times. In total she has won 30 World Cups, out of which 13 in bouldering.

No other female have had such success in both disciplines. Jain Kim has also won 30 but all but one in Lead and third in the list is Angy Eiter win 25 Lead WC Victorias. Anna Stöhr and Akiyo Noguchi have won 22 and 21 World Cup wins respectively, and two World Championship wins and all of them have been doing World Cups for 12+ years.

It should be mentioned that Janja sometimes has chosen to not participate in all World Cups, both when she was younger and like last month in Salt Lake City, to not burn out.