Black Diamond reports that Adam Ondra has tried to onsight The Nose with his father but failed on Great Roof and Changning Corner. They made it to the top at midnight in the starting rain but could not find a descent route so they had to spend the night in a small cave. The Nose was established in 1993 by Lynn Hill who rated it 8a but nowadays most think it is an 8b or 8b+.

Alex Megos has done yet another 9a+ in Frankenjura, Markus Bock's "Becoming", meaning that he has done all the Top-5 hardest. He reports on Instagram that the route seems manufactured. "Well built that thing but the Sika doesn't seem of good quality, it crumbles..." Please explain some more what you mean by "Well built"? I wanted to say that the route is "well built" (sarcasm) cause normally you don't build routes outside. And then I wanted to point out that it's not even well done because the Sika crumbles. It's built like a route in the gym almost. Just that they didn't use colored holds... Pick a stone from the ground and glue it onto the blank wall where there was nothing before. I don't want to say exactly how many holds are chipped or glued. But it's definitely a few. At least a hand full in that route and then a few more in the route to the right of it and a few more to the route to the right of that.

Ignacio Sandoval Buron started helping us out with translations, interviews and stories from the Spanish scene directly from the start of 8a, 15 years ago. Unfortunately, he had to stop working for us and therefore we are looking to hire new translators and editors. Ignacio would like to thank specifically all pro-climbers he has had the opportunity to interview. Currently, the Spanish page has over 1 000 unique visitors every day and 8a would like to say thank you for all your good work creating a very good Spanish page and helping out globally as well. We are also looking for more country specific editors and other people who would like to help out. Please contact [email protected].

Alex Puccio, who during the last two years has badly injured herself twice in Boulder World Cups (being forced to undergo a knee and a back surgery, respectively), is back on track with an 8A flash of Skull in Joe's Valley. "I'm just psyched to be getting back outside!!! Didn't expect to flash it. Worth taking the shoes off to cross the river. " In 2014, Alex got the silver in the World Championship, and since then, in spite of the bad injuries, she has done 12 Boulders 8B and harder. Here you can find her story: The Comeback Queen. (c) Joel Zerr

Nalle Hukkataival, who has never suggested 8C+ for a Boulder he has done, comes on Facebook with the amazing news that he has done the FA of Burden of Dreams 9A. "Yesterday I had another session on the Lappnor project. The routine that goes into it after all this time isn’t all that exciting; the same warm up, driving an hour on the same road, brushing the all too familiar holds, re-warming up, systematically trying the same sequences in the same order. Some days you feel strong and confident and get totally shut down. Other days you’re not feeling a 100 percent and it could be the best session you’ve had. All logic seems to have gone out the window a long time ago. Many sessions I wish I could forget. Can’t do a move I’ve done countless of times before. Last highpoint was a year ago. Weeks and months turned into years of uncertainty and self-doubt. Trying to keep that little spark of hope in the back of your mind alive. Walking up to the boulder with all the positivity I can muster, I still can’t ignore what the boulder has become to represent; failure of varying degrees. Sitting under the boulder I can feel the weight of it. Pulling on always feels like a déjà vu, like the thousands of times before. It always starts the same way and ends the same way. Except this time. This time was different. Snap to reality, I’m hanging on the lip of the boulder, disoriented, heart racing. Contain the panic. I’m on top of the boulder trying to grasp how I got there. Lots of feelings coinciding; surprise, relief, happiness, confusion. As reality hits that quickly turns into ecstatic happiness with a dash of disbelief. Waking up today I can’t help but look at the world with different eyes. Having achieved the first ascent of Burden of Dreams marks a new level in my climbing. With a handful of existing 8C+ boulders in the world, proposing 9A is the logical step. Huge thanks to my friend Marko Siivinen for showing me the line! What a journey it’s been! Stay tuned for a film of the whole story with the boulder. It will be something extraordinary!

Gimme Kraft presents their second training bible after they first success - a book that sold out several times. The book, written by physiotherapist Simon Friedrich, contains some 240 pages and in practice it is about showing and describing non-climbing exercises. The overall message is "Climb Better, Feel Better" and "Climbing Training Meets Good Health also through MOBILITY - STABILITY - STRENGTH." It feels as if the whole book wanted to grab and shake all the gym rats focusing on finger power and inspire them with some odd training we seldom have seen before in climbing. The book is very user-friendly and you can more or less open it randomly and get very inspired. It is actually quite extreme and you just wonder what effect such training would have had on all climbers saying they never do any complementary training because this is what it is all about. Hannes Huch give some more insight: "Our first Gimme Kraft! book, written by Dicki Korb and Patrick Matros, was and still is a huge and unexpected success with nearly 25000 copies sold in less than 3 years. We received a lot of positive feedback from all over the world. The people especially seem to enjoy the easy-to-understand and inspiring design. It's more the Mac than the Microsoft among the training books :) But we also heard that people were missing entry level exercises, which gym-climbers can easily add to their bouldering to stay healthy. So we switched to our Café Kraft physiotherapist Simon Friedrich, who's repairing all the climbers who want too much in too short time. We invented a very easy to handle training plan so that even a newbie can create his own additional program to his climbing training. There's a lot of emphasis on mobilisation and stabilisation, things a lot of climbers lack of! Nevertheless working with the book is intended to be fun and enjoyable and to keep your motivation high. Gimme Kraft! The Café Kraft brand is growing again: In 2017 we will open another big franchise location ... but we can't tell the city yet. And we will release another book which will be about mental training. Main author will be none other than the rockgod himself: Jerry Moffatt!"

The sixth and second last stage of the Lead World Cup took place in Xiamen, China this weekend. The world champion, Janja Garnbret, took her fourth victory and so she has secured the overall title. Among the male, Stefano Ghisolfi won for the first time since his first victory in 2014. The overall leader, Domen Skofic, also from Slovenia, was just #9 meaning that also Jakob Schubert and Romain Desgranges are on the run for the 2016 title. 1. Stefano Ghisolfi ITA - Janja Garnbret SLO 2. Dmitrii Fakiryanov RUS - Anak Verhoeven BEL 3. Jakob Schubert AUT - Jain Kim KOR 4. Gauthier Supper FRA - Akiyo Noguchi JPN 5. Romain Desgranges FRA - Mina Markovic SLO

1. Domen Skofic 392 - Janja Garnbret 465 2. Romain Desgranges 337 - Anak Verhoeven 395 3. Jakob Schubert 337 - Jain Kim 350 4. Stefano Ghisolfi 301 - Magdalena Röck 308 5. Gauthier Supper 255 - Mina Markovic 251 The overall ranking above is based on five out of six events. If Anak wins the last event, she will get 495 points but Janja has 516 points counting all six so she has already secured the overall title. If either Romain Desgranges or Jakob Schubert wins in Kranj, Domen has to be #6 in front of his home crowd to secure the title. Overall, only 20 male and female have competed in all six events in 2016.

With more than 3 300 routes spread over some 70 sectors it can be quite hard to find your preferred routes to try. One great assistance can be the 8a Ticklist, where you can search for grades and the best routes, for example by onsight percentage etc. However, based on your personal wanted routes and daily conditions, you might be better off by a local Kalymnos insider that knows the topo and the Ticklist. Based on the idea of providing Inside Tick List Tips on Kalymnos, Wild Sport will start doing it next week in their main shop. Just show up there and they will help you to find the best sectors and routes for you.

Our new Web Developer, Tieme van Veen, has deployed some updates to our new responsive beta.8a.nu. New things: 1. Click Search and you will get a list nearby crags with distance to them and driving instructions. 2. Filter Crag Ticklist to find your best climbs (not mobile yet) 3. All news in a handy mobile format - beta.8a.nu/news" 4. Check your and friends' scorecards Next up is making it possible to add ascents to your scorecard. The plan is to have most ready within a few months but keep the old website so you can choose between them.