Christof Rauch has done his third 8C FA in just eleven days, Carinthian Dreams in Kärnten. Prior to these amazing sending days that have made him #1 in the 8a ranking game, he had done 450 boulders 8A to 8B+/C basically in just four years. The picture shows his wide pyramid. Interview with the full time technician who got his first sponsor just some months ago. "Oh my god! Seems like I'm in the best shape ever! This is the hardest and one of the best problems I've ever done. It links the crackline (~8A+) into "Punching in a Dream" (~8B+). I've never put so much effort in a boulder problem, all in all it took me about 17 sessions. Got really lucky with today's windy and pretty cold conditions. Compared to all the other hard boulders I've done/tried I would say it sits probably on the upper range of the grade. Just happy now!" (c) Simon Brunner

Öreg-lyuk egyike a jelenlegi legnépszerűbb hazai boulder helyeknek. Ez tény, bár azt is kijelenthetjük csak egy nagyon kis maroknyi csapata a hazai mászóknak képes itt élvezni a mászást. Öreg-lyuk ugyanis egy barlangrendszer, melynek a legtöbb útja és vonalvezetése a plafonban található lyukakon, peremeken és (amiért Serényi Repedés Balázs is felfigyelt rá) plafonrepedéseken megyen. A fokozatok zöme a 7A-7B skálától felfelé helyezkedik el, jelenlegi legnehezebbje a Patkány által nyitott 8A+/B, egy direkt beszállóboulder az Importáruba. Ősz óta rendszeresen mennek ide verdák, ha a hely éppen nem vizes. Számos projekt máig megnyitásra vár. A projekteléseknek meg is lett az eredménye, Ipach Marci az utóbbi évek egyik legprogresszívebben fejlődő sportmászója befejezte hosszú jegyességét az Importáruval, bezsebelve így az első plafon 8A-ját. Kucsera Bálintnak sem kellett sok, valahogy kifújta őt is a gerecsei szellő és egy nap alatt ismételte az Importáru-t, a Csé bétával - véleménye szerint karcosan de így is érheti még a 8A-t. A bleaui 7C+ nál keményebb azért fater!! -így a román borostás buldózer. Nándi hazalátogatásainál már megszokhattuk, hogy leaprítódik pár megaprojekt vagy nyílik pár újdonság. Nndes most az Import áru retur variánsát nyitotta meg, Exportáru néven 7C+ -ért, ami jó lehetőség lehet a különböző Öreg-körök megnyitására. Azért Bajusz Balázs is itt hagyta a névjegyét ha már erre járt, szintén az Importáru-t ejtette el, de mászott 8A-t nemrég Fontainebleauból - de termelékenységéről a "héta mutató" is tanúskodhat: 46db bouldert mászott meg 7A-8A fokozat között...

"You climb at your own risk" is a mantra that is used in climbing but clearly that does not include broken anchors or anything like that in an indoor gym. In Sweden, the Consumer Government Agency has said that if a club points out some specific routes that are good for beginners to start leading, this can only be done on well protected safe routes. If it turns out that the novice falls to the ground although the belayer did nothing wrong, the club can be held responsible. With the big increase of gym climbers who want to go out and try leading for the first time, it is important that the local clubs and communities can recommend some safe routes, especially for teenagers. It might have been that previously all outdoor beginners knew that, "You climb at your own risk" but in 2017, there are probably thousands of gym climbers who just assume that the beginner routes are safely protected like in the gym. Here are the 8a bolting recommendations for easier routes: #1 at 3 meters #2 at 4 meters #3 at 5.5 meters #4 at 7.5 meters #5 at 10 meters If we are talking about very hard routes with a relatively much easier start, it is normally OK with longer distance in between the bolts. When it comes to clipping positions and grades, on a 6a route the clipping positions should be adjusted to 160 cm climbers meanwhile on an 8a route, 170 cm could be applicable.

Basically, I find often climbing videos pretty boring as you have no insight of how the route is like and how it felt for the climber. One example of this is the 30 min documentary of Ethan Pringle doing Jumbo Love but if you get Ethan's comment as he climbs it, it became one of the most interesting climbing videos I have ever seen. Commentating videos like this should be made standard but possibly it is just Ethan and a few others that can pull it together. Video on demand for USD 3. The video producer is Spenser Tang-Smith and he says that, "Ethan was really happy to do it too, it helped him bring the whole experience to a conclusion." Interestingly, Ethan says that Jumbo Love did not take his full 100 % mental and physical capacity and he shares some insights about that most of the time we only use 80 % of our total capacity.

Rvproj presents the full story including an uncut video form Ethan Pringle's send of Jumbo Love 9b. Ethan had been projecting it for eight years when he did Sharma's 80 meter test piece in 2015. Here is part of what Ethan wrote on Facebook after his send, "WOW!!! Yesterday I climbed my ultimate lifetime dream route, the most bad-ass sport climb I've ever laid eyes on, Chris Sharma's ‪#‎JumboLove‬! WOW. I can't believe it's over. I say that half in a literal sense because when I sent it, it was almost like an out of body experience that I can barely remember happening. My story on Jumbo Love spanned over eight years and involved every emotion I can think of: awe, excitement, love, admiration, longing, apathy, fear, frustration, anger, resignation, acceptance, and eventually, MOTHERFUCKEN GLORY!!!" In 2000, Ethan took the silver in the Youth World Championship and his best result out of seven Lead and Boulder WC's is #16. On rock he has done a handful of 9a's and Biographie 9a+ in 2007, when he was the #1 in the 8a Combined ranking game thanks to three 8B+ boulders he also climbed that year.

Daniel Fuertes has done two 8c+' which share the same start in Rodellar. One is CHC which was put up by Dani Andrada with finishes with a 7b+ after a good rest. The other is Los Cucos which is a FA of Fuertes where the exit is 8b+. "It can be 9a, but this route has a good rest between the two hardest sections and I think that it's 8c+/9a. This fantastic route is 25 meters of super overhanging where you climb down!! Wow!! It's crazy!!! I want to say thank you to Alejandro Bada and Kymy de la Peña, because they climbed with me these days there, and the area was so wet!! I feel lucky, with friends like this, impossible to fail!!" On the picture by David Lopez Campe, Daniel is working on the 15 year project, No Pain no Gain, which is thought to be 9a+. It is 40 meters long out of which 30 meters goes in a roof.

Five Ten has published Boulder World Cup Mid-Season Update including many nice pictures and videos linked. As a matter of a fact, Five Ten is the leading shoe manufacturer in the overall rankings. (Coxsey #1, Garnbret #2, Narasaki #3 and Fujii #5: La Sportiva is second with Watabe #1, Noguchi #4, Chon #4, Klingler #5) "Janja Garnbert whose main focus is actually lead climbing is just 8 points behind Shauna Coxsey in the overall rankings. In the men, Keita Watabe sits in first overall with Aleksei Rubtsov and Tomoa Narasaki in second and third respectively. With just three rounds to go in Vail (USA), Navi Mumbai (India) and Munich (Germany) it would appear to be all to play for in both the men’s and women’s."

www.8a.nu was started as my personal blog where I wanted to spread news of the new routes I put up and also where I shared the training tips I gave as the coach for the Swedish Youth team including Said Belhaj. In 2000, the scorecard was developed by my webmaster Leif Jägerbrand and within some few months, 8a became a very popular global website. Most of the current scorecard pages are actually looking the same as they did in 2000. In 2002, Jonas Emanuelsson joined as the new webmaster and the current website including Ticklists etc are his work. During several years, we have tried to find new web designers that could help us redesign 8a to state of the art look community interaction and user friendliness. Tieme van Veen has helped us with the beta.8a.nu available for mobile phones and within a week or so, you will be able to add routes here much quicker. During this spring, I have lived with my family in Bressanone, Italy, where Vertical-Life is located. It was started by Matthias Polig and friends in 2012, with the aim of creating a worldwide premium topo platform. Vertical Life offers a system to combine printed guidebooks with all the advantages an app can offer. In fact all their partner's guidebooks offer a code to unlock their digital version for free. Until now Vertical Life offers approved content for 50 destinations including Kalymnos, Frankenjura, Yosemite, Magic Woods to name a few. Right now they are working on the Céüse guidebook in collaboration with Arnaut Petit. I do like this approach to base topos on the local community instead of ripping off these local guys by just copying their work and selling it. The local FA's and the community around them including topo authors, rebolting and taking care of access issues etc, are the key in our very fast growing climbing community. Lately, they have also created an App where gym owners can manage their routes, which then also can be Zlagged by the climbers in order to create a training-log. The platform is becoming a more open tool for different players such as gyms, coaches and events. Based on our mutual focus and because VL, in fact, is also a design company, having put up the exhibition The Climbing Gardens of the world in Berlin, we started discussing if they could do a total make over of 8a. I am very happy that finally we have made a deal and that VL will invest in 8a and that they have started to work on this big mission. At the same time, I will remain as the editor-in-chief allowing me to spend more time finding and presenting the latest news and training articles etc. I am very sure that this cooperation will create a much better product. There will be less banners on the first page and it will be easier to add and find routes in the database. Please feel free to give your suggestions on what we should improve and what could be included in the upcoming modern website in order to give you a better experience visiting 8a.nu.