Tereza Širůčková, who was #14 in the Euro Boulder & Lead Championship last year, has completed La Rubia (8c+) in Villanueva del Rosario.

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
La Rubia is a 50-meter route with 145 moves, located in the Chillam Balam sector, which I visited for the first time. Initially, I had my eyes set on a different route, but La Rubia was the first line that caught my eyes on our first day there, so I decided to give it a try.

It was the first route I attempted that was harder than 8b+. After working out the moves, I felt like I’d never be able to climb it. The route is full of pinches, and there were maybe three holds that were really my type. I was ready to give up, because it seemed pointless to keep struggling on the lower boulder section (around move 60). Instead, I wanted to climb easier routes to explore the area as much as possible and enjoy the process of discovering new rock and moves, which I love.

But my coach (Petr Klofáč) laughed at me, saying I just didn’t know how to project properly. That motivate me to keep trying and I gave it a chance. The first time I climbed through the lower boulder, I thought I could fall on any of the following moves. I fell “just” four moves from the top, which was so frustrating, but also gave me hope that it was possible. In the end, I sent the route on the 8th climbing day and my 16th attempt. I still can’t quite believe it!

What is your climbing background?
I’m a member of the Czech national climbing team and a university student. Right now, I’m mainly focused on competition climbing, but I absolutely love climbing on rock. Whenever training and time allow, I try to get outdoors as much as possible. I usually manage to find time for a bigger climbing trip (a week or two) about twice a year. Then I’m happy if I am possible to visit my homecrag, which is the Moravian Karst, or go for weekend trips a little farther away.

Nathaniel Coleman, who got the silver in the Tokyo Olympics, repeated Daniel Woods’ Defying Gravity (8C) 14 months ago. The Ben Nielsen excellent mini-doc captures Coleman’s process adding a 8B sit start and making the FA of No One Mourns the Wicked (9A).

Noah Wheeler has repeated Daniel Woods’ Return of the Sleepwalker (9A) in Black Velvet Canyon and the 22-year-old moves to #3 in the ranking game. ”An athletic coming-of-age. Pulled on the last move of SW [Sleepwalker] freshman year as a ridiculous “what if?!” Sent the sit senior year.”

Jimmy Webb made the FA of Sleepwalker (8C+) in 2019 and then two years later Woods added a six moves 8B sit start establishing the second 9A in the world. Last year, Will Bosi made the first repeat. Comments from Noah to come.

Jan Štipek, who in 2024 won a Euro Youth Cup in both Lead and Boulder, has done Mr. Big (9a) in Margalef. The 16-year-old first made an onsight attempt, then fell on his second go before clipping the chain on his 3rd try.

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
Climbing Mr Big was actually a spontaneous decision. My original plan for this trip was to focus on Wild West (9a), but when I tried Mr. Big, I instantly fell in love with the route. It has powerful and dynamic moves, which are exactly my style, so I decided to give it my all.

How come you did not send any hard routes in 2024?
As for 2024, I had a very long competition season, which didn’t leave much time for outdoor projects. However, even during that time, I managed to climb a few 8c routes here in Margalef, which kept me motivated for this trip. I will log them now.

What are your plans and ambitions for 2025?
My plans are both on the rocks and in competitions. I’ll be competing in the World Cup, but I’ll keep my goals there to myself for now. On the rocks, I definitely want to climb more 9a routes, an 8C+ boulder, and also something hard back home on sandstone.

Pietro Vidi has made the second repeat, after James Pearson, of Jacopo Larcher’s Tribe in Cadarese. None of the climbers have chosen to suggest a grade but based on their comments and how much effort they put in, 9a is a possible speculation. The 22-year-old Italian, who was #14 in the European Boulder Championship, is #3 in the ranking game including having done two 8C+’. (c) Camilla Moroni

Can you tell us more about the ascent and how dangerous it is?
I already checked out the route at the end of last season and immediately got hooked! As soon as the temperatures dropped I immediately went back to it, made some good progress and thought it wouldn’t take long. Turned out the route is incredibly condition dependent and gets really wet, this with a technical and low percentage crux made for a real battle that lasted way longer than I expected!

The route is actually pretty safe and the crux is well protected, but there are still some no-fall zones like the 7a intro or right after the crux where you place 2 ballnuts that I still don’t know if they would catch a fall, you probably wouldn’t hit the ground tho.

About the grade I really respect Jacopo decision [to not grade it] and the route was much more complex for me than a simple grade can express but I can definitely say it was one of my biggest fights and had a pretty hard time on the second boulder!

I got a reel on my profile of the fall from the last hard move I took many times, around 8 meters or so I think. For protecting the crux I used a grey C4 and an offset alien, placing gear was pretty pumpy for me and opted for a faster placement that popped once, so I switched back to the same placements as Jacopo and James 😅.

Did you first work it on top rope and how did you clean it before each redooint attempt?
Yes, but just for 2 sessions I think, it’s actually pretty annoying to work some of those moves with top rope, once i could make decent link I tried the crux with previous laced gear and the pretty soon started with red point attempts.

Definitely pretty annoying to jug up every time and clean it with the static rope, but is just part of the process of trad climbing I guess.

Allison Vest, who last week sent her 15th 8B, has done Meadowlark Lemon Stand (8A+) in Gateway Canyon. In September 2023, she got a hand injury [Dequervains Tenosinovitis] and it was not until five months ago she could start climbing on jugs.

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
I tried this boulder a bunch last year, not realizing how bad my hand was and feeling frustrated that it was feeling out of reach for me. Stoked to have returned healthy and feeling like myself!

For 23 years, we've published our "Climber of the Year" list, drawing from the best available information and reporting. We give extra credit to climbers excelling across multiple disciplines, both in competitions and on the rock. First ascents, trad climbing, multi-pitch routes, and deep-water soloing (DWS) are also taken into account. This list is highly subjective, so we welcome your suggestions and additions. (c) IFSC

1. Janja Garnbret SLO: Olympic gold and #1 in all 5 WCs she entered. 8C and 8B+ boulders
2. Laura Rogora ITA: Six 9a or 9a+, 8c OS and two Euro Championship gold
3. Adam Ondra CZE: #1 in VL Combined ranking, #6 in Paris, Prague Boulder and Chamonix Lead
4. Alex Megos GER: Two 9b+', #2 in only WC done #13 in Paris.
5. Jessica Pilz AUT: #1 overall in Lead WC, #3 in Paris and Papichulo (9a+)
6. Michaela Kiersch USA: Victima Perfecto (9a+), 8b+ OS and seven boulders 8B to 8C
7. Toby Roberts GBR: Olympic gold and #1 in Lead WC overall
8. Jorge Diaz-Rullo ESP: #1 in the Vertical-Life route ranking game
9. William Bosi GBR: #1 in the Vertical-Life Boulder ranking game
10. Colin Duffy USA: #4 in Paris, winning in Chamonix and three 8C's

11. Aidan Roberts GBR
12. Jakob Schubert AUT
13. Seb Bouin FRA
14. Anak Verhoeven BEL
15. Katie Lamb USA
16. Chaehyun Seo KOR
17. Jonathan Siegrist USA
18. Martina Demmel
19. Brooke Raboutou USA
20. Zach Galla USA, Stefano Ghisolfi, Pietro Vidi ITA, Gio Placci ITA, Mejdi Schalck
Sean Bailey USA, Ainhize Belar ESP, Eva Hammelmüller AUT, Barbara Zangerl AUT, Katie Lamb USA, Sorato Anraku JPN, Moritz Welt GER, Sera Gearhart USA, Caroline Sinno FRA, Tanguy Merard FRA, Natalia Grossman USA, Oceania Mackenzie AUS, Dave Graham USA, Anastasia Sanders USA, Molly Thompson-Smith
Tomoa Narasaki JPN, Mattea Pötzi AUT, Meichi Narasaki JPN, Shion Omata JPN
Shauna Coxsey GBR, Jack Palmieri GBR, Gonzalo Larrocha ESP

Ann Tiempetpisal has done Lethal Design (8A+) in Gateway Canyon. ”I’ve heard this called anything between 7C and 8A+. It’s the first climb I’ve done harder than 7C so I have no basis for weighing in on grades and decided it doesn’t really matter to me. It’s morphological neutral and seems to be the same difficulty no matter the beta; my 5’2” spike crimp beta, the 6’4” person pulling straight up through the underclings, or the 8 year old grabbing invisible holds - that’s pretty neat. This process was an uncommon experience for me and I had a lot of fun. Thanks, everyone :)”

Can you tell us more about the ascent and the process behind?
I first tried the climb 2 years ago when my friend encouraged me to work it with him; he sent it shortly afterward and I came back last season to work it myself. It was a bit challenging to project a climb 1800 miles away; I flew out for long weekends, was rained out 3 trips in a row, I got sick for 6 months. It was feelings like I wasn’t supposed to climb this boulder, that I didn’t deserve to because I wasn’t properly respecting climbing since I hadn’t sent the grades below it.

I moved to the area but didn’t go back until a month ago when I went to support another friend. I was able to match my high point and resumed working the boulder however, I didn’t rest properly, overworked myself, and became very mentally negative. My partner told me I seemed stronger but looked as if I no longer believed I could send. I decided I needed to either get my head back in the right place or stop trying the boulder. I wasn’t ready to give up so I decided to tell myself every day that “today is the day” until I sent. Coincidentally, the first day I did, it was!

Nathan Phillips, with three 8C’ under his belt, has done the FA of Deep Fake (8C+) in Brione. ”6 years and it’s finally done!! Best feeling ever! Sitter to Fake Pamplemouse.”

Can you tell us more about the ascent, the process behind and the number of sessions needed?
I think it was around 50 sessions and maybe another 50 on my replica. 9 trips total over 6 years. I climbed the stand [Fake Pamplemousse (8A)] on my first trip to Brione in 2018 back when there was no guidebook and it was a far less popular area. I immediately saw the big ledge at the bottom which would be an obvious place to make a low start. I ended up having 2 sessions that trip to see if it felt possible and then 6 on the following trip before I had done all the moves. My beta changed several times since then but even taking that long to just do the moves meant I knew it was really hard but at least possible.

For the next 4 trips, my first session on each would end up being the best. Then every subsequent session would be better than the previous trip but not as good as that first one. Finally at the end of 2023 I decided to get really specific with training for it and ended up making serious gains on the boulder.

I had several consistently good sessions on that trip and got very close to making it through to the 8A/V11 stand start. Unfortunately the weather turned on me and I ran out of time to send it. After another unsuccessful tip in March and another solid block of specific training I came back this winter to see if I could finally do it. My first 2 session I got super close and was very confident I would do it. Then 2 not so good sessions followed… the session I eventually did it was actually terrible.

It was going really bad and I had basically decided that I had gotten too weak on one of the moves to do be able to do it. I then decided to change one thing as a last ditch effort and out of nowhere I found myself into the stand for the first time ever!

I tried to keep my cool but I started to numb out. On the penultimate move I completely missed the hold and in that moment I thought I was off. Somehow I stayed on and couldn’t quite believe that I had finally done it. All the pressure just washed away standing on top and it was honestly the best feeling I’ve had in climbing.

How hard is the sit start?
I think climbing into the start of the stand is 8C/+. It’s 3 moves of 7A/V6 and then all the difficulty is in the following 2 moves and a foot move. So 5 hand moves but I definitely count the foot move as a move.

Andrea Chelleris has during his first four days in Siurana onsighted five routes 7c+ and beyond including Pati pa mi (8b) and Migranya (8b). During the last three months, the 15-year-old has onsighted 16 routes 8a+ to 8b+ and in the 2024 onsight ranking game he is runner up after Jonathan Siegrist.

Can you tell us about your trip and your focus on onsight?
I’m here to try La Rambla (9a+) but sometimes I like to do some onsights before trying the main project. I did 3 days of work on La Rambla and it’s going well with the progress.

Migranya starts already quite intense with big moves on pockets. Then you get to a good rest before the last ‘’hard’’ part but easier, another good rest and then an easy last part with a long last move.

Today did not start the right way. It was humid and on the crack of La Rambla I split my finger so I decided to try a route that was ''dry''. At first I wanted to try El món de sofía (8b+) but other people were waiting to climb it so I decided to change route. I went under Pati pa Mi and without having a visualization from the ground I went up and climbed it very good.