Alex Honnold soloed in 2006, on his 2nd go as marked in his logbook. It should be mentioned that 8a has a policy to not make news about solo climbing as we do not want to encourage this in order to get a headline. However, over the years, we have sometimes made exceptions for Honnold as these news spread globally anyhow. This is something we have discussed with Honnold and he thinks that’s fine. In any case, back in 2006, we did not publish the Phoenix solo news.

Loic Zehani has done the third repeat of Widowmaker (9a) in Margalef, in just two tries. Vincent Palau bolted the five-star route and then Ramon Julian did the FA in 2015. "Another magnificent route from Margalef (purgatory). A fast approach and then a big overhang with pockets but not only. Some dynamics moves. Winter conditions this morning before the rain (1° and cloudy). Without forgetting the 10 meters between the last point and the belay it's not hard but without chalk, it was really scary. 1 try yesterday and 1 today." (c) Emile Pino

Two weeks ago we reported that Bronwyn Hodgins had done the second female ascent of Necronomicon (8b) in The White Rim. The FFA was done by Mary Eden in October and here are her comments. (c) Spencer Mckay

"The challenging roof crack has a 12 ft crux of WC friend .75s surrounded by fists, baggy hands, hands, and thin hand sizes. Necronomicon’s slash grade of 8b/8b+ comes from whether or not the climber can thin-hand or hand jam the crux section of .75s. If the climber can get thin hands or hand jams in the .75 section, then the grade is 8b. If they have thick palms and have to ring lock, paddle hand, or finger bar the crux, the grade is 8b+.

The crux for me was the paddle hands and fat ring locks. I unfortunately have thick palms and cannot thin hand jam cracks protected with .75 cams. In the crux I used a sequence of a tight paddle hand(your hand stops at or before the knuckles on your hand and you ‘jam’ by lodging the knuckle as deep as possible while finger barring and hoping for the best) at my chest and a fat ring lock(a ring lock in which I tuck my thumb under the base of my index finger) above my head while keeping my toes (in the thinnest slippers I could find) jammed close to my hips in order to keep my body tension high and not slip out of the very thin offset .75 crux. The red point crux was getting into and leaving an awkward pod that comes immediately after the crux section of greens. Once you successfully navigate the pod with a double knee bar that allows you to go hands free, it's important to not allow the exit of the pod to push you off of the route, and continue the last 20 ft of mildly chossy roof crack climbing to the other side.

In 2020 I scouted the route, had two sessions on it, and made plans to return in the future. Unfortunately, I was unable to return to the route fully until October 2022. In 2021 I attempted a session with Ben Rueck in August, however, the extreme heat of 118 degrees fahrenheit shut all attempts down even though the route is perma shady. This fall I worked the route for 3 days, took 1 rest day, and then another 3 days until I secured the pink point. Then due to bruised palms, aching knees, and sore calves I took two rest days. The first day back and first burn I got the red point.

I climbed Necronomicon a bit differently than the ways it had been freed before. I opted to climb Necronomicon at an earlier start than the standard, a positive hold with a heel hook at the end of a dirty offwidth squeeze crawl. I chose to do the dirty offwidth crawl 10 ft further back in the cave because it felt personally lower energy to enter the roof earlier than precariously balancing on a rock stack.

I cannot put into words how beautiful, remote, and rewarding it is to climb down in the White Rim. The first time I saw the 30 meter roof crack, Necronomicon, there was a herd of bighorn sheep standing around the base, the sun lit up the sky for a cotton candy sunset, and the hardest looking crack I’d ever thought about climbing loomed above. Climbing there has fully captured my imagination and curiosity. Climbing this kind of crazy stuff on adventures like this is honestly why I love rock climbing so freaking much. "

Noah Wheeler has done Paint it Black (8C) in RMNP (CO). "Surprised myself with a send of this one after 5 days off from the flu. One of the most technical (that is to say, not strength or finger reliant) climbs I’ve had the privilege of trying. 3 seshs w the first one including some of the worst blind beta yours truly has ever conceived of."

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
I visited the boulder for the first time briefly in October and came back a week ago after having rehabbed my fingers a bit more. I worked out the moves mostly last sesh and had decent links by then. In the week leading to the send session I got the flu and unfortunately had to take the entire week off for rest. I came to the boulder this weekend with a residual cough but managed to send and in fact felt pretty good during the entire sesh.

What is next and what about 2023?
Haha, I’m going to Vegas over thanksgiving so I’ll pull in but I only have a week. For next summer I want to get on Insomniac (8C+) but aside from that I am in school full time so I mostly just go where the psyche takes me given I have the space. Usually, that means smaller-term projects in Colorado.

Urs Odermatt and Peter Keller established Griffig in Kalymnos during two very hectic weeks this spring. Amazingly, the 31 routes have been logged 1 042 times since 26/6 and Pestalozzi 7a (6c) is actually the second most logged route on 8a in 2022. Previously, the Swiss mountain guides, have put up around 100 routes including some multi-pitches on Telendos as well. Here is an interview made by ClimbKalymnos.

Urs: "Markus Leippold, was the first who mentioned this cliff. I have no doubt that many many climbers already were there to visit this sector before. And nobody started the work because it was very obvious that there is a lot of cleaning to do. But as I spend my summer holidays in Kalymnos, I was really desperate in finding new shady sectors. Every year I was walking to the cliff and dreamed about this sector. The exposition is just perfect. In 2021, Cecile Niederer, a Swiss climber, found the perfect argument to start the work: sponsoring!

(Peter: The sponsoring was organised from Urs, Cécile and a climbing gym named Griffig. They started crowdfunding where the customers could pay for a route. )

First, we get in touch with Aris to make sure that this was not private land. We want to be sure that it is ok to climb there. Secondly was to check again with Aris, which material we should use for safe and durable bolting. Are gave us great support from the organization. After the equipment was ready, we started to work like crazy in a very tight time frame. Peter and I have a lot of experience with developing new crags. Our focus was to create a climbing area, suitable for beginners, courses, and everybody who just want to have fun. We don't say that this is the best or the right way, but we placed the bolts super close so that everybody can lead without fear and we want to minimalize the risk of a bad fall.

We always work independently on the wall. We define sectors and everybody takes care of his sector. First, we do a rough cleaning from big blocks and check the rock if everything is safe. After that, we climb the route in Top Rope and mark the placements for the bolts. If that works, we drill the bolts and do another cleaning. After that, we do a third cleaning with a strong leaf blower to minimize dirt in the route. We started the daily work with the first daylight and finished at sunset. There was absolutely no time for any beer or fun during the work. We were focused like two crazy guys and I was still suffering 3 weeks after we finished the job."

What about the gradings often said to be very "soft"?
That's because there was not so much time to try the routes. When I came back in July I realized that the grades for 7a and harder were far too soft. The crazy thing is, that many people have confirmed the grades anyway…….

So what about Kalymnos grades: First of all, the Kalymnos style is easy to read and if you're physically in a good shape, the routes can feel a bit soft in places. But I also would talk about Kalymnos Climbers' attitude. They check on the internet which routes are easy for the grade. Go there, tick it on 8a.nu and write in the comments «soft». The same people who blamed us for the grades in Griffig were climbing there, again and again, to tick as many hard routes as possible because they already knew that the correct topo will be published in next spring. When «Orion» in Odyssey or «Marmonei» in Irox were 8a, these routes were always crowded. After a downgrading to 7c+ you see very rare traffic there. When we bolted Sector Claros, we were superfit and I believe that the grades there are correct. «Glaros» is one of the absolute best 8a+ in Kalymnos. Not many people go there. So the impression of the soft Kalymnos grades is also because people pick the soft routes and talk about them.

Lucien Martinez has removed all but two sika holds from Eric Siguier's unrepeated Chicken deluxe (8c+), from 2002, creating a hard 9a+, in Saint-Antonin. Previously the editor-in-chief of the French Magazine Grimper has done ten 9a's and one 9a+. Fanatic Climbing has the full story. (c) Arthur Delicque

"For me, the story started when I got it into my head to repeat this 8c+ which was one of the very last routes I hadn’t ticked at Supermanjoc. I broke two sika holds during my first go, just by pulling on them, and that’s when I and Fabrice (Landry) started thinking that it might be possible without sika. With the agreement of Éric Siguier, we then removed fifteen sika holds (perhaps 17) with a hammer (they came down very easily). There are two that we decided to keep despite everything because, unlike the others, the sika was actually reinforcing a natural hold, so breaking the sika would have meant also breaking the rock itself. For the first of the two holds, it would have made no difference to remove it. For the second, we are not 100% sure that the route would have been possible without. We hesitated a lot and finally told ourselves that we were going to play it smart and leave them on. So no, we can’t say that the route is completely natural (there are two sika holds left) but I don’t think we could have called it natural either if we had removed them too."

Jorge Diaz-Rullo has repeated two of Tom Bolger FAs in Margalef, Wild West (9a) and Mr. Big (9a). The latter he did second go and calls 8c+. More details on his Insta. (c) Eduardo Ruano Lin

In total, the 23-year-old has now done some 57 routes 9a and harder which means he is #8 on that exclusive list. In the 8a ranking game, he is #3.

Simon Lorenzi, who made the FA of Soudain seul (9A) in 2021 after some 25 sessions, needed some 20 sessions to send Alphane (9A). "Soudain Seul was harder to send for me. But as you know climbing is a matter of style." (c) Gilles Charlier

It should be mentioned that Simon personally hesitated to give Soudain Seul 8C+ or 9A but as some of the others who tried it thought 9A, the Belgian concluded that 9A was probably the appropriate grade.

The sending process of Alphane could probably have been quicker as he also had to tackle injury and skin problems as well as bad conditions. After he did it in two parts in August after just five sessions, he got a shoulder injury that made it impossible to fully extend his arm for a month. Then he injured his left index finger meaning that he only focused on the second half while working on it in November. Then in December, he made one more trip and was close to sending but got skin problems.

"It was a roller coaster because I opened my right index finger at my first attempt of the day. I had this problem 10 days ago and didn't find a solution to try with tape. Finally, I put one piece of tape in a strange way and I sent it on my first try with the tape. I went from being depressed about my skin to sending in like 5 min."

So if you had failed on that attempt, it was over for that session?
Yes, if I had missed it, it was over for a few days because I was not convinced of my taping technique ahaha :)

What made the trick in the end for sending it?
The trick for me was finding all the good betas and for that, I needed to put tries from the start because when you're pumped from the beginning it's easier to say if the beta is good or not.

Any thoughts on the direct version of Alphane?
It looks like one of the hardest thing I've seen but I didn't try so I'll be back.

Any other projects that you are keen to do?
For sure, there are still 3 amazing looking 9a's to be repeated 😁 And many other 8C+ or 8C like Floatin, Grande illusion, United, Box therapy, Lucid dreaming,... At the moment there is no project that I know that I'm pretty psyched for in Font. But there is a ton of easiest stuff that I really want to do there.

What is next and what about Paris 2024?
From today, the next goal is to be selected for 2024. I'll go check the hard stuff that I want to do after 2024 for sure 🙂

Simon Lorenzi reports on Insta that he has done Alphane (9A) in Chironico. In August, we reported that he had done it in two parts after just five sessions. (c) Gilles Charlier

Including his FA of Soudain seul (9A), Lorenzi becomes the second boulderer in the world, after Shawn Raboutou, who has done two 9A boulders.

The Belgian has been an active competition climber since 2011. In 2016, he won the Youth Lead World Championship, and this year he won the Euro Boulder Cup in Brixen. The 25-year-old has previously also done four 8C+ meaning that he has the most impressive boulder tick list in the world together with Daniel Woods and Shawn Raboutou.