Kai Lightner made his first 8a headline when he sent Southern Smoke (8c+) at age 13, in 2012. The next year, he won the Youth World Championship and completed Era Vella (9a). Then it took him ten years until he sent his next 9a and during the last year he has sent another five including Planet Garbage (9a) in Rifle (CO). (c) Joe Kinder

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
Since moving to CO Rifle has become a local-ish crag for me, and I’ve began taking random 2-3 day trips to climb around and enjoy the canyon! I decided last weekend to try this cool Joe Kinder Rifle Classic as a way of reacclimatizing to rock and building fitness for the start of the season. Suprisingly, it all came together in just a few days and managed to send it pretty quickly! Definitely a confidence booster and a testament to the good training I’ve done in prep for the Fall season.

What are your autumn plans?
I won’t tell you my exact plans, but I will say my goals are much bigger than they were in the Spring. You guys will know in due time 😉

Doug McConnell, who did his first 9a in March, has sent Valhalla (9a) in Flatanger, after a one hour fight. "What a route - dream line! As hard mentally as physically. Took it to the top 1st time thru the crux on the second good day after the bad weather. Cool to share the process with Gonzalo, Josh, Nils & Leo - good times!!" (c) Kerrin Gale

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
Valhalla is a monstrous route. Something like 65m of climbing out the Flatanger cave, extending Odin’s Eye to the Thor’s Hammer anchor. It breaks down to something like two stacked 8c/+ pitches.

Last year I was also in Flatanger and did Odin’s Eye after quite a bit of work. Afterwards, I watched Domen Skofic climb Valhalla and joked that it looked completely impossible to me. But it’s honestly one of the most inspiring routes I’ve ever seen and already my logical brain was telling me that it would suit me quite well - being long and without any super hard moves - so I was sufficiently intrigued to see if it was possible.

On the last few days of our trip in 2023 I checked out the first part above Odins, and found a sequence that I thought I could do from the ground with enough work and some specific preparation. So this year I was motivated to come back and commit to exclusively climbing on Valhalla and see what happened.

The trip didn’t start ideally though. I broke my toe two weeks before arriving and a host of other minor niggles plagued my first month here, but I persisted, and climbed on Valhalla exclusively in August.

It has two crux sections above Odin’s, separated by a good rest and then a final pumpy 8a ish section. All 3 of these parts involve strong left heel hooks so working on the route was a real balance of doing as much as possible to gain fitness on it but not going too far and breaking my left leg off.

It’s possible to fall in a number of places after the first crux, even right at the end. Mentally it was quite confronting to leave the ground each time, with so much hard climbing ahead and the real possibility to fail after doing so much work.

A year to the day after I watched Domen do it, I passed the first crux and kept it together to the top. I repeated Odin’s 6 times this year. It’s a nice route, but that’s enough.

James Mchaffie, with two 9a’s, done 13 years ago, has sent Yma O Hyd in Gnyweed. The 43-year-old is one of the most accomplished trad climbers in the UK with 15 routes E9 and beyond.

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
The climb is a direct on an E9 called Mission impossible (8b). It follows a thin crack via some great moves to join mission impossible at all its cruxes. It took me 3 months to get into shape to climb it, partly because the summer was very wet and I needed to gain form. I did Mission impossible in 2009 and that didn't take long, 2 sessions I think. This hard one took many sessions over 3 months.

I'm generally into onsighting rather than projecting but the climbing and rock was so good on this project I really wanted to give it my best shot at climbing it.

How is the protection?
Protection is good but start is committing. Need to place gear carefully, jump down on rucksack to then test them before climbing. I placed all gear on lead.

Leo Cea sent Tecnoking (9a) in Las chilcas at age 11 and three months, the youngest ever to have reached 9a. The next month he did La Nueva Yera (9a) at the same crag.

How did you start climbing and what are your first great memories?
Since I was a kid I liked to make mountains out of things and climb them. I also liked to climb trees and rocks near my house and in the places we visited with my family. When I was 8 years old, I started going to “Las Chilcas” accompanying my dad who was going climbing with his friend. That's when I started to climb Top Rope and I liked it more and more. I remember very well that I really liked going to Las Chilcas to play climbing rocks and hanging out in a cave in the “El Cubo” sector. There we would hang out with my dad and friends while we ate what we had brought for the day.

How does a normal climbing week look like?
I climb 6 times a week. Of those, 2-3 times a week we go to the rock, 2-3 sessions a week at the climbing gym where I go with my trainer, and another couple of sessions on the wall at my house.

What is it you like most about climbing?
My favorite thing to do is to climb a lot and be on the rock. I love looking for hard routes, working on them, and I really enjoy the feeling of connecting sequences. I like exploring new climbing areas and camping.

How many sessions did the 9a's take and how do you project such hard routes?
For “Tecnoking” I did 26 attempts before sending it, divided into 11 sessions. “La Nueva Yera” was 10 attempts divided into 6 sessions. I chose the new projects by looking for 8b+ routes or one that looked good. When I try it, I try it as much as possible until I know all the moves. After that, I take a rest day before the sending day.

Are you sometimes afraid of trying long hard routes?
No, because I'm not afraid of the height and I'm also very confident of the equipment. I'm confident that I'm using it well and that it is very strong.

What about onsight climbing?
I really like doing onsight climbing. I've already climbed almost everything in “Las Chilcas” so there's not much for me to climb onsight there anymore. But I love going to new sectors and try out new routes.

What are the routes and experiences you like the most?
The routes I have liked the most are Tecnoking, Migrand Balam and Puro Contacto. I also really liked when my dad took my best friend and me camping at Las Chilcas.

What is your next dream when it comes to routes or travel?
Margalef. I dream of climbing there and trying new routes there. I would love to climb “La Era Vella” and “Victimas Perez”.

Nathan Phillips, who the last year has sent his two first 8C’s, has completed Beautiful Mind (8C) in Peak District.

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
Really psyched to climb this one as it’s probably the hardest boulder I’ve finished. It climbs the start section of Trance Trance (8C) which I climbed back in June. This section is maybe hard 8A/V11 then 2 or 3 new moves of around 7C/V9 to link into all the hard climbing of Dandelion Mind 8B+/V14 which I climbed about 8 years ago.

It took me 14 sessions since climbing Trance to complete it. About twice as many as Trance took. I started off re-learning the moves on Dandelion Mind as it had been years since I’d climbed it, then as the sessions went on it was just about making bigger and bigger links until eventually getting it done before the end of the limestone season.

What is coming up next?
I’m heading back to Switzerland in November to try to finish a 6 year project.

Which project is it and how many sessions have you put in?
The sit project to Fake Pamplemousse (8A) in Brione. I honestly have no idea… in the hundreds.

How will you prepare for your next trip and how close have you come?
I have a replica to train on and I’m doing very specific conditioning exercises. I’ve climbed it in 2 overlapping halves but haven’t got into the stand. I’ve done the stand 100’s of times so I’m reasonably confident I’ll do it when I get into it. All the difficulty is getting to the stand. 2 hard hand moves and a hard foot move.

Alex Honnold, with seven 8c+' under his belt, has done Manphibian (9a) in Mt. Charleston, giving a personal 8c+ grade. This is the first 8c+ and beyond for the 39-year-old since 2021. "Psyched to get this done in between life stuff - too much work travel. Used kneebars in several places that surely make this much easier than 9a - I could even imagine hard 8c the way I did it. But it's still a great route and I really enjoy the upper part." (c) Rollin Grimmett, who sent Arrested Development (8c+) the same day, comments.

"We both sent first try of the day, first me and then him. Lovely day at the crag with surprisingly no crowds. I have been trying Arrested since I moved to Vegas in June, gave it about a month of effort before it got too hot. I trained a lot in July on the TB2, and was psyched to put it together as soon as it started cooling off. The middle crux for me is very friction dependent, so it was nice not to not slip off anymore".

Leo Bøe, who since 2023 has done a dozen 9a's, has during the last three weeks in Flatanger sent three 9a’s. (c) Adri Martinez

Little Badder (9a); "Was hard for me to complete this climb as it had 1 stopper move in the last crux. I fell in the top crux 6 tries in a row. I had to be fully rested to do the span-move, and in the end it went when I had optimized the rests before. Cool to finally send this athletic climb!!"

Illusionist (9a); "Fun to solve this puzzle and find the perfect beta. I almost only fell in the big span move before the roof, but when I finally stuck that I climbed Illusionist to the top! Was cool to share this with a motivated crew!!"

Valhalla (9a); ”Finally dared to try this endurance test. Thanks to a good crew and sharing betas it went down so quick! Doug & Josh also sent the two following days! 💥”

Pepa Šindel, who did a 9a+ two years ago, sent Hades (9a) in July. " I tried Hades for the first time in the summer of 2023 and after a few tries I started throwing sharp attempts. Unfortunately, I failed. So we returned to it during the autumn holidays. I was very close, but just felt short... So the plan for this holiday was clear - to finish it. And after a good rest and when the conditions improved, the climb was successful! Wow this one gave me a hard time 😅. So far my hardest 9a."br>

Domen Škofic has done Little Badder (9a) in Flatanger and now he has started working on Move (9b). ”I’m enjoying the process of working on Move. It’s going amazing at the moment:)”

With Jorge Diaz-Rullo (who took the picture), Stefano Ghisolfi and Seb Bouin at the scene, it is an amazing line up in the cave, although Alex Megos just left.

Can you tell us more about Little Badder?
It’s incredible that this route is not that much endurance based even though it’s approximately 50 meters long. It has so many good knee bar rests that it’s more challenging to stay focused on doing two very cool athletic cruxes perfectly with a nice flow. The only thing I disliked about this route is that it gets wet quickly and can stay wet for a long time. I basically send it the first good/dry day since arriving here. The other days I could focus on working the Move which stayed dry most of the time so I took adventure of every day :)