In 1958, Warren Harding, Wayne Merry and George Whitmore made the FA of the Nose after having spent 58 days on the close to 1 000 meter vertical wall. In 1975 it was repeated in a day. Yesterday, Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold set a new speed record by 2 hours and 10 minutes and 15 seconds. In practice, this means they simu-climbed most of it. This was Alex second speed record, the first done with Hand Florine who has set seven records.

Spanish climber Ignacio Mulero has repeated the legendary The Meltdown 9a in Twll Mawr, the slate quarries in Wales. The route was bolted in 1986 by Johnny Dawes and FA'd by James McHaffie in 2012. As he tells us, he tried the route one day in 2017 and this year took him around 20 tries. Ignacio did Territorio Comanche 8c+ FA slab in La Pedriza 2 years ago and this winter he freed on gear many routes from 8b+ to 8c. ©Talo Martín

Justin Salas has about 10% of his central vision left, after his optic nerves began to atrophy at age 14. With his peripheral vision, mainly intact, he can see the overall shape, contrast and shadows. Three years ago, being 22 year old, a friend took him to the local gym and he got hooked climbing every day and after six months he started to work as a route setter. (c) William Bazargani - Salas doing Worm Turns 8A and (c) Andrew Edwards "One of the employees at the gym put a wrench in my hand and showed me the basics. I was hooked ever since. Setting is a pretty interesting process for me. Most of the time, I'll start by setting a position then figuring out how best to move into the next position. I do this mostly out of feeling and then by using what vision I have left to dial the rest in. I think I'm unique in this way because I rely so heavily on the way the climb feels and not so much on how it looks. " How do you deal with fear of not finding the last holds on a boulder? I've always felt like if I'm not scaring myself and getting out of my comfort zone, then I'm not truly progressing. That being said, I'm definitely not a reckless person. Usually, every move is carefully rehearsed and I have all of the micro-beta dialed in. Although when I'm working a highball rig and I don't have the option of feeling out the boulder on a rope, this is when I have to solely rely on my sight-guide to call holds for me. The most mentally taxing part is often the time waiting for my caller to direct me to my next position. In these moments my mind wanders and I find myself having doubts, whether it be the pain in my fingers, the height of the boulder, or how run out I am. The challenge is shutting these thoughts off and quickly refocusing to continue moving up. What is your long-term goal? I want to help usher in a new wave of elite-level adaptive climbers alongside me, who are respected just as much as the able-bodied athletes in the community. Yes, I do have grade goals, and life list lines I want to climb, but I seek to be a master of stone. I always push myself to climb routes that highlight my weaknesses, not just the ones that play to my strengths. In doing this, I feel I'm better preparing myself for the big objectives. Some of these objectives include being the first adaptive climber to send 8b+ boulder or harder, and 9a routes. Alpinism and big wall climbing are also on my list of future pursuits. I plan to continue competing; I enjoy the process of testing myself against the world's best, and aiming for the title of world champion. P.S. Would it be possible to say "special thanks to Ellie Priester? She helped me dictate this write up, while my computer was having trouble.

It is quite obvious that Bouldering is way ahead when it comes to interest from the climbers, media, organizers and the participants. This goes from the World Cups to the local gym comps. Basically a Lead comp takes longer time to prepare and run, have much fewer exciting moments for the spectators and put more pressure on the participants although they climb very little. Climbers want to climb and the organizers want to simplify it. What if we copy the boulderer competition concept and skip judges /and belayers) in qualifications and let the climbers run it and add the routes in Apps. You score your Top-5 routes based on 8a scoring points and all the routes in the gym are available to try. An 8a = 1 000 points and a 7a onsight = 845 points etc. To spicy it up, at least in the small gyms, you could also score by measuring the number of clips done. Nine clips on a 7a redpoint means 0.9 * 700 = 630 points. For the final, there can be new onsight routes as normal. It should be mentioned that the format has been tested out successfully in a Swedish Cup and in the near future, there will be both holds and also quick draws available on the market, which could mark the results automatically.

France was the best country during the European Youth Championship in Imst, with two golds and one silver and one bronze. Austria did get one medal each but counting points overall, Austria was actually head of France. Among the bigger nations, once again Germany and Great Britain were very long down the list. (c) Reino Horak 99: Nolwenn Arc FRA - Jakub Konecny CZE 01: Sandra Lettner AUT - Alberto Ginés López ESP 03: Nika Potapova UKR - Paul Jenft FRA Complete results.

Shinichiro Nomura, who started bouldering outdoors six months ago, has done two 8C's in Shiobara, Hydrangea and Babel. The 159 cm tall did them on his second day including also an 8B+ and in total he needed 15 tries each. "I am am super happy with these sends. In total, the 21 year old has now done five 8C's and he is #2 in the ranking game. Last year his focus was Lead competitions and his worst result during the five last WCs was #29. (c) Jun Shibanuma, who also did Babel!

alizee dufraisse has done Veritas low left 8A+ in RMNP. "Colorado is amazing!! I learn the process to push in bouldering and explore all those crazy places." Now she sets the bar on Bear Toss 8B before going to Rocklands. Alizée, who has done two 9a's, in #6 in the female boulder ranking game.

Yesterday I managed to send "Veritas low left" V12/8a+ in RMNP. Hope we ll have some good days for "Bear Toss" before Africa