The little climbing jewel in the midst of the Aegean Sea, Kalymnos, which now features nearly 3 000 bolted sport routes of all levels, welcomes Climbers from all over the world to its international Climbing Festival taking place on October 7th-9th, 2016. In the wake of several successful festivals in previous years, this year’s event is organised by the local municipality with special guests likeAngy Eiter, Roger Schaeli and Urko Carmona Barandiaran. (c) Nikolaos Smalios The festival will include: Stories and adventures presented by the special guests Climbing with the Pros Open Marathon and “Marasi” Competition for kids Slack line, Rope challenge, Deep Water Solo, DJ party, Live Greek traditional dancing and Video and a photo contest. More info at Fesitival Webpage and Facebook Festival Page.

Julien Gasc has contacted us saying that we and many others in the Climbing community have a wrong definition of "chipped routes". "The verb 'to chip' comes from the idea of 'removing a chip'. In the world of climbing it was used to describe what was done traditionally with a hammer and a chisel. Actually most people use the word 'chipping' for routes incorrectly since they usually mean 'drilled'. The use of sika, in order to reinforce holds, is an entirely different thing. If you further use the words chip or chipping to refer to the use of sika, there will be a lot of misunderstanding. If you want to include all forms of alterations made to the rock to distinguish between a natural vs. non-natural route you should use the word 'manufactured': i.e. a route that was manufactured is not natural anymore, but that does not specify in which way. It could be drilling, glued with sika etc." If this is something the Community could agree upon, we will start using the word manufactured for the routes which have been either drilled, chipped or put sika on. We do not think you should use the term manufactured for the routes that have only been cleaned from loose rock. Clearly there is a fine line between natural routes that have only been cleaned and manufactured routes where chips have been removed.

Alex Puccio is back on track after her bad neck injury and has done Atomic Cow 8b and two 8a flashes in Wild Iris. (c) Eddie Morillas - Hardest route to date. I have been climbing for 2 weeks now after my forced 2.5 month break due to having a spinal fusion surgery in my neck. It has also been about 8 years since I last really sport climbed outside. Psyched to be climbing again and in 8 days I get my 3 month post OP x-ray and hopefully good news to start bouldering again!

South Africa august 2016 from martin mobraten on Vimeo.

In the beginning of the Climbing era and also mainly in Trad and Bouldering, you did not do the climb until you stood on the top. In Sport climbing and Lead comps we say that we have done routes just because we clip artificially placed anchors. In same rare cases, it is actually the crux to clip the anchor just because the bolter placed it wrong. In such cases, there is nothing wrong with prolonging the anchor with an extra quickdraw, especially for children. If you onsight and you reach the last hold but are unable to clip the anchor because of your reach, I think it could be considered as a valid ascent. Possibly, you should give it a lower grade if the FA added a grade just because clipping was the crux.

97: Kajsa Rosén SWE - Sergei Bydetev RUS 99: Eva Maria Hammelmüller ITA - Jakub Konecny CZE 01: Laura Rogora ITA - Noe Moutault FRA Overall, Italy and France had the best results, braking the domination Austria has had for several years. Among the big climbing nations that had relatively weak results were as usual Germany and Spain. There were also Speed Championships and interestingly, Sam Avezou from France was fifth at 8.50 seconds, which is around the result of Sean McColl's, who is the only senior who has participated in Combined for several years. Last year, Sam won the Youth Worlds in Lead and this year he has won the three last Euro Cups in Boulder including the last Championship. A bit early said, but this 15-year-old could be a man for Tokyo 2020.

Five Ten talks about WideBoyz', Pete Whittaker and Tom Randall's, new secret trad project in The White Rim in Monument Basin - The Crucifix. The mono roof crack is estimated to be an 8a into an 8B+ Boulder into an 8b meaning it should be at least 8c+. Previously the Wideboyz were famous for putting up The Century Crack 8c, which goes in a 40 meter roof. It took them two years including working on an almost exact replica. The only 8c+ trad route in the world is Beth Rodden's Meltdown.