Mark Andersson has done his first 9a, Mission Impossible in Clear Creek Canyon after ten days of work. "The route is about 25m tall, and not very steep. Its near-vertical for the first 10 meters or so, and then it starts to get steadily steeper, overhanging about 3m in total." The "weekend warrior" who previously has done five 8c's has a family and a full time job. ""I’ve developed a training program with my brother Mike Anderson, and we have a book coming out in April called The Rock Climber’s Training Manual that explains our approach in detail." Mark thinks that the reasons for many older climbers achieving personal best are mainly; Many started late and it takes years to develop finger strength and to avoid injuries and many did not train so serious when they were younger. "Climbing is also very skill-dependent, and these skills continue to improve over time." Full story and more pics at his Trainingblog.

Caroline Ciavaldini reports from her trip together with James Pearson to the Philippines where they found a new DWS eldorado, Check their map with pictures. On the picture, James is doing a E8 trad ascent above shallow water. "Everything began with a simple Google search for “Sea Cliffs, Asia”. I stumbled onto several beautiful photos around the island of Palawan, and after many emails and a lot of research, I was sure that nobody had been deep water soloing there before. The amount of rock around El Nido is impressive. There are more islands than you can count, and each one is surrounded by cliffs that fall directly into a turquoise sea. A lot of the rock is black and sharp and no good for climbing; sculpted into daggers over millions of years by the sea and the rain. However the more you tour around the islands, the more you discover perfect walls for DWS – Steep and solid rock, covered in pockets and tufas, and most importantly, directly above deep crystal clear water.

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Silvio Reffo who previously has done three 9a's has done the FA of The ring of life 9a (+) in Covolo. " I took me maybe 12 days, 7 last year not being even close. This year after some months of hard training I was be able to do the route after 4 days of tries. The first part of the route is very bouldery 8c+/9a and I needed lot of body power to do that... This was the key for the success." The next plan is to open some more hard projects on nearby crags and also to do some multi-pitches. "Near Arco there is a beautiful wall with lot of MPs. I'd like to do 3 hard routes in the same day, 25 pitches with more or less 15 of them more of 8a or harder. One of them is an open project; Viaggio su Plutone, I think 8b+/c max.

Based on the votes from 1 000 unique 8a visitors, here is the ranking of - What do you like the most with climbing? (several clicks available). It is kind of surprising to see the results for 8a.nu surfing compared to Reading magazines :) 16 % Complete Projects 14 % Road trips 11 % Beautiful settings 10 % Onsight/Flash, New Climbs 07 % Finding optimizing beta 06 % Making FA, Train indoors 05 % Team spirit, Watching videos 03 % 8a.nu surfing 02 % Watch a competition, See a celebrity climb, Compete 01 % Reading magazines

Daniel Fuertes has done his 4th 9a, Fabela pa la enmienda in Santa Linya. The previous three weeks, he has done one 8c+ and two 8c's including one personal grade. (c) Manabu Yoneyama

Dani Moreno has had an amazing weekend in Alquezar where he did two 8c+ (9a), including both a personal up- and down grade; Priorato de Sion and Monster. Daniel did his first 8c+ in 2006 and in total he has done seven 8c+ and three 9a.

Thomas Caleyron took a sensational victory in the CWIF Bouldering comp in Sheffield by onsighting all four final problems. Last year Thomas was #9 in the Boulder WC. Alexander Megos was #2 and Gabri Moroni #3. Complete results Among the female, no surprises on the podium. #1 Shauna Coxsey, #2 Mina Markovic and #3 Mina Leslie-Wujastyk.