In the aftermath of Mina Leslie-Wujastyk's accident we have tested several harnesses and last week we said that Hirundos and Sitta from Petzl have a very safe construction. However, and this is the case for all harnesses with flexible leg-loops we have tested, they stretch too much. Personally I just barely fit small for the two Petzl harnesses at the same time I also just barely fit Large. It says in the description that Small has 48-53 cm width and Large has 55 - 60 cm. It should be mentioned that I could stretch the Small at least one cm to get the maximum at the same time the Large does not stretch at all, but stays in place anyhow. It should be mentioned that in comparison to other harnesses on the market, Petzl stretches more or less the same as all other on the market. Lesson learn for the industry, on order to do safer harnesses, would be to let them stretch less and force me to use Medium as I should.

Nico Ferlitsch has done his first 9a, Martin Krpan in Misja Pec and it included some 50 day trips driving almost 500 km. "At the age of 12 I did my first 8b route Hyperlink, Kanzianiberg, Austria and with 14 years my first 8c Intermono, Sella Nevea, Italy. Last autumn I first saw my 9a route called Martin Krpan in Slovenia. I had to try it and from this moment it was my project. It is an extremely long overhanging traverse in a cave. I tried a whole winter-season to send it and as the spring came closer, I got something like stress. It got warmer and warmer and I knew that it will be too hot to try it again. Hard routes like this one, can’t be climbed when it is warm and humid. So I had to wait for the next autumn. In summer I really trained hard on my beastmaker and campusboard to get more strength in my fingers. I just wanted to be prepard for the 9a. I dreamed of it every single day.

The Climbing Festival in Leonidio did start today and in comparison to last year it seems to be twice as many climbers. In some of the popular crags, there are climbers on most of the routes. Luckily there are plenty of crags to be spread out on and Aris T and many others are bolting new lines. Alex Megos has done two 8C FA as well as flashed Capricorn 8c+ which actually was put up as an 9a. (c) Micha Schreiber - Megos on the FA of Pantysgawn.

Hazel Grace 8c fa from Giuliano Cameroni on Vimeo.

Said Belhaj is back in Sweden after a two months road trip. One of the high lights was Kryptonite and amazingly he worked it for a week without a belayer. (c) Matt Pincus/Training Beta - Quicktick 8a in Rifle "After I had spent some time in the US not feeling in tip top shape, climbing all over the place I finally decided to get to work on Kryptonite. As my friend who I was going up with had a change of plan I set out there alone with a long clipstick, Mini and Micro Traxion and worked it alone for about 1 week in total. Its pretty steep so some sections are a bit tricky to climb in this way but at the same time I like working routes alone as you can really take your time and not feel bad for your belayer! Then I took a break and climbed in the desert and did some "touristing" in the Navajo Nation. When I came back to Kryptonite the conditions were cool and perfect and it was once again amazing to be up there. Fortunately I was also feeling in pretty good shape after having my usual unstable autumn form. I needed 2 more days with a "real" belayer to finish it. I hope more development and attention will be happening at this futuristic crag in the near future."

Our sever provider has told us that they will do the server migration this afternoon. The whole website might be down for 10-15 minutes and then everything should be running much more quickly again. We have updated to much more capacity based on the latest technology. It might be that the very last ascents being added just before they migrate will not be copied to the new one so it might be wise to wait uploading new ascents until everything is ready. The last info is that on Wednesday, they will run a test to see that nothing have been broken and then the old server will be placed in a museum :)

Shauna Coxsey, the best female boulderer the last years, will make her first Lead World Cup appearance in Kranj 11/11. In the Euro Youth Cup she only participated in lead and normally she was Top-5. Also Stasa Gejo, who won Bouldering in World Games, will do her first Lead WC in Kranj. Further good news is that also Alex Megos, who won the semifinal in Arco, will participate. The German was #7 in the Munich Bouldering WC so let us hope for some more good results for him and he might also go for the Olympics. Japan will send eight males almost all of them their bouldering specialists guys. Further more, Jongwon Chon who won the Boulder WC will try Lead again. Hopefully most of the athletes will have good results so they will continue to go for Tokyo 2020.

Jakob Kronberger and Stefan Scarperi, in the picture, have done Sid Lives 9a in Arco which Gabri Moroni put up. "I think it's a hard 8B boulder into another 7b/b+ boulder. All in 10meters of climbing. 9a? Let's see what other people think!" For Jakob it was his fifth 9a although just 16 years old. For ten years older Scarperi it was his second and amazingly he did it on his first session. Two weeks ago he did 8c and 8c+ so he seems to be in the best shape ever.