The Greek coastal town of Leonidio is holding its first Climbing Festival on November 10-13 using a smart and simple tool for their open Marathon event: climbers can register in pairs, climb all day long and mark their route ascents in the Vertical-Life Climbing App on their smartphones. Points are counted automatically according to the 8a.nu ranking game. This new, digital system has already been used on different events, like Melloblocco and the Kalymnos Festival. It has proven to be helpful and fun for both event organizers and climbers. Through the app, the participants can access the festival topos and get real-time info on what others are climbing. With the Vertical-Life app and 800 routes to climb, the first major climbing festival in Leonidio promises to become an awesome event! App download: Vertical-Life. More info Leonidio Climbing Festival

Tendon has the latest update from the Dawn Wall. It seems that Adam Ondra is almost ready for going for his big push. (c) Pavel Blazek "We had two busy day on the wall, but extremely important motivating ones! At first, I tried the pitch 14, where I still had no idea about what to do in the last boulder problem. After a little session, I could finally do the moves and soon after I gave it a go, but I realized that my beta for the intro moves on the last boulderproblem did not work. It took me a lot of time, skin, frustration and swearing to finally find a satisfying sequence, but I was exhausted and my skin thrashed. I still gave it a another that night, slipped on the first boulderproblem but then continued to the anchor. Which gave me a lot of confidence that next time it should work out. Second day, I was incredibly lucky to get overcast day, so I could make a lot of work. At first, we took some pics with Heinz Zak in pitch 14 (5.14d), then went down and sent pitch 8 (5.13d) and toproped pith 7 (5.14a). After lunch, I went for pitch 11 (5.13c) and linked the whole crux sequence, then linked the whole crux in pitch 12 (5.14b). Then we went down for toprope session on pitch 10 (5.14a) which is always desperately wet in the dark, but I still made it with one hang in toprope. To finish the day, I just re-checked the moves on pitch 9 (5.13c). It seems like I need yet to work a bit more on pitches 10, 12 and 13 (5.13b) and then pitches 1-6 (only 5.12b to 5.13c range) and I would be ready to go for the push. Can't wait!!!"

Directly after topping out the Dawn Wall, Adam Ondra, continued working out pitch #14 and reports on Instagram. "Great progress on pitch 14, but unfortunately no send. Took a lot of skin to finally figure out the mystery (3rd and last boulder of the pitch), but I finally have a satisfying beta at least. On my last go, with no skin and really tired, I slipped on the first boulder, but continued straight away to the anchor. I am quite confident that next time it should work out. And next time I think it will be on the push. Photo @pavelblazek (check out his insights from the wall on his instagram too, highly recommended)

Michael Piccolruaz, who was #2 in a Boulder World Cup this spring and who has flashed two 8A+'s in 2016, has flashed Wrestling with an alligator 8B in Malatal. "I knew it would suit my stile quite well and so I whatched some videos to get the right beta. On friday after the warm up I wasn't too sure if I should try it that day because I was quite tired and my skin was quite sore. But some guys of the team were trying the boulder and got me motivated to give it a go. Eventually everything worked out perfectly how I had planed it and so I got into a kind of flow and climbed trough all the moves perfectly."

There are now 800 routes in Leonidio and the first climbing festival will take place there next weekend. As to celebrities, Sachi Amma and Angela Eiter have been invited and there will be an open marathon run by Vertical-Life. Leonidio is located 3 hours south east of Athens and 1 hour north of Kyparissi which many of the festival participants will visit in the following week.

Jakob Schubert, one of the best competition climbers in the world of the last ten years, has done the FA of Kein Licht Kein Schatten 9a in Ötztal and he reports on Facebook with a great picture from Wilhelm Heiko. "The special thing about this route is that you need to climb a 7c to get to the ledge where the route starts. It's a very beautiful spot with a great view into the valley" Now Jakob has travelled to Spain and reports, "First two days were fun and succesful, could do all the moves on 'Joe Mama' 9a+ in Oliana and 'Stoking the Fire' 9b in Santa Linya."

Although Sweden has two of the best junior competition climbers in the world, Hannes Puman and Kajsa Rosén, the Lead competition scene here is almost dead. Based on this information, the national coach, Reino Horak suggested to follow the Combined Olympic format, add a dyno competition and run the Nationals over three days. It worked just great and in total some 60 participants did over 200 starters. The dyno competition started on Saturday evening and even if everyone did know that their skin and fatigue were going just to get worse, all the big names were on the list and everybody had fun until late. Surely, the non-competitive atmosphere was created because Hannes and Kajsa were estimated to be superior and instead of focusing on the result, the competitors focused on the challenges that were offered. Lesson learnt is that the climbers are more interested in having fun with challenges than just in the result and that in the future the comps have to include both aspects. What is interesting is that Mina Markovic reports from the Sloveinan Nationals in the same way. "I finished 2nd, but was satisfied with my climb. But moreover, I am really pleased with nice environment, people, energy and sharing during comp, on training(s) and outdoor climbing day(s) after... Thank you all!

Rock & Ice reports that some 30 Boulders in Little Cottonwood Canyon have been changed due to a vandal. Some of them got easier and some harder. In fact, a few years ago some Boulders in Fontainebleau were damaged and it has also happened in Ticino.

Adam Ondra comments on his Black Diamond blog that he has topped out the Dawn Wall after two more days on the wall. National Geographic has also presented an interview with Adam. (c) Heinz Zak “It has been a productive 48 hours on El Cap. After the first night and ‘climbing’ pitch 15, I rested the whole day, slept as much as possible and at 10:30 p.m. we set off. The first thing I wanted to do was send pitch 16, which did not work out—soon after getting up I was not feeling very well. But I didn’t give it more tries and continued. Above us, there was untouched terrain (untouched by us). I led (with a few falls) the remaining four pitches up to the Wino Tower in the dark, finishing at 5:30 a.m. All these pitches in the 5.13c range felt quite good. “From Wino Tower we faced 11 more pitches and around 400 meters of climbing. Even though the hardest pitch is only 5.13a, there are some bold pitches too with fairly loose rock. I felt pretty good, and onsighted all pitches except two where photographer Heinz Zak made me stop. I was extremely happy to onsight the 5.12b flare (worst version of offwidth) three pitches below the top. By 2:30 p.m. we were on the summit. This ground up ascent made fixing the ropes justified (according to our ethics), so now the whole line is fixed with ropes and easy to work. “Now we are down in the Valley, recovering and getting ready for more work on the wall, especially pitch 14 (first traverse) [5.14d] and all the pitches below.”

Danny Robertson, who started climbing in 1995, has done his first 8c+, The Crew in Rifle. (c) Derek Franz "I get to claim two categories of distinction: the OLDEST (with holds in their current form) and by far the WEAKEST person to ever climb this route. EPIC number of tries, EPIC! Ironically, as it often happens, did not feel the slightest bit pumped on the send. 3 years of effort. 2 times injured trying to get strong enough to do the climb. 2 times flipped upside down going for crescent jug."