Adam Ondra comes with great news that he, at 11 pm, has done the second 9a traverse pitch starting five meters in due to a wet hold. Then he continued doing great progress also on pitch #16 and here you can listen to his sum up recorded at 1 am.

David Firnenburg, #3 in Combined in the last world championship, has done his eighth 9a, Action Directe in Frankenjura. It was put up by Wolgang Gullich in 1991 and it has been repeated 21 times now. (c) Lars Scharl 'IT’S DONE!!! A DREAM COMES TRUE. Last Saturday David finally repeated „Action Directe“ (9a) in Frankenjura after falling 9 times at the very last move. That was heartbreaking. The process of hard work behind this ascent makes the success even sweeter. It’s a big motivational boost to have achieved something that hard and iconic. It’s a feeling of satisfaction and pride which definitely remains active in our memories longer than usual."Action Directe" is a true masterpiece.'

Jernej Kruder came to Mallorca with no real DWS experience and immediately onsighted Weather man 8a+ with a crux 18 meters high up. Then, he started working on Es Pontas. During his five weeks on the island, he only spent one day climbing other routes, onsighting two 8as and an 8a+. Regarding the grade, about which Chris Sharma told 8a ten years ago that it is personal but anyhow agreed that it could be a 9b, Jernej seems to be of the same opinion. (c) Kerstin Helbach "I'll just stick with Chris' thoughts. This thing is so specific. For sure it's about the 9th grade, but there are so many different factors, like the dyno. If there are 200 people in the world climbing 9a, maybe just 10% of them can do it. There is a fear factor and a mind battle trying it all over again without knowing if you're able to the all the moves or not. At the moment I don't feel like superman to climb all the hardest climbs in the world, but I feel lucky to have all of this skills that you need for this route. Maybe I'm just one of few chosen guys, who can actually climb this thing." The Slovenian also said that he could not do the crazy knee drop sequence after the dyno so he found another solution. What's interesting is that in fact the runner-up in the Bouldering World Championship 2014 says that even after the big dyno and the "drop knee" part, he found several more cruxes. "So on my last 4 days I was so lucky I didn't fall even once on dyno (even though I was never sure I'm gonna do it or not). So at the end the main crux was a long move on the arete. I stuck it for 3 times already, but failed it after that move- 3 moves before jug. There is also a bit strange crux after the jug, but luckily I was very confident after doing all the hard parts." Next year, Kruder will compete as normal, which he will combine with climbing Boulders, routes, and MPs and at some point he might start training for the Olympic Games.

"With the falling leaves I take the oppurtunity of the first dry conditions since two weeks and clipped the anchor of "The Essential (9a)" That's Christoph Hanke's comment about his send of one of the most repeated 9as in Frankenjura. He's also usually seen competing as a part of the German national team. (c) Alex Megos

Jernej Kruder Mallorca'ya geldiğinde neredeyse hiç Deep Water Solo tecrübesi yoktu ve birden Weather man 8a+ rotasını onsight çıktı, ki bu rotanın kilidi sudan 18 metre yukarıda bulunuyor. Ardından, Es Pontas rotasına çalışmaya başladı ve adada bulunduğu 5 hafta boyunca sadece bir gün farklı rotalarda tırmandı ve iki 8a ve bir 8a+ onsightladı. Dereceyi göz önünde bulunduracak olursak, Chris Sharma on yıl önce 8a ya bunun bir 9b olabileceğini söylemişti. Görünüşe göre Jernej de aynı fikirde. (c) Kerstin Helbach "Bu konuda Chrisvari konuşacağım. Bu şey çok özel bir yapıda. Kesinlikle 9 lu bir derece fakat bir sürü etken var. Atlayış kısmı mesela. Eğer dünyada 200 kişi 9a tırmanabiliyorsa belki yüzde onu bu hamleyi yapabilir. Korku faktörü var, zihin savaşı var. Her seferinde tüm hamleleri tekrar birleştirip oraya gelebilecekmisin bilmiyorsun. Tabi şimdi kendimi en zor rotaları tırmanabilecek bir süpermen gibi görmüyorum ama bu rota için gerekli yeteneklere sahip olduğumu hissediyorum. Belki ben bu rotayı tırmanabilecek birkaç şanslı kişiden biri olurum." Slovenyalı ayrıca atlayıştan sonraki çılgın diz düşürme bölümünü yapamadığını ve yeni bir çözüm bulduğunu söyledi. İlginç olan ise 2014 Boulder Dünya Şampiyonası nda zirveyi zorlayan tırmanışçının büyük atlayış ve diz düşürrmeli bölümden sonra da birçok kilit bulması. "Son 4 günümde çok şanslıydım çünkü bir kere bile atlama hamlesinden düşmedim (ki hiçbir zaman tekrar yapabileceğimden emin olamıyorum). Ana kilidin sonunda uzun bir hamle vardı ve ben şimdiden 3 kere buradan düştüm ki bu cepten 3 hamle önce. Aslında cepten sonra da enteresan bir bölüm var ama bunca zor tırmanıştan sonra o bölümü geçecek özgüveni buldum." Gelecek yıl Kruder yarışmacı olmaya devam edecek kimbilir belki de Olimpiyatlara hazırlanacak.

Alexander Feichter, who previously has done three 9a's and five 8B's, has done the FA of The Mystical Patatohead´s Direct Edge 8C in Gais after seven days of projecting. It was opened on top-rope by Martin Moser in 2004 who also used the right crack and called it 8C. Alexander opted for just using the edge making the grade more solid but says it not an elimination. Full novel story in his scorecard. "It is by far the most difficult boulder I have ever climbed in a boulder area until this day. If one stays underneath of it, the direct edge seems almost impossible." Video

Alex Megos has opened the first 8B+ in Sweden, Trainspotting in Göteborg, which he says is definitely one of his greatest Boulder FAs ever. The high ball has been a project for 20 years and Alex rappelled down first to check out the scary top-out. "The boulder has a concave frontside so it gets steeper and steeper the higher you climb. Except from the first 2 moves all the moves are hard and balancy. The problem is that the holds are all turned in the wrong direction and there are no footholds in the right positions. So if you could turn one or two holds 90° it would probably not be harder then 8A. The way it is you have to do the moves as slow as possible to get the holds right but the problem is as soon as you let go with one hand you start to fall out. The wall has a few crack systems through it so all the holds are crimps on the edge of the cracks. Some of them are slightly incut but most of them are slopy. The last move is a big throw from a decent sloppy crimp to the a big jug up and left with really poor feet and you are high off the ground as well. " Göteborg is said to be the closest connected to a big climbing area city in the world. Trainspotting is just in the middle of all 1 000+ climbs up to five pitches, which you reach from the city center within 12 minutes including 3 minutes walk from the train station. (c) Daniela Ebler

Black Diamond has got the latest update on Ondra's Dawn Wall challenge. Here is a part of his quote. Adam has spent several days working on two 9as and two 8cs. (c) Pavel Blazek "Complexity and difficulty of the whole climb is just shocking to me. I might have been too optimistic, but I definitely expected it to be easier. Every single pitch is so tricky and hard and yesterday on pitch 16 was the most frustrating day so far on the wall. It revealed the real difficulty of the whole climb and crucial importance of good conditions and skin. Hats off to Tommy and Kevin, who believed that the whole climb was possible before they free climbed. Without having the beta, some of the sections look just impossible. I have the advantage that I know that the climb is possible and that helps me to keep the faith that I might be able to do it as well. I am humbled and impressed by what Tommy and Kevin did!"

Christian Münch has done the FA of his project in Kochel calling it From doubt to confidence and proposing the 9a grade, which would be his first one. It has been the longest project for the German climber so far. This year his previous best was 8c and some days ago he did his second 8b onsight, meaning that he is probably in his best shape ever. (c) Rene Golker

EDIT: David Firnenburg repeated AD the same day as the article below was published. In 2016 we have seen an increase in the number of 9a ascents, with possibly 50%. At the same time, we have not seen an ascent of Action Direct for 16 months, which should be the standard 9a nowadays, even if it originally counted as an 8c+/9a. As none of the previous 18 ascents of Action Direct has been done during the months between November and March, most likely we are getting closer to actually getting two years without an ascent of the standard 9a. This indicates that Action Directe is actually more difficult than the current 9as that are put up and repeated frequently in 2016, i.e. the grade deflation continues. In practice this means that the original 8c+/9a Action Directe might possibly deserve another upgrade!