NEWS

Garnbret's  comp record is extraordinary
During the last 19 WC's and World Championships in which Janja Garnbret has participated, the 22-year-old Slovenian has won 15 events and been runner up three times. In total she has won 30 World Cups, out of which 13 in bouldering.

No other female have had such success in both disciplines. Jain Kim has also won 30 but all but one in Lead and third in the list is Angy Eiter win 25 Lead WC Victorias. Anna Stรถhr and Akiyo Noguchi have won 22 and 21 World Cup wins respectively, and two World Championship wins and all of them have been doing World Cups for 12+ years.

It should be mentioned that Janja sometimes has chosen to not participate in all World Cups, both when she was younger and like last month in Salt Lake City, to not burn out.

Two 9a's by by Alex Garriga
Alex Garriga, who the last three months has done four 9a+' and four 9a's, has done yet another two 9a's; La Parada de los Monstruos and El Gran Bellanco both in Montanejos. The first one was set up by Ramon Julian Puigblanque in 2013 and has never been repeated and Alex comments, "With kneepads, I think it is an easy 9a. How Ramรณn did it is another level."

In the picture, El Gran Bellanco FA Petro Pons in 2003. "Very cool power-endurance route. I think 8c+/9a."

The Finnish Line 8C by Vadim Timonov
Vadim Timonov has done Nalle Hukkataival's The Finnish Line in Rocklands. "I tried it two years ago. I did it with rope but was too scared to climb it with pads. 1st session for this year ๐Ÿ˜‰" (c) Juliet Lenova

How long do you plan to stay and do you have any specific plans?
I have a lot of high and hard boulders to do ๐Ÿ˜…. Iโ€™m here until the 26 of July.

Creature from the black lagoon 8C+ by Matt Fultz
Matt Fultz has repeated Daniel Woodsโ€™ Creature from the black lagoon 8C+ in RMNP. "It took 15-20 days spread out over 4 years. However, I discovered I was using pretty terrible beta, and after working out a different sequence I was able to send it in a couple more sessions. Creature is one of the most repeated 8C+s in the world, but in my opinion, it is definitely a step above all other 8Cs Iโ€™ve done, so the grade seems fair."

Amazingly, the 30-year-old did his first 8C just over two years ago and now he has done 17 and four 8C+, all during the last year. He is a superior #1 in the 8a ranking game and getting close to the highest score ever achieved. The 183 cm tall and 74 kg powerhouse has previously explained that nutrition is a major factor to his latest progress.

Moritz Welt did the FA of Star Shopping 9a in Frankenjura three weeks ago and the video shows it is an amazing route.

How is it possible that this old Werner Thon bolted project has not been done before?
Well this one was a long-standing project that has only been tried by a few people over the last ten years. The wall is quite hidden so most of the people didn't really know about the line.

Does it exist any other projects like this?
I actually know only about a few, maybe like 5 big lines some of them are crazy hard. But as many people won't expect, there's still some future stuff around here.

Is this the most overhanging route in Frankenjura?
There are at least some climbs here that have a similar roof length but not so many, so it is definitely outstanding.

It seems to be at least 30 meters long and 15 meters overhang?
Yeah but maybe a little bit less, something like 25m long and 12m overhang.

Based on the number of bolts you are clipping, this must be more than 25m to the top?
Well, probably you are right, the wall is more than 20m tall and with the roof, it must be really long then :D.

Quickdraw upside down to reach the bolt
(The picture shows a quickdraw being clipped in the wrong way which is dangerous. Please read the whole article to understand when this method could be used for a safety reason).

A quickdraw normally has one straight carabiner, which you clip into the bolt hanger, and one bent carabiner where you clip in the rope. Between the two carabiners, there is a webbing, which is often fixed to the lower carabiner while the upper carabiner is loose. The reasons for this is that it is easier to clip in the rope to a fixed carabiner, while you do not want a fixed webbing to the upper carabiner as this could make the carabiner rotate, which is bad for safety reasons.

Short climbers sometimes face situations where they cannot reach to clip the quickdraw to the bolt from the best safe position. On the market, there are very long quickdraws with fixed webbing so you can reach like 20 cm higher. Another, on-the-run, alternative is to just turn the quick draw upside down and clip into the bolt with the bent carabiner fixed to the webbing. This will in most cases make it possible to extend your clipping reach by some 3-5 centimeters.

However, remember that a fixed webbing on the carabiner that is clipped into the bolt can make it rotate which should be avoided for safety reasons.

Remember that once you have clipped in. Do not continue to climb but stop and arrange so the quick draw is clipped in the right and secure way.

Great footage, recorded by Peter Zeidelhack, from the Boulder World Cup in 2001 in Munich which Chris Sharma won*, showing that back then competition bouldering was a different sport. Four days earlier Chris had done the ultra endurance route, Biographie 9a+ in Cรฉรผse. * It should be noted that Chris later was stripped from his victory as he had tested positive for THC.