Aris and Katie report about the new Leonidio and Kyparissi guidebook. 496 pages in total, includes 83 crags (51 in the print edition + 32 extra in the app) and nearly 2500 sport routes for all levels. Developments up to December 2020 are included. In comparison with their old selective topo, the number of crags has almost doubled up.

Other features:
Crag Planner to help you work out your climbing itinerary
Large, clear, accurate photo-topos
Ample drone photos for easy wayfinding (new!)
GPS coordinates for each sector
User-friendly layout and info about shade, orientation, kid-friendliness, equippers, and essential gear for each crag
Route star ratings and descriptions that are concise yet informative
Hundreds of full-color action photos
Stories about local life, history, and people (new!)
…and, of course, the FREE APP version by Vertical-Life. As always, you get two books in one 🙂

This guidebook was made possible by the warm collaboration with the people and municipality of South Kynouria (i.e. Leonidio) and the Leonidio Association of Business Owners. If working during the pandemic was such a challenge, publishing a new guidebook amidst a pandemic—and a climbing season that’s essentially cancelled—will be an even greater challenge. Yet here we are: missing the crags desperately, but keeping ourselves and others safe, and waiting to show you our beautiful country and its superb cliffs as soon as travel reopens. We are grateful as ever for all your support, dear friends. Be well, and please enjoy a preview of our new Leonidio & Kyparissi guidebook below 🙏

PS. The proceeds of this guidebook go back into local climbing and crag maintenance. As for giving back to the community, the Leonidio municipality has committed to using most proceeds from the guidebook for further development and route maintenance. Importantly, this ensures the local authorities will have an ongoing stream of revenue to use for climbing—a low-impact form of tourism which has already added immense value to Leonidio. Soon you will be able to read more about how these proceeds are used on the official Climbinleonidio.com. (The estimation is that around 20 000 Euro will go back to new bolts, rebolting and trails etc.)

Alex Megos reports on Insta that he has done Dreamtime 8C (B+) in Cresciano after two days of trying. In total, the German has done 26 boulders 8A to 8C as well as well as ten routes 8c+/9a to 9c, and he has been appointed 8a Climber of 2020. (c) Alise Zvigule

Christian Core, the world champion who twice has won the Boulder WC, has given some insight of his masterpiece from 2008 that Adam Ondra in 2011 upgraded it to 8C+ and commented.

"A fairy-tale end of a physical and mental battle, spent 11 days in total on this problem, the same as on Terranova, therefore I go for 8C+ from the same reasons. Thumbs up Christian for the vision and excitement to keep trying over and over again, I knew it is possible, Christian saw just a piece of incredible impossible-looking rock."

Gioia is part of the bouldering history as it was probably the first 8C+ in the world. Nalle Hukkataival, known for his hard grades and who did the first 9A in 2016, repeated it in 2014. "One of the very hardest boulders in the world. Let's remember that the name of the boulder is "Joy" and for me, it stands out more than just a grade." At that time there existed some 30 8C's out of which Nalle had done 10-ish.

Since five years, there exists a new sharp crimp on Gioia that makes it probably one grade easier. Even so, the fourth ascent was just done by Niky Ceria, avoiding the new sharp crimp that appeared some five years ago. "The method I used doesn't hold the sharp crimp and make a wide reach to the decent edge. So you make the come-in from a better hold and it's quite powerful. It makes the boulder longer so you basically you have no chalk for the upper part. I think it looks very wide from the bottom, but way less when you are pulled into the wall."

We asked Core if he could give us the history of Gioia also including some of the controversies in regards the new holds and the use of glue?

“I would like to begin by congratulating my friend Niccolò Ceria, a very strong and humble climber who, climbing Gioia, not only climbed another beautiful line, but also one of the benchmarks of Varazze. A lot has been said on various websites about this boulder, even recently about holds on this boulder not being natural. I understand that web sites publish what others write, but it’s important that the author has a complete understanding of what they write, so I would like to clarify some details. The boulder was originally discovered by the tireless local Marco Bagnasco, who cleaned up entire cave and found this logical line made up of small crimps. The rock was solid but deep inside some crimps in the second section there were thin slits. So to protect these holds from water and winter ice, I decided to put transparent glue in these little cracks so they could not be seen outside the crack. (It’s called super glue). I would like it to be clear that other than this, nothing else was done. All the holds of Gioia are natural.

I climbed this boulder in 2008, calling it "Gioia", (in english “Joy”) a simple name, given by the emotion of discovering, working and being able to climb such a beautiful line after so much dedication. Some years after my accent it was repeated by two very strong climbers, Adam Ondra in 2011 and then Nalle Hukkataival in 2014. About a year after Nalle’s ascent, we found two important changes. A new good crimp appeared in the first section, where nothing had existed before, and also a new foothold appeared in the second section. So the Gioia line had been changed, and as I wrote at that time, I closed the foothold, which I assure you that I did not like doing. The new crimp, because too big, I however left (and can be seen in the attached photos) and if used, does change the grade of this first section. It’s worth noting that at the same time as the holds appeared on Gioia, we also found new holds on another boulder in the same area named. “Raptor Survives”, the last section has “new holds”, avoiding the hardest part, making the line easier and different. I’d like to again congratulate Niccolò for his repetition and importantly demonstrating a strong ethic by climbing it using the original holds. I hope others can have the joy of climbing it in this way.”

Jakob Schubert is one of the contenders being the 8a climber of 2020. Besides flashing The Never Ending Story 8B+, he did 17 boulders 8B as harder as well as ten 9a's. (c) Michael Piccolruaz

Could you please summarize your climbing year 2020?"
Well I obviously trained all three disciplines pretty hard until March where I wanted to have my last Combined test in Moscow. Definitely trained quite a lot of speed as well but for me, the speed training is always something I do extra. I try to do as much lead and boulder as before since at the end of the day the most important thing in combined is still being best at your main disciplines. After the Olympics got cancelled and we didn’t have many comps I took the opportunity to climb outside as much as possible. I‘m really lucky that we have so many great crags close to my home. I was still very thankful that our federation organized a few comps called the Austrian Summer Series though. With these comps, I could see that my preparation for the Olympics was pretty good since I was able to do well in all disciplines. Finally, we had the only Worldcup of the season in Briançon which I wasn’t sure how serious I should take at first. But when Adam came to Innsbruck and I saw how hard he trains and how serious he takes Briancon, I got very psyched as well and tried to get in good lead shape as fast as possible. Briançon was great and I was pretty happy with my climbing which was important for my head since my lead performance in 2019 wasn’t good enough.

Already before Briancon, I started to have problems with my biceps (some inflammation) especially in Speed, so I had to stop training it for almost 3 months, slowly starting with it again right now. I took the time to climb mostly routes outside since that was causing no pain and of course was a lot of fun as well. All in all a good year but definitely a strange one. Can‘t wait to finally be able to travel more again!

What was your best climbing moments in 2020?
Well there are quite a few rememberable moments. The flash of Never Ending Story definitely was special since the whole 2-day trip was amazing and I always wanted to flash this one so once it actually happened I was so psyched! La Force Tranquille both the original and the new direct version are also amazing memories, I just love this boulder problem. Route wise ‚Weiße Rose‘ comes to mind as a special memory of this year, it wasn‘t a hard fight but I send it right after coming out of hard lockdown so it was special in terms of feeling free and strong again 😊

The problem with doing dead hangs is that the hardcore climber can hang 10 seconds on such small edges that it is painful and destroys the skin. One option is, of course, carrying weights but that is not so convenient. An alternative could be swinging dead hangs, on a campus board, meaning that you start hanging with your feet as long away from the edge as possible. Once you let go, you get a hard pendulum swing to handle, increasing the load on your fingers. Tackling the swing will also mean that you challenge different angles of your crimp position, body and arm muscles as well as train technically.

Start by recruit your maximum finger strength by doing several one second dead hangs which can be combined with some campus moves. Experiment on how big swing you can take and still be able to hang for 10 seconds. For the very advanced climbers like Hannes Puman on the picture, #8 at the World Champion last year, you can push to increase every swing. To make it even more advanced you could try to finish off by doing one move or just dyno as high as possible. Rest for one minute which should be increased to two minutes if you do more than 10 sessions. Once you feel you get weaker you should stop the exercise.

It should be noted that swinging dead hangs is just for the advanced climbers.

Emily Harrington, #2 in the Lead World Championship 15 years ago, has transferred into a multi-pitch trad climber. Five years ago, she did the 40 pitches Golden Gate 8a in six days, video. Last year she tried to do it in any day but it ended in a very bad accident. This autumn she did it in 21 hours!

Alex Megos is one of the contenders being the 8a Sport climber of 2020. Besides doing the FA of Bibliographie 9c, the 27-year-old has also done nine routes 8c+/9a and harder as well as 25 boulders 8B to 8C. (c) Ken Etzel

Could you please summarize your climbing year 2020?
I started the year training at the gym in January and February. Then I went to Sheffield for the CWIF and right after that, the European championships in Moscow got cancelled. We all know what followed with the lockdowns and the pandemic. Since the Cwif I pretty much only climbed outside and trained not very comp specific. I haven't done speed since February. My year 2020 has been probably exactly what I needed. After my first full comp season in 2019, I felt like being able to dedicate 2020 to rock climbing again was just what I needed. It felt good to be back on rock.

I pretty much went back and forth between the Frankenjura and France for most of the summer to go to Ceüse and to compete in Briançon. After that, I did a couple of trips to Arco and one to South Tyrol. The autumn I spent in Ukraine and I also went to Turkey for a couple of weeks.

Which send was most special for you beside Bibliographie?
Doing the first repeat of L'Etrange Ivresse des Lenteurs 9a+ in Ceüse was special to me. I have tried it a few years ago without chalk and tick marks on the route and couldn't even reach the anchor. The bolts are very far apart and its hard climbing all the way to the anchor high above the bolt. Back then I thought I'll never try again. When I came back to try Bibliographie I wanted to try something else as a side project too and as I pretty much did everything else I decided to try L'Etrange again. Mainly because Stefano Carnati went up to put in quickdraws and he as well left some tick marks. I tried it 3-4 times and then already felt ready to give it some tries. On my 5th try, I fell on the last move. Then after Briançon I came back to Ceüse to film Bibliographie. I still had half an hour before we wanted to start filming and I just put my shoes on and climbed L'Etrange without checking it out again that trip.

Angy Eiter, four times World Champion, has done the FA of the 50 meters and very steep Madame Ching near her home in Tyrolean Oberland, after two months pf projecting. The 154 cm tall compares the difficulty with La Planta de Shiva a 9b she did in 2017. "This route is a present from my husband Bernie that he put up in 2018. He handed the route to me and I started trying it. I found the sequences very hard and thought it’s maybe not possible for me. In May 2020 after the first lockdown, I made a virtue out of necessity and started projecting. My first steps on it were quite humbling. I failed many times and was really at a loss sometimes but performance and more efficient tweaks in my method paid off. I could tackle some sequences and simultaneously needed less rope-hanging rests in between... until the whole route was done, finally. I couldn’t believe it. This was the moment where all the hard work finally paid off! Thanks to all the yelling crew!! 🤘🏻😍 • Great experience trying something completely without traces, being the first working out a beta, holds frequently broke. Please keep in mind of the grade: I am the first, can just rely on my beta, I am much shorter than an average climber, was wrong several times in the past. •"

Video and more comments here. (c) Raphael Pöham / Red Bull ASP

Combining her outstanding competition track record with doing eight routes 9a and harder, including two 9b's, Angy is by far the best female climber out there. When she won the World Champion title in 2007 in a super final on the male route, with some extra holds in the start adjusting for the height difference, she made it further than one of the males. The route setter Francois Legrand said he believed that Angy often could make it to the Top-8 final if they had taken her length into consideration on the less steep sections.