NEWS

The 8a Tick List for some 5 000 crags around the world will help you to find the best climbs in the world. You can print out specific Tick List or you can upload them in the 8a.nu Topo App. The Tick List is ranked by number of ascents, star rating and flash/onsight percentage. Once you have done a climb from the Tick List you can also add it very quickly into your scorecard giving it a rating helping to improve the data base. In total, 52 000 members have now recorded close to 3 million ascents.

FIRST 8a+ ever achieved by a Romanian GIRL, Maria Stefania IONEL, from Transylvania, 15 October 2013

SUCARINA, a rout in Turzii Gorges (Romania) is now the First 8a+ ever achieved by a Romanian girl, a way towards the essence of true progress. The route was established in the 15 of October 2013. "SUCARINA c'est une putain de route. 8a+ ça c'est sur!" said ENZO ODDO doing this rout in 2013. "What I want to underline is that I didn’t choose the routes that are conveniently soft graded and I was not satisfied stopping when progress can still be made and this is what matters most" said Maria Stefania IONEL when establishing in 16 April 2013, a FA in Turzii Gorges, the rout COVILTIRU, 30 meters long, another FIRST Romanian FEMALE 8a/8a+ that she did. Both routs are in the same Cave, named "Hungarian Cave" in Turzii Gorges (the North-West of Romania, near Cluj-Napoca City) with a really overhang style. There are steel projects to be done, even from 8c+ and more other difficult routes to bolt.

Based on close to 2 000 votes, Bouldering/Climbing or both?, we can see that the two disciplines are now equally popular which is a big change compared to a similar poll five years ago. Only bouldering 11% (10% in 2009) Mainly bouldering 26% (15) 50/50 25% (24) Mainly climbing 30 % (29) Only climbing 8% (22)

Many guys have started to create Left-to-Right Topos and we have received good feedback any also many questions and here are some answers. 1. Yes, you can choose one of the suggested grades of the climbs. 2. Yes, it is possible to do some spell checking and add sectors. Just ask for log-in. 3. Yes, we plan for a space where you can make a description. 4. The unknown routes and misspelled will appear on the bottom and disappear from the topo app. 5. Yes, we will add an open space so you more easily can separate in between walls within a sector. 6. When there are some routes missing, yo can add them in your scorecard by clicking "DB Ascent". Please continue to give feedback and ideas here or in an email, [email protected]. Everyone who puts in some hours will get a free 8a T-shirt. It normally just takes 10-15 minutes to create a topo with 30-50 routes.

Action Direct 9a - Ground Breaking #1

Based on 1 000 unique votes, Action Direct 9a by Wolfgang Güllich in 1991, did get 60 % of the votes, the most ground breaking ascents #1? Action Direct was bolted by visionary Milan Sykora in the mid 80-ies and after a lot of specific training, where he actually invented the campus board, Güllich made the FA in 1991. Originally Wolfgang suggested XI = hard 8c+ for the 11 - 16 move shallow finger pocket route but all repeaters have given it 9a. The first repeat was done in 1995 and the second, out of 15, was done in 2000. It is also interesting that nobody have repeated AD during the last two years. 60 % - 1991: Action Direct 9a by Güllich 13 % - 2012: Change 9b+ by Ondra 09 % - 2001: Biographie 9a+ by Sharma 06 % - 2013: Estato Critico 9a OS by Megos 05 % - 1995: Akira 9b by Rouhling 04 % - 2008: Es Pontas by Sharma 04 % - Other: Hubble 8c+ (9a) the most mentioned

Samuel Ometz has done his third 8B+, Entlinge in Murgtal. "One more old Fred Nicole's testpiece! very nice powerful moves!" It was set up as one of the first 8C/+ but later Daniel Woods did a very impressive flash, giving it a personal down grade. Last week, the 18 year old did two 8B's and he is #9 in the 8a ranking game.

World wide left-to-right topos

Steve Golley has added a function where you can sort climbs left-to-right from the 8a Tick List. This means that you can help us create topos for all the crags in the world. Go to a crag and drag the routes so they appear in a left-to-right list and save. The sorted list will be shown in the 8a Topo App assisting you to find the best climbs on every crag in the world. Try it out and give us your comments, many more features are on the way. If there are some routes missing on a crag, or if you want to add a new crag or sector, you can add the climbs on your scorecard by clicking "DB Ascent" and later include these routes in the topo sorting.

18 January 2014

9a by Cedric Lachat

Cedric Lachat has made the first repeat of DTN 9a in Roquevaire which was set up by Remy Bergasse and Nina Caprez has done Symbiose 8b+.

UKC reports that Alexander Megos has done five 8c+ second go in Spain and two of them he did within one hour on his six day on. First he did some old-school classics in France, "They are f***ing hard! There where some 8b+ which felt harder than some of the 8c+ I did afterwards in Spain..." Megos, most famous for having done the first 9a onsight, did also his first 8c onsight. He also did Ramnet's La Bongada on his fourth go suggesting as upgrade from 8c to 9a.

Interview with Chris Webb Parsons

Simon Carter, one of the great climbing photographers, has made a nice interview with the great character and world class boulderer, Chris Webb Parsons. The Aussie is #7 in the 8a ranking game and in total he has done six 8C's, including the second ascent of The Wheel of Life. The picture is from Arco last year where he was #3.