Alex Honnold's documentory for Free Solo the 900 meters Freerider 7c, has been nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 91st Academy Awards. The winner will be announced at the Academy Awards on February 24th. Photograph © 2018 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved.

Ethan Pringle, who has been one of leading climbers since he did Biography 9a+ in 2007, has done Kintsugi in Red Rocks on his fourth session, suggesting 8B+ as his personal grade. Based on his Insta story we asked if he could elaborate further in regards grading and what he likes the 8a - Time Comparison Grading theory, for which he agrees. "I think the amount of time it takes you to do something is pretty directly related to how hard it is, yep!" (c) Alex Arestei -Grades are a primarily a measuring stick for people's egos. Which is totally fine! There's nothing wrong with having an ego. We all have one. I think it's better to acknowledge that, than pretend it's not a thing. -Secondly, grades are a way to say: this is how hard this climb was for me, relative to climbs I've done in the past. Everyone can use them to help measure progress, and set goals, but pros can use them to communicate to fans of the sport, how hard they think a certain accomplishment was for them (rather than give people the move-by-move breakdown, or the whole story of their experience on a climb). Of course we humans like quantifying and ranking ourselves, each other, and our accomplishments, with numbers. But a number can't even come close to quantifying the very subjective experience on, and difficulty of, a rock climb. So, people shouldn't get too hung up on grades, because they are a shoddy, and vastly incomplete representation, at best. Even though I think grades are kinda dumb, I will attempt to comment on the grade of Kintsugi anyway. Because I too have an ego!!! I didn't really try the Nalle/Keenan beta, but it seems every bit as V15 as I can imagine. Nalle and Keenan know what V15 feels like, and I believe the boulder is that hard with the beta they used. But with the beta I used (the Nils ninja-toe catch), If I were to take just the crux, and lower it by eight feet, so would be right off the ground, I think the physical difficulty would be around V13. The fact that your ass is about 15 feet off he ground when you do the crux though, adds a huge physiological element that definitely raises the difficulty of the boulder. So, with the added element of the height, and the much easier intro moves, I think for me, the overall difficulty was in the 14 range. Even though I used easier beta, it's still one of the hardest climbs I've ever done. And definitely one of the best!!!

Andre Neres has done his third 9a by the FA of Filipinos in Meio Mango. (c) José Ferreira "One of the best and probably the hardest route i've done so far. Took me several sessions to figure out the beta. Bolted by Mike, I'm not sure about the grade, it's totally my style, harder than Estado Critico and way harder than Peixe Porco, i'll go for 9a, would be great to have other opinions. The route is around 18 meters, very explosive with a first crux that could be 8A boulder problem, followed by 2 more hard sequences, untill here it is around 8c/c+ and you get to a not so good rest, as you are on a 40 degree angle wall. After this you get to the last part, 15 hard and sustained moves where you can’t clip and should be around 8 by itself. It took me over 10 sessions to figure out the sequences and i’ve been trying it since i got back from Red River Gorge in November. Two months of hard work and many sessions on it, i was very lucky with the conditions. Meio Mango is easily one of the best unknown crags in Europe, it has 10 years of existence, it is a seacliff 45 min south from Lisbon on a place called Cabo Espichel, over 150 routes together with a new sector we are bolting called Atlântida. Plenty of easy and medium routes and a lot of potential for hard stuff. Breathtaking sunsets, no phone connection, no human constructions, dolphins cruising around frequently, it is a paradise by the sea. "

1. Kyra Condie - Zach Galla 2. Brooke Raboutou - Nathaniel Coleman 3. Natalia Grossman - Sean Bailay 4. Ashima Shiraishi - Collin Duffy 5. Margo Hayes - Drew Ruana Kyra won actually all but Speed where she was #3 and should be put on the short list for one of the contenders for qualifying to Tokyo. Both Margo and Ashima suffer most from being like three second slower than best in Speed. Among the male, Zach's victory must be considered as big surprise as he was #9 and #16 in the Youth World's last year. The 18 year did below 6.84 in three rounds which is at the highest standard for the non-Speed specialists. Complete results

In the ranking game, you get almost three grades bonus for an onsight in comparison to a redpoint. The best onsight climber in the world is Adam Ondra and for him the three steps formula works almost perfectly, as it does also for many climbers. However, in general, the onsight level has not have the same progress as the repoints the last year. A good example of this is that Jakub Kovacik is #3 in the onsight game with 10 8a's, 4 8a+' and two 8b's. 8a has for many years said that everyone focusing on progress and especially juniors should take every opportunity to onsight, as Ondra did as a teenager. A good example of this is Jan Vopat (15) who is #6 in the onsight ranking game but only #37 overall. Among the female it is more or less the same story and her Martina Harnisch sticks out being a superior #1 in the onsight ranking game at the same time she is #8 overall.

The best indicator to spot which routes and boulders are too soft for it's grade is to use statistics, i.e. the number of repeats and personal records. Here is a list of the most repated and almost all are actually subject of being down graded but the classical Action Directe which was put up as a 8c+/9a. It should be mentioned that the routes might be 9a now or in the future because of broken holds. 37 Era Vella 36 Estado Critico 26 Underground 25 Action Directe 20 La Fabela pa la Enmienda confirmed 19 Escltamasters 19 A Muerte 19 Seleccio Natural 17 La Cabane au Canada In practice, you can search the 8a data base for any hard core grade and you will find that almost all the most repeated are the ones also being subject for a down grade. Climbers are, logically, like water finding the easiest way to set a personal best :)

Shawn Raboutou, Giuliano Cameroni, Jimmy Webb, Keenan Takahashi, Kevin Takashi Smith and Daniel Woods has started a youtube channel called Mellow. "A climbing media collection for climbers by climbers. A media platform designed to get you hyped to go out and rage them rocks. Subscribe to our youtube channel and follow our journey."

Taylor McNeill has done the second ascent of James Webb's Southern drawl in Chattanooga suggesting an upgrade to 8C. "15 days over two years. Hardest to date by a longshot. 100% my style, couldn't have designed a better boulder for my body. Ultimate satisfaction in finishing the one the last day of my trip. Drove 8 hours immediately after sending to catch my flight out. A true battle to make the 2nd ascent of this one. Jimmy is on one, I'm sure consensus will land at v15 when/if this gets repeated.A huge step up in my climbing, ON TO THE NEXT!! It should be noted that previously, several of James' FAs have been subject of being upgraded. Three days ago, Daniel Woods reported on Insta that he has done Squoze in Red Rocks. "@jwebxl proposed 8B+(v14) but hes too damn strong in this style... i dont suck at compression nor is it my forte, but felt it took a shit on all the v14 compression lines I have done. will leave it at 14/15 and others can confirm."

Charles Albert has done seven 8C to 9A boulder problems but what is unique is his barefoot style. If he could go beyond his ethics, using one shoe, there are probably many more hard core boulders to be done, which could be unrepeated for several years. It would take any climber several months to learn and develop their toe strength, bouldering shoe less, but for Charles it is just to lace up. In regards his No Kpote Only FA in Fontainebleu, there are some ethics question to be answered before we could call it the hardest graded boulder in the world. The grade 9A suggest that when it comes to difficulty it can only be compared to Hukkataival's Burden of Dreams. The hassle is that it seem more like a constructed problem and not a natural boulder as the start seem contrived. Instead of starting in the first logical sit start position, three traverse moves have been added to the left. This is quite often done in bouldering in order to increase the difficulty. Creating harder challenges are just great but for me, they should be called problems instead of boulders. Further more, the problem finishes with some chipped holds. In route climbing, sit starts can be said to be the same constructed problems opting for a high grade. The dilemma is that we should not have the hardest and glorified routes and boulders as contrived chipped problems, as this could just popularize such ethics. So for me, No Kpote Only is not the hardest graded boulder in the world although it is the hardest graded problem. On the other hand, Charles is possibly the first contender to set up the world's first 9A+ if he started to use one shoe!