The news

Belgium's Anak Verhoeven has made the first ascent of 'Sweet Neuf' at Pierrot Beach in France, a sports climb she believes is 9a+. Should the grade be confirmed, Verhoeven becomes only the second woman to have climbed 9a+ and the first to have freed a route of this difficulty.

On 28 July 2017 Jacopo Larcher and Paolo Marazzi made the first free ascent of Così parlò Zarathustra, a A3 aid climb in Vallone di Sea established in 1983 by Isidoro Meneghin and Daniele Caneparo.

The first 9c sports climb in the world freed by Adam Ondra last Sunday at Flatanger in Norway has lost its 'Project Hard' status and now has official name: Silence. Ondra explains why and, indirectly, provides insight about his own climbing.

Interview with Italian climber Gabriele Moroni who on 02/09/2017 in Val Noasca (Valle dell’Orco, Italy) pulled off the first repeat of 29 dots, the difficult highball boulder problem freed in 2015 by Austria’s Bernd Zangerl.

Video: Jorg Verhoeven and Katharina Saurwein repeat El Matador (5.11a), one of the classic climbs up Devils Tower in Wyoming, USA.

One day before the Orcoblocco bouldering meeting in Italy’s Valle dell’Orco Andrea Migliano introduces the valley in the Gran Paradiso National Park and in particular the new El Dorado sector with its 120 new boulder problems.

The video of American climber Chris Sharma making the first ascent of his difficult deep water solo at Pont d’Arc in Ardèche, France..

The report by Pietro Radassao who at Frosolone (Molise, Central Italy) made the first ascent of 'Iron Moon', a sport climb for which the Italian climber suggests 8c+/9a.

The second and final episode about the history of sport climbing at Arco, taken from the book 'Rock Master, Climbing at Arco'.

In 2016 Hannes Pfeifhofer and Dietmar Niederbrunner made the first ascent of Petri Heil (6c +, 590 meters), a new multi-pitch rock climb up Cima Ovest di Lavaredo, Dolomites.

The first episode about the history of sport climbing at Arco, taken from the book 'Rock Master, Climbing at Arco'.

At the limestone crag Kotečnik in Slovenia Jernej Kruder has made a trad ascent of the 8b+ sport climb 'Umazana Igra'.

On his first climbing trip to Rocklands, South Africa, Austria’s Jakob Schubert climbed more than 20 boulder problems graded 8B or harder.

America’s Sasha DiGiulian and Spain’s Edu Marin have made what is believed to be the second free ascent of Mora Mora (8c, 700m) on Tsaranoro Atsimo in Madagascar.

The first episode of the new series ‘Strange Heroes' by La Sportiva features Jacopo Larcher and his difficult trad climbing project at Cadarese, Italy.

A legend, a desire destined to remain a dream for most climbers: this is what the Kosterlitz crack in Valle dell'Orco represented to the Italian climbing scene in the ’70’s and ’80’s after having been first ascended in the early 1970’s by Scotland’s Mike Kosterlitz. The 2016 Nobel Prize in...