Piotr Schab has been in Rocklands for three weeks and sent 16 boulders 8A and harder. The hardest flash for the Pole was Moon shadow (8B) and Monkey Wedding was his first ever 8C. In the picture, Piotr climbs The full tony tick (8A).

Can you tell us more about those two ascents?
Monkey Wedding - my first 8C and my hardest boulder. Took me 4 sessions with some nice progress at the beginning to stagnation/frustration right before sending. Getting that crazy pinch in the right spot and heel placement was crucial for me.

Moon Shadow 8B FL - just gave it one hundred percent in the first go and it happened. Two moves, not much to mess up :)

Piotr has previously done ten routes 9a+ or 9b but is most famous for his ten 8c onsights. Adam Ondra has onsighted close to 100 routes 8c and harder but it just might be that the 26-year-old is #2 on that list with ten.

Sorato Anraku, 16, created the perfect ending of the men’s final in Briancon, starting last and being the first to top out. Earlier this year the youngster from Japan became the overall Boulder World Cup winner. With only two Lead events remaining, he is ahead with almost 700 points meaning that if he gets a podium in one of them, the 16-year-old will most likely be the first climber winning both disciplines overall in the same year. Tasei Homma was runner up and Satone Yoshida won the bronze. As in both the qualification and semi, Japan took the first six positions also in the final. (c) Complete results

Talking with 8a in Brixen last month, Sorato said he mainly trains alone or with some locals from Chiba, 1.5 hours from Tokyo. Most of his training consists of bouldering or doing circuits and sometimes also some hangboarding. He does not follow any strict training plan. A couple of times a month he travels to Tokyo to train with guys from the national team.

The women's field was won by Luka Vitan, from Slovenia, who secured her first ever World Cup victory. Eliska Adamovska from the Czech Republic, who won in Briancon in 2021, placed second and the third was Manon Hily in front of her home crowd. Complete results (c) Jan Virt/IFSC

ANRAKU: “I’m surprised to win. I love doing both Boulder and Lead and I want to win more medals. I really want to win the World Championships as well. Koper World Cup. Wujiang World Cup. I practice a lot and I want to win them all.”

LUKAN: “It’s amazing. I’m speechless. I did not expect it. I don’t know what happened. I just climbed and enjoyed the route, I fought hard, I give it my all and I’m really surprised. I’m just happy.

"It was a really tough season. I injured my knee in January and then again in February and I didn’t climb from then until the middle of April. I had an ACL tear and a meniscus tear so I went through surgery where they removed half of the meniscus. The season has been tough for me, the victory is unexpected, but it means a lot to me.”

Dylan Chuat, who did two 9a+ last year, has made the FA of X integral (9a+) in Gottreux, video. ”The line I had imagined from the very beginning I was just waiting to release Satire and Shocker so I could link the two together and make a puuuure king line!!!” (c) Sebastien Maflin

Can you tell us more about your latest FA?
It starts in which I made the FA of a few weeks ago and ends in that I did the FA of last week. It’s a really beautiful long line with only hard sections!

What is your next plan?
I don’t know what the next project is. I’m trying to repair my finger and elbow injuries at the same time so maybe a little rest and I’ll clean up some new lines so it’ll take a little time before a new FA.

In the Briancon World Cup qualification, Japanese men dominated securing all but one of the first eight positions and the same thing happened in the semifinal. Hannes Puman is the only non-Japanese male that will compete in the final tonight. Sorato Anraku, 16, who won the Boulder World Cup cruised to the Top and will be last out in the final tonight. Complete results

Among the women, Eliska Adamovska won the semifinal ahead of Nonoha Kume, Natsuki Tanii and Molly Thompson-Smith. (c) Complete results

It should be noted that a majority of the highest-ranked athletes did not participate in Briancon and that includes also, to some extent, team Japan. One of the reasons for this is that the World Championship in Bern starts in two weeks and there are six tickets to the Olympic Games at stake

HIGUCHI Masahiro (JPN): In the picture by Jan Virt/IFSC.
“In qualification I didn’t feel good. I felt drained and I think the atmosphere affected me, I just kept forgetting to breathe in. It was difficult to adjust to the conditions. The semi-final was much better though. I was moving good and felt good. It’s my second time in the finals this year, so it’s exciting but I’m a little bit nervous.”

Molly THOMPSON-SMITH (GBR)
“I’m extremely happy. Having such a good qualifying round definitely put a bit of pressure on to continue the form. When you are in a finals spot and it’s yours for the taking it’s definitely harder to keep it together. I’m just happy I took my time and enjoyed climbing. It was a great experience in front of a great crowd.

“It felt good to finally break the curse almost. It would have been funny had I finished in ninth at every comp this year, but it feels good to be back in finals. Especially after the ankle break it feels even sweeter.

“Now I just want to go out and continue to enjoy climbing. My second qualis route was probably the most fun I’ve ever had at a World Cup. The focus was to go out and play, and I want to try and take that into the finals now and try and find some magic.”

Hannes PUMAN (SWE)
“The route was nice to climb. Very friendly. It was a bit easier at the beginning than I thought but then when I got up onto the head wall it started to get harder. But it was nice. I’ve only ever been to one World Cup final so I’m happy with my performance so far. It’s just nice to be able to climb one more route.”

Andrea Chelleris, who two years ago sent Puro Dreaming 8c+/9a and who this spring became the U-14 Italian Slalom Champion, has done Thunder Ribes (9a) in Arco.

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
I spent 4 days and 7 tries plus one in November last year. My idea was to send Underground (9a) but it was too hot so I decided to change route. This was better because it is endurance with a hard boulder in the last part of the route with a two-finger jam. I thought to do it faster but it was hot so I slipped a lot at that finger jam.

Mattéo Soulé, who last year did his first two 9a's, has made the FA of Trois pattes dans la chouffe (9a) in Gorges du Tarn, video.

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
A link-up that I equipped and tried four sessions last year, and two sessions this year, to concretize the pure line very resistant in the roof of the "Trois pattes". You have to do almost all the crux of the 8c and then you arrive directly at the junction with the 8b+, 5/6 moves, 7B+ boulder, allow to reach the ramp of the 8b+ and finish in the crux of this one. A total of 25 very hard moves follow one after another without any rest. 9a to be confirmed of course but it seems rather coherent to me, the crux of the crossing is really harder than that of the Trois pattes.

What are your summer plans?
Training because of the world championships in August and the European championships in September.

Aris and Katie are two people synonymous with Kalymnos, and their latest guide is the eighth edition to the island, marking twenty three years since their first. We recently caught up with them and they were kind enough to share with us the backstory to producing a guide to one of climbing’s most revered destinations as well as the evolution that Kalymnos has undergone over the last two decades.

When did you guys first climb on Kalymnos?
Aris: In the spring of 1999. I was with my friend Thomas Michaelides, and I remember climbing at sector Arhi and being entirely alone. There was nobody there except some goats observing us from a safe distance, and it felt like there was nobody else on the whole island. When we finally ran into another pair of climbers on our fourth day, we were elated.

Katie: Summer of 2008. I’d only started climbing a few months earlier at the Acharnes Alpine Club’s indoor wall in Athens, where Aris and I met. I didn’t really like indoor climbing and was ready to jump ship, but Aris insisted that I quit my job and spend the summer on Kalymnos with him. Best decision of my life!

When did it first occur to you that you could make a guidebook and that one was needed?
Aris: Almost immediately after my first visit in 1999. The first guidebook was made a little over a year later, in October 2000, for the first Kalymnos climbing festival. I was already in close contact with the municipality and established a set of safe bolting guidelines (10mm stainless-steel bolts, dense bolting, [safe distance between bolts] two-bolt anchors with [proper lower] carabiners). It was obvious that Kalymnos had enormous potential and the local community was very keen to help revive the island. That first guidebook feels very retro now. We still get the occasional email from guidebook geeks looking for a copy to add to their collection!

What was putting the first guidebook together like?
Aris: Thankfully there weren’t that many routes on Kalymnos yet, and my friends and I had already climbed or re-bolted most of those early routes. A bigger challenge at the time was tracking down the other equippers, finding out the names of routes, etc. Remember that this was pre-smartphone, pre-widespread internet. I often had to put together information based on whatever the other equippers had scribbled on the back of a napkin or a piece of paper and left at their rental studios or one of the few cafes in Masouri at the time. Language was more of a challenge, too (I didn’t have Katie and her fluent English by my side yet; she joined in 2010), but luckily other climbing friends from Italy, Germany, the UK, and France volunteered to translate the guidebook into their respective languages.

How many routes were featured in the first guidebook, and how many are featured in the 2023 edition?
The first edition (October 2000): 80 pages, 200 routes, five languages (Greek, English, Italian, German, French). Eighth edition (June 2023): 624 pages, 4216 routes, English only.

You partnered with Vertical-Life to print and distribute this latest guide, why did you choose this path and what are the advantages to working with Vertical-Life?
Aris and Katie: Vertical-Life has created the digital version for all of our guidebooks since 2015 (Kalymnos, Leonidio & Kyparissi, and Greece Sport Climbing: The Best Of), so we have known and worked with them for years. We’d chosen to collaborate with Vertical-Life in the first place because, among the many app developers approaching us, we felt that V-L were the ones who respected our work the most by working directly with local guidebook authors and not copying content or cutting corners. So we trust that our work is safe. For the 2023 Kalymnos guidebook specifically—our most important and labor-intensive work to date—we wanted to ensure both outstanding printing quality and wide availability. Printing quality in Greece had been rather poor lately, the astronomical rise in the cost of paper was making it nearly impossible for us—two authors—to handle the production of a 624-page book on our own, and shipping/handling costs had become prohibitive. We turned to our friends at Vertical-Life because we already trusted their handling of our work, they have access to high-quality printing (this book has been printed on plastic-free paper) and a wide distribution network, and our guidebook continues to be produced entirely in Europe by climbers for climbers.

When did you realize that Kalymnos had the potential to become one of the world’s premiere climbing destinations? Was there a specific turning point?
Aris: The moment I set foot on the west coast of Kalymnos and saw the pure virgin cliffs above Masouri and Arginonta. Can you imagine? It was an utter revelation and a personal turning point for me. Almost immediately, I devoted all my energies to the island—including transitioning to sport climbing after years and years of long trad routes and yearly pilgrimages to the Alps. I believe the specific turning point for the island was Petzl’s 2006 Roctrip, which brought to Kalymnos 20 of the world’s best climbers alongside about 1000 visiting climbers, a big number at the time. The publicity and subsequent popularity of Kalymnos exploded after that.

Do you have a favorite route, and/or a favorite sector?
Katie: “Resista” at sector Ghost Kitchen; “Delicatesse” and “Harry Hole” at sector Poets; “Le Bleu du Ciel” and “Provatina” (brand new!) at sector Arginonta Valley; “Monolith” at sector Arhi; “Silver Spurs” at sector Summertime, to name a few routes. Favorite sector: it’s a tossup between Poets and Arhi. Both crags have the full range of grades and rock types, Poets is right above our house (no need for wheels), and as for Arhi and all other crags above Arginonta Bay, the rock and water colors at sundown are irresistible.

Aris: It is impossible to pick just one route. I have at least two dozen favorite routes on permanent rotation. My favorite sector, and a model crag in every way, is Secret Garden. I have equipped most routes there, so maybe I’m a bit biased, but I think a lot of climbers would agree with me!

Is there any advice that you would give to climbers visiting the island? Is there anything that you think often gets missed or overlooked?
Aris and Katie: Don’t skip the guidebook introduction! There’s a reason why all that info is there in the first place. We would particularly like to emphasize the proper use of lower-offs on Kalymnos. Climbers must know how to top-rope and lower from the anchors using their own gear. The fixed clippable carabiners have greatly contributed to the safety record of Kalymnos climbing, but they are somewhat of a luxury: they are expensive, require maintenance, and become damaged when thousands of ropes grind through them when lowering or top-roping from them directly. Also, be considerate at the crag. Say hello, clean your chalk marks, keep your voices down, bury your poop, pack away your toilet paper. These simple behaviors go a long way. That being said, the global climbing community of Kalymnos is like no other, and we are ever grateful for people’s offers to help, words of encouragement, and active support of Kalymnos climbing every time a climber buys our guidebook. Thank you, all!

To see more of one of this year’s most anticipated guidebook releases check out, climbkalymnos.com/guidebook You can secure your copy here, as well as at dedicated outdoor retailers and booksellers worldwide in addition to any number of spots on the island of Kalymnos. Photo courtesy of Hanna Jordan.