While browsing climbing sites this week, I came across a piece of news that blew me away: Swiss climber Noé Looser has sent "L'isola che non c'è", a 9a established in Amden by Fred Nicole in 2009, and she did it without a rope, over pads. It's the first female ascent of the line, and in a style that's getting people talking.
For context: it's a roof roughly fifteen metres long that starts with an 8B+ boulder ("Ragtime"), links into a 7A/B transition and then an 8A exit, before a more relaxed finish. The route had only been repeated about ten times, always on a rope and only by men. Needless to say, Noé, a member of the national team known for ticking 8c at age 13, has pulled off something big.
What I like about this story is that it reignites the old "solo" debate. Climbers like Dave McLeod and Alex Huber had already pushed this kind of thing up to 8c. Here there's no rope but there are pads, the final height is lower than many highballs, and the hard part is down low. So the risk stays fairly measured, a bit like Kevin Jorgensen's repeat of "The Fly".
In short, somewhere between pure performance and the question of commitment, this is exactly the kind of news that gets forums buzzing. What about you: would you call it a true solo, or a glorified highball?
Source: Fanatic Climbing
Simone Tentori continues to amaze. Since moving to the United States, his performance hasn't dropped even a fraction: after his second ascent of "Sword of Damocles" in August, he has now completed "Insomniac," a signature line at Lincoln Lake on Mount Blue Sky (formerly Mount Evans), one of the most popular summer climbing areas in Colorado.
Drew Ruana first climbed "Insomniac" in 2021, grading it 8C+. It's located on a massive roof with several other difficult boulder problems, and the crux involves linking two of them: it follows eight moves of "Wheel of Wolvo" (8B+) to a resting point, then continues onto "We Can Build You," another 8B+. In total, it's about thirty incredibly demanding moves. Almost all of the strongest American boulderers have climbed it, and many have repeated it; now, the climber from Lecco is also on the list.
What strikes me most is the timing: he completed it on the last possible opportunity, before the weather made Lincoln Lake inaccessible. He himself described it as probably the biggest mental challenge of his climbing career, an emotional rollercoaster that he won't forget.
With "Insomniac," Tentori now has four 8C+ problems in his list of ascents, along with "Sword of Damocles," "Ephyra," and "Deep Fake," plus a long list of 8C problems. He has promised to provide more details soon, and we hope a video will also be released.
Source: Up-Climbing
Piotr Schab, for more than a decade one of the leaders of Polish rock climbing, has shown his strength in Muchówka. The Kraków climber has closed his longest bouldering project, and the result is Dobramoc 8C, one of the hardest boulder problems in Poland. A few days earlier he also climbed the Tatra problem Ultimate Tatras Hold'em 8B+ in Slovakia, near the hut above Popradzki Staw.
Dobramoc combines two boulders: the first part of Insomnia, which Piotr was the first to repeat in 2023, and the crux of Renesans 8B, his own problem from 2024. The starting move is around 8A and the traverse around 7C. After completing Renesans, he wrote that linking it with Insomnia would be one of the hardest and best boulders in Poland.
The road to the send was long. Schab wrote that almost two years had passed and that he had put roughly 15 sessions into the project. Muchówka is a capricious place: the holds demand good friction, and the dry, cold air with wind only shows up a few days a year. The send came in the fifth and final attempt of the evening.
So far Poland has had only one boulder graded 8C: the unrepeated Obsesja by Łukasz Dudek from 2015 in Kusięta. It is a problem of a specific character, climbed without a rope and with 40 moves.
I like that Piotr thanks everyone for the shared passion for stone, and mentions that Muchówka still hides a few gems.
Source: wspinanie.pl
Madrid boulderer Pablo Zamora has done it again: he has made the first ascent of La ley del más fuerte, a highly difficult boulder on the main wall at Campisábalos in Guadalajara province, for which he proposes a grade of 8C.
According to his own description, the boulder starts with a dynamic move from two short pinches and connects into the classic Selección natural, an 8B+. With this line it ranks among the hardest in the area, alongside Solozabal, which also has an 8C proposal.
Zamora already has an impressive collection of extreme lines. He first moved into 8C at the end of 2022 with the repeat of Soyuz in Zarzalejo, and in early 2023 he linked Entropía in Castillo de Bayuela, the first Spanish 8C. Then came El indomable, El proyecto de tu vida and Hipoxia, and he closed that half-year with Muerte por asfixia in La Pedriza, whose 8C+ proposal was endorsed by Jorge Díaz-Rullo.
In spring 2025 he returned to 8C with Trío con Charlotte in La Pedriza, and a year ago he added Koraen Hoyamoros, proposed at 8C/+. With La ley del más fuerte, he has at least eight problems of this grade in his notebook.
I find it admirable to see Spanish bouldering keep growing with new first ascents on national rock.
Source: Desnivel
Jorge Díaz-Rullo has just wrapped up a three-week bouldering trip to Switzerland with one of the more impressive tick lists I've seen this year. The highlight was Giuliano Cameroni's mega classic Hazel Grace Sit, graded V15/16, along with the second ascent of Stefano Ghisolfi's new problem P.I.G. (V15) and Shawn Raboutou's Big Snapper (V15).
He also climbed his hardest flash ever, Dai Koyamada's Paradise Lost at V13/14. Hazel Grace Sit was his most worked boulder yet, and because of tricky conditions he said it took him more attempts than any boulder in his career so far.
Before leaving, he made a quick stop in Magic Wood and sent Chris Sharma's Practice of the Wild V14 around midnight, hoping for better temperatures. After a dab on the last move and several slips near the top, he had already given up when he finally topped it out, and he sent it twice on 8a.nu because of that dab.
Díaz-Rullo is best known for hard sport climbing. Earlier this year he established Cafe Colombia 5.15d after 240 days of effort on the 30-metre power-endurance route. Still, he's been sending boulder after boulder, and so far in 2026 he has four V15s and four V14s, three of those V15s on this trip alone.
What stands out to me is how a world-class route climber adapts to boulders with so much patience. Honest attempts, bad conditions and a midnight session sound like the real bouldering story.
Source: Gripped
The Rock Master closed in Arco, one of the most significant editions in its history, dedicated to forty years of climbing competitions in the Trentino town. Three days of competitions, meetings and celebrations drew more than 12,000 spectators, with over 50 nations represented.
The second evening featured the KO Boulder, an elimination format. Among the men, Adam Ondra won, beating Filip Schenk in the final; Schenk had won the Lead Duel. Slovenia's Luka Potočar took third. For Ondra it is his ninth Rock Master victory, a record in the history of the event. Among the women, Jessica Pilz won again, already the winner of the Lead Duel, ahead of Lučka Rakovec and Japan's Hana Koike.
Yannick Flohé, Giovanni Placci, Sascha Lehmann, Shion Omata and Jonas Utelli also competed in the men's bracket. In the women's field, Laura Rogora finished fourth, while Brooke Raboutou and Aleksandra Totkova did not compete due to physical problems.
The value of the edition, however, was not only sporting. The fortieth anniversary was an occasion to look back at the relationship between Arco and climbing, with guests such as Didier Raboutou, Robyn Erbesfield, Lynn Hill, Yuji Hirayama, François Legrand and Muriel Sarkany.
What struck me was exactly this balance between the spectacle of the boulders and historical memory: a good way to remember where the bouldering and competition scene comes from.
Source: MountainBlog
A broken hold, a new beta, or simply a difference of opinion: there are many reasons a boulder or route gets downgraded. Lacrux has collected five downgrades that drew particular attention or were historically important. The selection is subjective, but I still found it very worth reading.
The most recent case is The Megg in Squamish. Gabe Lawson made the first ascent in January 2023, which would have been Canada's first 8C+. Andy Lamb repeated the boulder in June 2023 and considered it 8B+ at most. According to research by Climbing Magazine in September 2026, Lawson was unable to provide evidence for his ascents.
Another example: in 2023 Katie Lamb became the first woman to climb 8C+ with Box Therapy in Rocky Mountain National Park. Shortly afterwards Brooke and another Raboutou sibling repeated the boulder and downgraded it to 8C, after which Dave Graham and Drew Ruana followed suit. Katie Lamb later reclaimed the first female 8C+ ascent with The Dark Side in Camp 4 in Yosemite Valley.
And then there is "Barefoot" Charles Albert, who notoriously climbs without shoes. His first 9A, No Kpote Only in Fontainebleau, was downgraded twice after its first ascent in 2018: in 2019 to 8C+ and in 2020 to 8C.
I like the core message: grades are subjective, and consensus takes time. And a downgrade cannot make a great achievement any smaller.
Source: Lacrux
On October 17 and 18, Torrejón de Ardoz in Madrid will host the first edition of Urban Climbing, a competition that takes bouldering out onto the streets. Competitors will tackle 40 boulders of varying difficulty spread across buildings and urban spaces in the city centre, with more than 50,000 euros in prizes.
Registration for the competition has closed, but the event is open to everyone: climbers, enthusiasts, families, or simply curious passers-by. Most of the activity is concentrated in the Village set up in the Plaza Mayor.
In my view, the best part is that you can try climbing even with no experience. Sputnik Climbing will run the main boulder in the Plaza Mayor, La Sportiva will display its gear and lend climbing shoes so you can try them on the boulder, and younger visitors will have a children's boulder designed to help them start safely.
There will also be meet-ups with elite athletes, gear tests, live music and raffles. I like that a competition takes bouldering out of the climbing gym and brings it closer to people on the street.
Source: Desnivel
For anyone who dreams of bouldering in Fontainebleau, there is important news: after the major July fire that destroyed more than 2,000 hectares of the UNESCO biosphere reserve about 70 km southeast of Paris, 18,000 of the area's roughly 22,000 hectares have been open again since 22 August 2026.
Fontainebleau is home to one of the most important bouldering areas in the world. About 10 percent of the total area burned, and even areas not directly hit are still struggling, because several heatwaves have left the forest more vulnerable than ever.
On 18 August, the Respect Bleau collective brought together climbers, clubs, forest stakeholders and local authorities to discuss the situation. Five weeks after the fire broke out, 900 firefighters were still deployed during the day and 500 at night. The forest floor is still smouldering as peat fire, and in some zones the ground temperature reaches 400 degrees.
That is why the burned areas remain closed. Do not enter areas marked by signs. The roots of burned trees are unstable, and trees can fall long after the fire. The Women's Bouldering Festival is postponed indefinitely; only the route-setting workshops will take place in London in September.
To me the message is clear: access is not a free pass. Anyone who goes should respect the closures and take care with fire risk.
Source: kletterszene.com
Italian climber Simone Tentori has repeated Drew Ruana's Insomniac V16 at Lincoln Lake in Colorado. Ruana established it in July 2021, and the problem adds a low start of around V13 into Dave Graham's We Can Build You V13. It has seen repeats by Shawn Raboutou, Jimmy Webb, Daniel Woods, Keenan Takahashi, Andy Lamb and Noah Wheeler, among others.
Tentori described the send on 8a.nu as a huge mental battle, fighting against the pressure of the road closure. He went on the very last day of the season, and called it one of the most intense experiences of his climbing career. That detail of a closing window is what makes this story feel so human to me.
Tentori already has a long list of hard ascents, including Sword of Damocles, Deep Fake and Ephyra, all V16, plus V15s such as Dreamtime, From Dirt Grows the Flowers, Monkey Wedding and The Finnish Line. In 2021 he made his hardest first ascent to date with Megalodonte V15 in Val Masino.
After his own first ascent of Insomniac, Ruana said it was his hardest yet and that it used to be the big project of Lincoln Lake. Now it has another repeat from one of the best boulderers around.
Source: Gripped
This genuinely impressed me: Yannick Flohé has flashed Flow State (8C) in Val Daone. The 27-year-old German became the first climber in the world to send an 8C on his first attempt in 2025, with Foundation's Edge in Fionnay, and now comes his second 8C flash.
Flow State was first climbed by Pietro Vidi in April 2024, originally graded 8C+. Adam Ondra made the first repeat in August 2024 and downgraded it to 8C, though he admitted that for smaller climbers it could be 8C+ if the foot doesn't stay put on the last move. Flohé rates the boulder clearly harder than Foundation's Edge.
The preparation was thorough: about three hours studying the problem and visualising the moves, hours of beta videos, and conversations with Ondra, who explained the options and the best shoe. It was his first time in Val Daone, which makes the flash all the more impressive.
Flow State shares the crux of Grizzly (8A+) in its first part before moving on to Flow (8B+). The line goes through the full roof of the block. On the last big move his foot didn't stay put and Flohé didn't quite catch the hold, but somehow he held on.
I especially like his comment that the thrill of the first go, of which there is only one, is what makes flashing so appealing.
Source: kletterszene.com
French climber Marine Thévenet has made the first female ascent of Méithra, an 8C boulder in Arolla, an area of the Swiss Alps surrounded by big mountains. She spent the summer there and finished it on Saturday 3 October, after more than ten days of work and attempts.
She herself described it as a real battle of micro-crimps from start to finish. For her, what makes it special is the process: discovering the line, searching for methods, doubting, and committing to come back again and again, between the calm up there and the frustration of having to come down. She was also happy to share the day of the send with her parents.
With some irony, she remarked that spending more than ten days on a three-metre boulder while people next to you climb 4,000-metre peaks in less than two days is the beauty of the irony of bouldering. That line made me smile.
Méithra was opened in November 2018 by the Swiss climber Théo Chappex, and the first repeat came three years later from the Frenchman Benjamin Nicolas. American Sam Weir repeated it at the end of last month. It is Thévenet's second 8C, after Juneru in Albarracín in October 2024.
The grade is a bit debated: Chappex proposed 8C, but other repeaters have settled on 8B+. Whatever the number, the story of persistence is what I like most.
Source: Desnivel
