Guillaume Glairont Mondet reports on his blog that he completed his long time project in Fontainebleau, "Le Pied à Coulisse", grading it an 8C+. Previously Guigui has done five 8C's in Font. How many sessions did you need to do "Le Pied à Coulisse"? It took me around 25 sessions over 3 years, 12 between October and January. Is it your style? I would say yes, even if there's a little bit of everything in it : heelhooks, toes, mantle, with both tension and a dynamic move. How do you split your time between comps and projecting? I take advantages when conditions are good to work maximum intensity outside. for this one, I could only manage 3 tries before been wrecked for a day. It's pretty complementary to my indoor training regime. You explain a lot about the grade in your blog post, but how did you came up with 8C+? For me, it was very tough to break down the climb. My friend Nico would say 8B into an 8B, I would say more 8A+ into 8B+, but anyway it doesn't make sense to me. I know for sure that there aren't a move below 7A, and some feel close to 8A in themselves. And there are 14 of them. If I try to compare with other problem in Font, as I said, it was clearly harder for me. If I compare it to the other 8C's I've tried on my recent trips, I come to this conclusion: Individual moves are nowhere as hard as Lucid Dreaming, but there are only two in that one. The Story of Two Worlds have more moves, but it climb faster and the moves are easier on this one. I tried also Insanity of Grandeur during a session, and it felt easier too. My trip in Swizzy was rather short, and it was vacation, but I could get a feeling of those. Pied à Coulisse took me way more efforts, it is my style, and I needed a rather special day to do it. It's continuous, strenght oriented, and has low percentage moves from the mantle till the end of the heady slab. That's why I chose this grade.

Oriane Bertone, 10, does 12 Boulders from 7C to 8A during two weeks in Rocklands. Her father, Stefano, explains, Typically, when we are in Rocklands, we start to climb at 7. In this moment the temperature is 35°C-45°C between 10 A.M. and 5h P.M. We made two sessions of 1h30/2h (one in the morning et one in de evening). Children climb twice and rest once in turn. After three days of climbing we stop one day to go sightseeing (see cave drawings, go to Lambert's Bay beach etc.). We change sectors regularly and we work on projects adapted to each child's level in these sites.

Alex Wurm, little brother to Jule, the last World and Europe champion, has done an amazingly fast ascent of The Dagger 8B (+) in Cresicano. "WOOOW low gravity day!!! Took me about 45 minutes. First try after figuring out the moves. 8B/+ for me." Also Luis Gerhardt (in the picture), has made a personal best by doing The Dagger, "Feels amazing to climb such a majestic line! Climbed it two times in a row because I wasn't sure the first time if I touched the tree with my pants..." It was Toni Lamprecht who made the FA in 2003 and later Dave Graham added a sit start calling it The Story of Two World's which now is one of the most repeated 8C's in the world.

Phuket Gazette comes with very bad news regarding the Koh Yao Noi climbing. "A new national park chief has banned rock climbing on a number of internationally popular limestone outcroppings in areas under his jurisdiction, ruling the sites as unsafe." The article discusses safety and mentions that loose rocks, human error and unsafe protection are the main safety concern. In fact it is pretty detailed and includes a discussion about stainless steel and Titanium bolts. Koh Yao Noi is a large island located some 60 mins with a speed boat from Rainaly. It has 219 ascents in the 8a data base. (c) Jelmer Folkertsma

Silvio Reffo has done his tenth 9a or harder and reports on Facebook with a great picture by Luka Fonda. "Another great weekend of climbing in Misja Pec, finally I managed to climb Sansjki par extension 9a. I had already tried the route last year but yesterday I crushed it. This 9a is very different despite the other hard routes that I climbed, short and intense.

Laura Rogora has had an amazing climbing day at Sperlonga having done two 8b+'s, Piccoli gesti and Viaggio=infinito Sperlonga. In total, the #2 in the 8a ranking game, has done six routes 8b+ or harder. Her first 8c she did 13 months ago. Last year, the 14-year-old won the Italian Championship beating Lenny Lavarda who was among Top-23 in all the six WCs.

- Do you print on recycled paper? That was the very first sentence and the most important issue for the prAna reps was. once we met them during ISPO 2006, selling ads for the 8a yearbook. The question made so strong an impression that we decided to dedicate the back cover of the yearbook to just talking about the environment. Now prAna is also focused on Fair Trade and they were one of the first apparel companies to offer Certified clothing. The Fair Trade Standards are designed to address the imbalance of power in trading relationships, unstable markets and the injustices of conventional trade. In practice the goal is to secure better deals for farmers and workers. Selling banners to prAna is both frustrating and eye-opening as they always want to talk about their Sustainability program including also recycled, organic and Blue Design certified garments. We are very glad to have prAna as one of the major 8a sponsors once again. Shortly there will be an 8a prAna T-shirt available.

James Webb has flashed his 12th 8B, Barrel Rider in Eldorado Canyon. "Knowing that it was pretty much perfectly my style I decided to go for a flash effort and found myself at the top. 👌 Cheers Colorado! Catch ya sooner than later. For now it's back home to get geared up for ABS nationals and more importantly 6 weeks in font!!

Björn Dr 8a Alber, Tonsai local, active since 1999, comes with great news regarding Railay. "Contrary to popular belif I found Tonsai to be in the best shape in many years this year. As is evident in the picture of Ymer Alber on Tonsai playboy with Tonsai beach in the background. The infamous wall is there but only surrounds what is a much cleaner beach. The crowds were smaller but the Tonsai atmosphere is alive and kicking. The area enclosed by the wall is probably going to be built in to bungalow resort and along with that a severely needed new sewage system will be constructed Picture by Sumphon Suebhait (King of Railay) who has been running King climbing school and been writing his guidebook on Thailand climbs since 1996.

Here are some official stats from SimilarWeb suggesting that 8a is the leading global sport climbing website. Measured by traffic, 8a is #4 but the higher ranked get most of their visitors from their country of origin. It is also interesting that all the other major websites do get most of their traffic from Google search, Facebook etc meanwhile 8a gets 87 % by visitors actively writing www.8a.nu in the browser. Thank you for your active interest :)