Flatanger is a municipality in Norway with 1 100 inhabitants and also the name of one of the most impressive climbing caves in the world which the locals call, Hansehelleren. The first time it appeared in the 8a news was in July 2010 and then through a blog request in august. The first 8a interview with Adam Ondra at the site was done in 2012. Gudmund Grønhaug, who did his a Ph.D. studies on chronic injuries in climbing and has written two books on injuries and training, played a big part in putting Flatanger on the map and has written the story of Flatanger's pioneers. (c) Firnenburgbrothers

"The first routes in the cave were established in 1996 by a group from Trondheim with Thomas Vekve and Pål Reiten as driving forces in the development. From the beginning and until early 2000 there was a steady development of routes on both sides of the cave and around the valley. Someone psyched and visionary had bolted what would later become Nordic Flower L1 (8b+). The original start was further down in the cave and I'm not sure if anyone has done it yet. Otherwise, there was nothing inside the cave itself. At this time there was an annual gathering in Flatanger organized by the climbing club at the university of Trondheim. The information about routes and bouldering in the valley was lost during a storm which swept away the one lone book with the drawings of the routes.

I came to the cave for the first time myself around the year 2001 and immediately saw that it would be possible to climb in the cave and not only on the sidewalls. Several of the lines were completely obvious. I didn't want to ruin possible lines by putting bolts in the wrong places. I tried to persuade others with better bolting skills than I had at the time to come and help with the bolting. I tried for several years to get other Norwegian climbers to join me in developing the cave, but no one had any faith that it was possible to do something in the cave. They said it was too hard, too far away from other people, too much of this too little of that…. I also tried to get the Petzl Rock trip, but was refused by them as well!

In 2010 I convinced Runar Carlsen to sponsor someone to start bolting in the cave. We applied for money from surrounding municipalities and got enough to get started. Magnus Midtbø and Laurent Laporte bolted the first lines with this money.

In 2011 I received an email from Petr Pavlicek in which he wanted information about hard routes and projects for Adam Ondra on the occasion of a film he was working on. Petr got some pictures and showed them to Adam alongside information on the recent bolting. It was these images that convinced Adam to come to Norway (as Adam himself says in the first film from Flatanger). I helped Adam and Petr with everything from places and accommodation, to cheap flights, and bolts and tried to get them more money from the surrounding municipalities (without success). I actually ordered 150 or so bolts from a supplier without having the money to pay for them, but figured that if Adam needs more bolts he should have more bolts… The bill luckily got paid by the Norwegian climbing federation. After this, the rest of the story became history!"

Iris Matamoros Quero has done P con fin mas hulk extension 9a in Rodellar, which adds an 8A sitstart to an 8c+. The 42-year-old did his second and last 8c+/9a in 2015. (c) Juan Puig Valls

"This summer we traveled to Rodellar the whole family, my wife and my two children aged 1 and 6. Alibaba is a good sector to climb with children, so I decided to try something there. I started remembering Hulk (8b+) that I climbed many years ago. Then I did the 8c extension, and to finish the summer I was able to climb Fin de Ali Hulk extension (8c+). I tried a bit entering through the sit start from the ground through "Proa" but it was too hot and I couldn't. The holidays were over and we returned home, there I planned a specific training and diet for the route. I came back a month later and everything went very well, I felt very very strong and the temperature had dropped 15 degrees, so I was able to do it on the first day of climbing."

Janja Garnbret and Luka Potocar both from Slovenia are the overall Lead World Cup winners in 2022. However, the team rankings are as follows:
1. Japan 21 355
2. Slovenia 18 274
3. USA 16 598
4. Germany 9 484
5. Italy 7 947
Complete results

1. Janja Garnet SLO 5 805
2. Chaehyun Seo KOR 4 405
3. Natalia Grossman USA 3 370
4. Laura Rogora ITA 3 345
5. Brooke Raboutou USA 3 250
6. Natsuki Tanii JPN 3 075
7. Mia Krampl SLO 2 385
8. Ryu Nakagawa JPN 2 320
9. Vita Lukan SLO 2 235
0. Jessica Pilz AUT 2 149
Complete result

The route setters decided to let the female and male categories share the same top portion of the Finals route. Unfortunately, no male climbers made it to the top headwall but this wasn't the case with women, as Janja Garnbret topped it in style. "Today, the route was not hard enough so it was basically about not making a mistake. I feel bad for Seo because she climbed suburb all the weekend.” Chaehyun Seo from Korea was the runner-up and she looked equally relaxed but fell on the second to last balancey move. Third place was claimed by Mia Krampl. Complete results

Ao Yurikusa from Japan won the World Cup in Jakarta. It was raining and he only reached hold 29, thus not making it to the final headwall, and only climbing a few moves beyond the rest of the pack. Runner-up was Higuchi Masahiro also from Japan ahead of Sebastian Halenke from Germany, both reaching hold 28. Overall, Japan had four climbers in the Top-5, which was their best ever Lead results. Complete results

Luka Potocar needed to be #7 in order to win overall. This was also his result in the semi so he started second in the final. Ultimately, the 20-year-old did not perform at his best and fell early as he struggled to find the correct beta on the first hard move it seemed. Then he could only wait for someone to fall below him as a tie would rank him below due to countback. The next man out was Raviandi Ramadhan from Indonesia making his World Cup debut in front of his home country. It starts to rain and he looks very nervous, at one point fumbling with quickdraw for close to 15 seconds. The crowd cheers him but suddenly he falls as he misses an incut part of a hold and Luka gets the overall title.

1. Luka Potocar SLO 3 860
2. Taisei Homma JPN 3 835
3. Jesse Grupper USA 3 812
4. Ao Yurikusa JPN 3 239
5. Yannick Flohé GER 2 910

Matilda Söderlund reports on Insta that she together with Sasha Digiulian and Brette Harrington have sent Rayu, 8c MP on Peña Santa (2596 m) in Spain. Their ascent is the hardest ever graded big wall completed by a female team, including Söderlunf and Digiulian both doing the crux pitch. The 610m and 15 pitch long mixed route was established by the Pou brothers in 2020 and it was reported that, "The Basque brothers are convinced that, given the exceptional quality of the route, it will become a classic that will be pursued by the best climbers in the world."

Sasha (29) has been one of the world's leading female climbers for the last 15 years performing at the very highest standard in all disciplines. In 2011, she got the silver in the Boulder World Championship, and in 2013 she sent Era Vella 8c+/9a as well as sending Bella Vista 8c MP. She has also done numerous Boulder as well as big wall FAs. Matilda (30) has previously done one 9a and been #6 in the Lead World Championship in 2012. Brette (30) has repeated and established many hard MPs as well as alpine big walls.