Isabelle Faus has done her 7th 8B in the last eight months, Free Range (aka Cage Free Assis) in Boulder Canyon. "Battle for me, psyched to do it. On to the next." In the 8a ranking game, Isabelle is #1 among the female and #19 overall, which actually makes her the highest ranked female since 8a started in 2000. Her score is also the highest ever! Here you can find the freshly released video of her doing an 8B+.

- Put the left foot to the light! Climbing at any of the three beginner crags at Railay is super hectic. Some instructors even have a laser pointer to coach their clients on routes that are way too hard. As can be seen in the picture from Phra'Nang, the instructor is trying to support the beginners, pulling them up. At the same time, they are mostly really nice so you can even borrow their top rope while their clients rest. During the six months of high season, more than 100 people climb daily with an instructor at Railay and with 50 every day during low season, there are about 25 000 beginners trying it out annually. Most pay 1 000 baht, 300-350 out of which is paid to the instructors. This means that there are people making more than 30 000 baht a month during high season. For Thai standard this is quite good as they do not pay any taxes. The head instructor says that even so it is quite hard to find new workers as they normally need to work for free for 2-3 months before they can pass the test. Moreover, the hardest thing for the newcomers is actually to learn English well enough.

Rockbusters invite you to a very exclusive training camp in Siurana and Margalef where Adam Ondra will be your personal onsight and redpoint coach for two days. For the first two days you will have Patxi Usobiaga as your personal coach analyzing your strengths and weaknesses. "Expect a lot of climbing with a focus on strategy and mindset. The goal? To send a route first time that’s above your normal level. Not only is there bucket loads of hands on coaching from Adam but all the typical Rockbusters fun." The camp starts on the 11 of March and the week before Rockbusters will run a one week mental coaching course with Hazel Findlay.

"Daj ľavú nohu na svetielko!" Lezenie v ktorejkoľvek z troch začiatočníckych lezeckých oblasti v Railay, Thajsko je poriadne hektické. Niektorí inštruktori majú dokonca malé lasery, ktorými svojim klientom ukazujú stupy a chyty v cestách, ktoré sú pre nich príliš ťažké. Inštruktor z Phra'Nang sa na obrázku takisto snaží začiatočníkovi pomôcť tým, že ho vyťahuje nahor. Väčšina z inštruktorov je ale v pohode, takže nie je problém si napríklad vyskúšať líniu, v ktorej majú natiahnuté lano, kým ich klient odpočíva. Počas hlavnej sezóny, ktorá trvá 6 mesiacov, lezie denne s inštruktorom cca 100 ľudí, mimo sezóny je to cca 50. V súčte sa teda v Railay prestrieda za rok približne 25 000 začiatočníkov. Jeden klient zvyčajne zaplatí za deň 1000 bahtov (26.53€), z ktorých 300-350 bahtov (7-9€) ide inštruktorom. Počas hlavne sezóny si teda môžu zarobiť aj 30 000 bahtov (796€), čo je na thajské pomery celkom dobré, keďže neplatia žiadne dane. Hlavný inštruktor ale hovorí, že napriek tomuto je ťažké zohnať nových ľudí, keďže zvyčajne musia najprv 2-3 mesiace pracovať zadarmo, aby mohli prejsť inštruktorským kurzom. Najťažšou vecou pre nováčikov ale býva naučiť sa hovoriť po anglicky na adekvátnej úrovni. Autor: Jens Larssen

Eric Carlsson started with daily climbing videos a few months ago and now he has 18 000 followers on his Youtube channel with over 2.5 million views. The simple idea is to follow one boulderer doing a problem in his gym Klättercentret in Stockholm, where he works full time running the cafe. He also does training videos and spend about 40 hours a week filming and editing. What is your climbing and filming background? I tried climbing for the first time around 5-6 years ago, got really into it for 2 months, then I started traveling and ended up living in Australia. So after nearly 2 years away from climbing I got into it again and I haven't stopped since. I had never done any filming/photo In my life prior to starting this, so I started completely from scratch, luckily there Is a lot of creative and kind people in the climbing world/gym that helped me every time I needed it! How much time does it normally take to shoot and edit a video? It varies, some days it can take 5h and some days as much as 10h but the average is around 6-7h everyday, so its a fair amount of time each day but its what I enjoy the most, so Im psyched! What's your plan and ambition for these videos? My plan Is to continue sharing these stories, to continue to build a platform were people can share there progression, motivation, failure and success, so we can all keep the psyche high in climbing. I have spent these first 6 months at Klättercentret Telefonplan and It has been great! but I'm planing to travel more, meet more people from around the world and share there stories, see were they climb outside, the gyms that they train In and see what the climbing world has to offer as a whole!

Railay beach has been considered the cheapest climbing destination in the world but as the baht is getting stronger and prices, especially for bungalows, have increased, Kalymnos actually turns out to be cheaper. Norway is considered the most expensive climbing destination in the world and that is probably still true even if the Norwegian crown has dropped over the last few years. The 'climbing currency' that has dropped the most in the last five years is the South African rand so Rocklands is about 30% cheaper for most foreigners compared to only three years ago. It should also be mentioned that the USD is getting stronger so it is more expensive to go to Red River Gorge, Hueco Tanks and other US crags.