Vertical-Life has published their second issue of their Route setter magazine with several interesting articles. The first is Christian Popien's article about the history of the indoor scene. 1938 - Monitor Rock in Seattle but looked more like a castle 1969 - Concrete walls in Berlin and Munich 1974 - Dolomite huge boulders in Bolzano, still used 1985 - First detachable holds in France (Entre-Prises) 1987 - Public gyms in Seattle and Brussels 1992 - Bronx Rock in Cologne mainly top rope 2002 - First bouldering gym (Boulder - USA) (Also worth mentioning is that from the city centre of Amsterdam in 1996 you could reach eight big gyms within 45 minutes.)

Oriane Bertone has done her third and fourth 8B in Rocklands; Agamemnon and Ray of Light. "Proud to top this boulder! 4 sessions to send the crouch start version. 5 more sessions to send the sit start one. I had to add a pad to reach the holds, but I didn't want to start without the first movement which is really hard (I was still super stretched!) Nice end of stay in Rocklands! In the 8a ranking game, the 14-year-old and 161 cm tall, is #3. In total she has now done eleven 8B's and one 8B+. In the video, she is doing some other 8A's including one flash.

Consensus and average grading are how most think grading should be. This is normally correct but when it comes to height and finger size it is not the best practice. Let us say there is a boulder that feels like 8A if you are 155 cm, and then it drops one grade for every ten cm you add, i.e. a 195 cm tall guy think it is 7B. It is easy to think such a boulder should be graded 7C. This would mean that it would be popular especially by the very tall guys getting a very easy 7C tick. In other words, such boulder could instead be graded 7B+ morpho to better reflect the difficulty for the guys focusing on such (dyno) boulder. It is also the same thing with finger size and kids and short female doing hard routes just because their physics better are suited to that finger pocket 8A a bigger FA put up.

Gonzalo Larrocha has done his 15th 9a, Ciudad de Dios in Santa Linya. The picture shows a new kneebar rest which he found just before the crux. "I spend four seasons on it, I don´t know how many tries I did, perhaps more than one hundred. That´s by far my hardest 9a. There is a sequence of five 5 moves that I only could do some days. That route is a direct start to Fabela wich I did in 2014. In Ciudad de Nios start you should make an 8c+ instead of the 8a start of Fabela.

Tanguy MERARD 🦐, who has onsighted 12 8a's, has done his first 9a, Ça chauffe in Seynes. He comments to Fanatic Climbing, "This route required to me a lot of patience and perseverance (something like 10 days), it was a harder process compared to my 2 previous 8c+ sends (“Les grandes bouches du Rhône” and “San Ku Kai”) so I propose 9a." Interesting is that he started training hard less than two years ago and since then he has had extraordinary progress, although also doing easier routes. His pyramid base is solid with 60 routes 8a and harder the last 12 months. (c) Williams Belle

Fanatic Climbing reports that Cedric Lachat has done Pachamama 9a+ in Oliana. Here is a video from the upper crux. (c) Julia Cassou Cedric has done five 9a+' before and the big plan is to do Mami Chula 9b which is an Adam Ondra link up of Pachamama and Papichulo. "I wanted to try an 9b. After receiving some infos about the routes, I decided to try “Mami chula” because it’s long and less complicated with conditions. Finish “Pachamama” is the first step, Adam and Seb also completed this one before trying the 9b."

David Firnenburg, #4 in the Combined World Ch. in 2016, has done his third 9a+, Papichulo in Oliana after some 7-8 sessions. "Happy to reward the hard work I've invested with an ascent of this amazing line. Interesting process of projecting including up's and down's, warm weather conditions and bad skin. Kept believing in my abilities and stayed patient. Feeling relieved now. Oliana is prime!" The picture, (c) Andrea Kuemin is from his Insta, three days ago. "Finding my inner balance before the crucial try of my project.

Clément Lechaptois has done Dreamtime in Cresciano giving it a personal 8B+ grade. "Four sessions trying with a crimpy method, just one left crimp and big lock off to a good edge (did the stand like that). In the 5th session I tried the jump with that new position for the hands and did the move first try. Then I never missed it. I readjusted my foot sequence to reach the undercling, rested a while and climbed the boulder first try from that day." (It might have been Simon Lorenzi who first did this beta. video 9 min in. Dreamtime is one of the most famous boulders in the world. It was put up as the world's first 8C in 2000 but was later downgraded. Then a hold broke and it was upgraded again. This new beta seems to be not using that broken hold.