Barefoot Charles comes with the impressive news on Facebook that he has done another 8C barefoot, Monkey Wedding 8C in Rocklands. Fred Nicole set it up in 2002 calling it 8B+ but the handful that have repeated it have all agreed to upgrade it.

The 2017 edition of the Outdoor in Friedrichshafen was the most impressive out of all 8a have visited. There is a strong feeling that the climbing industry is doing well and that everyone wants to have a bite of the cake and it is especially about shoes for different segments. Both Black Diamond and Wild Country launched their shoe line and most of the the established shoe producers presented new models with a greater focus on comfortable gym shoes, female shoes as well as more extreme softer shoes. Just on Outdoor there were about a dozen shoe brands presented. A logical next step for the manufacturers would probably be to continue this trend of comfort to produce a hybrid shoe in between a normal running and a climbing shoe that you never take off during the whole gym session including coffee break. For the kids, La Sportiva has already done it with their climbing sandals for kids where you also get stickers and Ondra cartoons in a package. Many producers also presented their new or updated semi-locking belay device. In practice, this means safer and possibly also cheaper semi-locking device that will push traditional belay gear out of the market. When it comes to innovations, the scary Escaper from Beal where you can first rapell and then pull down the full 60 meter length of your rope was most extreme. Other than that Edelrid did, as always, present some cool new things. Tendon has a new technology TeFIX which permanently bonds the sheath to the core. We will present more details later of everything that was interesting at Outdoor.

When the sheath/mantle breaks on your rope, the core like 12 strings appear which is scary and dangerous. Now Tendon has invented a technique where the strings are permanently bonded with an extra sheath/mantle.

Alex Megos does his third 9a+ during just the last week by Jungle Boogie in Cëûse. Amazingly he did it on his first day on after having tried it for 15 minutes three years ago. "The video of Stefano Ghisolfi motivated me to try this route again after 3 years! One of the goals of my trip is done!" (c) Liam Lonsdale. Vertical-Life has just presented a new digital version of the Céüse guidebook by Laurent Girousse, Arnaud Petit and Rolland Marie.

Chris Sharma reports on Instagram that he has established a 30 m DWS 8b+ ground up which he says is one of the best routes of his life. (c) Giancola Foto "The Pont d'Arc is an absolute dream line. It's hard to believe something like this even exists! After 4 days trying from the ground up and taking some big falls I was finally able to link to through the arch. It tops out at around 30 meters on the far side of the arch (that you can't see in the photo). A perfect line, on perfect rock in a perfect location. It's hard to get more perfect haha." Wow, but how dangerous was this? You know I have a family so I would never do anything really dangerous. I did jump of several times to check the landing and the impact at most up from probably 25 meters.

Jon Cardwell spent some three weeks including 30 tries on La Rambla but no success. "It was very hard for me, mostly because I arrived to Spain with poor endurance. It was good training for Oliana (Papichilo) though! More than anything, it was a mental challenge for me as I kept falling at a single move, just before the main crux. It would be my opinion that with current standards, to climb to the move where you stab for a left hand two-finger pocket is most certainly a 9a; roughly where the original climb ends. What remains, with the best beta, is no more than 7c route in itself. However, people have fallen past this move to the pocket. Most certainly an impressive ascent in 1994 and one of the most difficult routes in the world at that time.

According official statistics on Similarweb, 8a has doubled up the traffic during the last four month and for the first time ever, we are now higher ranked than both Rock & Ice and Climbing. Interestingly, most of the traffic for our competitors come through links on Google and Facebook etc. The 8a visitors, instead, actively write www.8a.nu in the browser in order to get to 8a. Here is a "direct" traffic comparison including also showing that half of the traffic for our main competitors come from their country of origin. At the same time the 8a visitors are evenly spread around the world. 82 % 8a.nu: Traffic spread evenly around the globe 36 % UKC: Traffic 59 % from UK 26 % Planet Mountain: Traffic 59 % from Italy 24 % R & I: Traffic 49 % from USA 24 % Climbing: Traffic 46 % from USA It should also be noted that 8a is only focusing on sport climbing meanwhile our competitors cover and get visitors interested in all climbing disciplines.

Over the years I have been presented several light weight quick draws, when walking around Outdoor in Friedrichshafen. The smallest is probably the Nano from Camp at 22 grams which is very impressive but not so practical. This year they have answered the quest from the community by producing the Dyon Express which is a light weight but also grab friendly quick draw which is very safe and easy to clip due to the key locking closure. We have tested a sample for two months and if you also one of the guys who are afraid of falling and instead grab, the Dyon might be the best out there. The weight is 82 grams including the 11 cm dogbone. More info

Lair Thibault has done his second 9a FA in Bielsa, La Hija de la Luna which was bolted last year by Christian Sebie. It took him ten sessions and the next plan is to go to Rodellar this summer. "It's a very complete route. After a hard section with fingers, it becomes an endurance fest, then leads to the very physical crux. After a rest, a final difficult and athletic section finishes up. Bielsa is about thirty meters high. A large bulge is formed in the bottom of the crag and then and then it straightens up. There are 30-35 routes mainly bolted by Frenchmen."