Andrew Nimmer came to Red River Gorge wit one 8c and one 8c+ as personal best. One week later he leaves with three new 8c+'; Southern Smoke, Pure Imagination and Golden Ticket. (c) Matty Hong, from last year when Andrew did Lucifer 8c+.

Stian Christophersen, tidigare landslagstränare, och Martin Mobråten en av de ledande klättrarna i Norge har skrivit ihop en 400 sidor Klätterbibel och som namnet förpliktigar så innehåller den allt. Det mest slående är att den är enkel att läsa och förstå sammtidigt att den är komplex då den innehåller allt. Träningsböcker brukar ha fokus på avancerad fysisk träning men här har man tagit ett bredare perspektiv vad gäller teknik, taktik, mentalt, skador mm. Boken funkar perfekt till både nybörjare och elit. Budskapet är att det finns inga genvägar utan att det gäller att klättra mycket och varierande där teknik är viktigare än fysik. Fokuset ska också ligga på lek och glädje - Amen!

Shawn Raboutou has done Foundation's Edge 8C in Valais in just two sessions. "Thank you so much Dave Graham for the amazing Valais test piece." (c) Insta Shawn, who's parents are some of the 90'ties leading climbers Didier and Robyn Erbesfield, have previously done fast ascents of one 8C+, five 8C' and a 9a+. His younger sister Brooke won the Youth Lead World Championship this year.

The 8a scorecard and database was introduced on internet in 2000. Today the data base includes almost 5 000 crags and boulder areas where you can search for best quality rating etc. Before Facebook even started, we had a system running where you can follow your "friends" as well as specific crags. This week, ascent # 5 million has been added and in a couple weeks, member #70 000 will sign up.

Klättercentret in Stockholm put together another great show with some unique boulders where Alex Megos was the only one to top out all five problems. Chris Sharma did also make a great competition comeback and he was honored but well behind his "new heroes". Youtube video (c) Vladek Zumr 1. Alex Megos 55 2. Chon Jongwon 44 3. Jerney Kruder 35

David Firnenburg has done his second 9a+ through a quick send of Alex Megos Modified in Frankenjura. "Well, after sending "Classified" I thought it would be a shame not to climb this line. Slightly harder because of additional boulder in the beginning. Good training. Little fight against cold and numb fingers. 2nd go after "Classified". Easy for the grade." The German was #3 in the Combined World Championship in 2016 and now he goes for Tokyo 2020. In the Combined 8a ranking game, he is #4.

Eric Hörst has published an interesting analysis why Adam Ondra is the best climber in the world. Summery of Findings: Adam Ondra has really strong fingers; Adam has remarkably strong shoulders, Adam is exceptionally flexible Adam climbs with extreme speed and economy Adam’s physical talent stack is multiplied by his passion and climbing-centric lifestyle A final surprise finding: “head like a pendulum!”

Frances Bensley, who started out 2018 with a 7C+ personal best, has done her first 8B in Fat Lip. Also with the rope she has rasied the bar to 8b+ this year. From her Insta. "It's been a real siege over the past month or so, and I've lost track of the number of sessions I've had so it felt great to finish it off just before the Tor season is officially over!"(c) Al Bensley

Oriane Bertone, who previously has done three 8B's and harder, has done the FA of Le spartiate direct assis in Ravine du Trou. The 13 year old is #2 in the ranking game.

Traverse grades use a difficulty scale in between routes and boulders. The logic behind this is that traverses are often quite long making them hard to compare with boulders. On the other hand, it is impossible to draw the line when a "traverse" is long and horizontal enough to be graded softer than a boulder. This creates confusion and also that sometimes a horizontal 8A is harder than an 8B. In the 8a scorecard, we advice climbers to always record also traverses with personal boulder grades and leave the traverse grade as a comment. A solution for topos and for the Fontainebleau, where most of the traverse grades boulders are found, is to identify traverses by marking them 8Aa.