Tanguy MERARD 🦐, who has onsighted 12 8a's, has done his first 9a, Ça chauffe in Seynes. He comments to Fanatic Climbing, "This route required to me a lot of patience and perseverance (something like 10 days), it was a harder process compared to my 2 previous 8c+ sends (“Les grandes bouches du Rhône” and “San Ku Kai”) so I propose 9a." Interesting is that he started training hard less than two years ago and since then he has had extraordinary progress, although also doing easier routes. His pyramid base is solid with 60 routes 8a and harder the last 12 months. (c) Williams Belle

Fanatic Climbing reports that Cedric Lachat has done Pachamama 9a+ in Oliana. Here is a video from the upper crux. (c) Julia Cassou Cedric has done five 9a+' before and the big plan is to do Mami Chula 9b which is an Adam Ondra link up of Pachamama and Papichulo. "I wanted to try an 9b. After receiving some infos about the routes, I decided to try “Mami chula” because it’s long and less complicated with conditions. Finish “Pachamama” is the first step, Adam and Seb also completed this one before trying the 9b."

David Firnenburg, #4 in the Combined World Ch. in 2016, has done his third 9a+, Papichulo in Oliana after some 7-8 sessions. "Happy to reward the hard work I've invested with an ascent of this amazing line. Interesting process of projecting including up's and down's, warm weather conditions and bad skin. Kept believing in my abilities and stayed patient. Feeling relieved now. Oliana is prime!" The picture, (c) Andrea Kuemin is from his Insta, three days ago. "Finding my inner balance before the crucial try of my project.

Clément Lechaptois has done Dreamtime in Cresciano giving it a personal 8B+ grade. "Four sessions trying with a crimpy method, just one left crimp and big lock off to a good edge (did the stand like that). In the 5th session I tried the jump with that new position for the hands and did the move first try. Then I never missed it. I readjusted my foot sequence to reach the undercling, rested a while and climbed the boulder first try from that day." (It might have been Simon Lorenzi who first did this beta. video 9 min in. Dreamtime is one of the most famous boulders in the world. It was put up as the world's first 8C in 2000 but was later downgraded. Then a hold broke and it was upgraded again. This new beta seems to be not using that broken hold.

Max Deelen has done his first 8C, The Big Island in Fontainbleau. At 193 cm tall, he is probably the second boulderer to have reached 8C after Tony Saxton also 193 cm. "I have been coming to Fontainebleau for 4 years now, and the big island was always a dream project for me. I waited until I felt I was fit enough to try it, and that time came April 2019. My first session was very promising, and I could do the boulder in two parts. From that point, I became obsessed with trying to send the boulder and I trained harder than ever before. This trip I went to the problem again, and it felt a lot better. I was able to send the island on my first session on this trip. This was a confidence boost, and after a good rest day I came back and on my first go, I reached the top jug but fell unexpectedly. From this point on I knew it could happen any attempt, and it became more of a mental than physic" battle. Luckily some attempts later, and with a lot of encouragement from my good friend Nathan de Groen, I completed the big island. This moment my dream became reality and all the hard training paid off. About my height, I think that in Fontainebleau I have an advantage most of the time, as by nature the problems here tend to be quite morpho."

Oriane Bertone is like last year fighting high temperatures in Rocklands over 40 degrees. Amazingly she has anyhow done two impressive flashes; Light Saber suggesting it to be 8A and Horizon Gazer 7C+. Her father Stefano gives us further details. "The temperature is increasing. 40° and more in the afternoon the last 3 or 4 days. We only can climb between 6 and 8 AM and from 17h30 to 20h PM. We go to climb with bottles of iced water, especially to resist during the approach walks. We have to choose projects in the higher sectors (The Pass, Riverside...) and roofs to reduce the temperature. We keep the hardest projects for the mornings, which are cooler. In the evening, we rather work with medium boulders (7C+, 8A), which are less complicated and less affected by the conditions. We only have four days to stay in Rocklands and we still have a few projects to complete. I hope the conditions improve a bit, to achieve one or two more difficult ascents. Very complicated end of the trip."

We are excited to announce the much-awaited beta release of the new 8a.nu site! 100 people will be selected as beta testers based on geographical area and historic user activity. We may add additional testers at a second stage. Prerequisites for the test: Please only sign-up if you have an existing 8a account and are a regular user. The beta test is scheduled to finish in February. Sign-up as a beta tester. The new version marks a complete overhaul of the previous site. A significant amount of effort went into the clean-up of all the historic data of 8a.nu. Besides a new interface and design, we have; - introduced a smart search feature - created a map-based visualization of crags: explore, search, and filter - added easy filtering options to display rankings - improved the logging of ascents. "Thank you to everyone who signed up for the beta test. So far, 250 climbers have been given access to the beta site and we have received a lot of great feedback! If you have not signed up yet, feel free to do so as we will continuously add more people to the beta test.

Maurizio Oviglia, who has bolted some 3 000 routes but are now mainly rebolting in Sardinia where he lives, has posted some in interesting thoughts in regards bolting on Insta. Chatting with him he points out that he especially does not like rap bolting on big walls and furthermore only bolt high-quality sport crags that will become popular. "Preserve the hard lines on the big walls for the next generation, that should be open with good ethics. Preserve the untouched areas without bolts. It’s not necessary to bolt everywhere because in the future it’s better to have fewer crags but with good gear and good quality. I think that it is good to bolt only the crags that easy become popular. It's not necessary to bolt all! In Sardinia, many climbers come from other countries and bolt everywhere! Some of these crags are not frequented. No people! So, why bolt these crags, especially if it is in a delicate environment? About easy routes, I think that in touristic climbing areas (Kalymnos, Sardinia) it must to be bolt safe. For the moment there are no rules, but surely one day we will have them, even though I'm not a person who likes rules in climbing."