Notable ascents, as the climbing press reported them.

Hard outdoor ascents are reported by climbers and the climbing press, and a new route's grade is proposed by its first climber and, as the examples below show, can be confirmed or changed by later ascents. Each ascent here is given as the named publication reported it, with its date; any 'first' is that publication's claim.

How to read this page

Every ascent is attributed to the publication that reported it, with the date of the ascent or the report.
A grade proposed by a first ascensionist is a proposal until others repeat the route. Where a grade has changed, the change is given.
Grades are written as the source gave them. Gripped, for example, writes 9c as 5.15d. How published charts line up the scales is on grade comparison.
These are reports of what elite climbers did, not examples to follow.

The hardest sport routes: 9c

LaCrux keeps a list of the world's 9c routes (published 25 January 2026 and marked as of June 2026). On it:

Route	Location	First ascent	Status in LaCrux's list
Silence	Hanshelleren cave, Flatanger, Norway	Adam Ondra, 3 September 2017	The first 9c; unrepeated
DNA	La Ramirole, Verdon Gorge, France	Seb Bouin, 29 April 2022	Listed; since repeated in October 2026, per Gripped (below)
B.I.G.	Hanshelleren cave, Flatanger	Jakob Schubert, 23 July 2023	A project Adam Ondra began in 2013
Duality of Man	Dry Canyon, Arizona	Sean Bailey, announced January 2026	Proposed 9c, unconfirmed by any repeat; LaCrux reports insiders saying he climbed it in early 2025
Cafe Colombia	Raco de la Finestra, Margalef, Spain (bolted by Anghelo Bernal)	Jorge Diaz-Rullo, 13 March 2026	Proposed 9c, unconfirmed

Schubert's repeat of DNA, October 2026

Jakob Schubert made the second ascent of DNA on 10 October 2026, on his ninth attempt over about a week, and the ascent was livestreamed, Gripped reported on 13 October 2026. Gripped calls it the first repeat of any 5.15d (9c) route and Schubert the first climber to have climbed two of them; those are Gripped's claims. UKClimbing's headline also calls it the second ascent of DNA, though the article is behind a paywall.

Silence, still unrepeated

LaCrux reports that Stefano Ghisolfi has worked on Silence since 2022 and that Will Bosi joined him in 2025. In May 2026 LaCrux reported that Bosi had climbed the route's crux. We found no report of a repeat of Silence as of 21 October 2026.

Women's hardest sport routes: 9b+

Two women have climbed 9b+, according to LaCrux.

Brooke Raboutou (USA), Excalibur, Drena near Arco, Italy, first climbed by Stefano Ghisolfi in 2023. LaCrux reported it on 9 April 2025 as the first 9b+ by a woman.
Janja Garnbret (Slovenia), Bibliographie, Ceuse, France, on 6 June 2026. LaCrux (8 June 2026) calls it the second 9b+ by a woman. LaCrux says the route was bolted by Ethan Pringle in 2009 and first climbed by Alexander Megos in 2020 at a proposed 9c, then downgraded to 9b+ by Stefano Ghisolfi after the second ascent.

Raboutou's ascent is dated three ways. LaCrux's 2025 report says she returned to the route in March 2025; LaCrux's June 2026 article dates the ascent to April 2025; and a search summary of UKClimbing gave Saturday 5 April 2025.

The "first woman" title also has a history. LaCrux notes that Laura Rogora had earlier been credited as the first woman to climb 9b/+, with Erebor, but the route was downgraded to 9b after Adam Ondra's ascent, so LaCrux credits Raboutou with the first female 9b+. LaCrux also says Angela Eiter opened the 9b grade for women in 2017 with La Planta de Shiva, and that, as of April 2025, only nine climbers had climbed a confirmed 9b+, the first being Adam Ondra's Change in 2012.

The hardest boulder: Burden of Dreams

Burden of Dreams, at Lappnor in Finland, was first climbed by Nalle Hukkataival in 2016; LaCrux describes it as the world's first 9A boulder. LaCrux's list of repeats, as of 19 May 2026:

Nalle Hukkataival, 2016 (first ascent)
Will Bosi, April 2023
Simon Lorenzi, December 2023
Elias Iagnemma
Sungsu Lee
Makoto Yamauchi
Noah Wheeler, reported 19 May 2026, which LaCrux counts as the seventh ascent

LaCrux gives no dates in our research for the fourth to sixth ascents. Planetmountain reported Sungsu Lee's ascent, and a search summary dated it to May 2025 and called it the fifth, but we could not open the page to confirm.

Two ascents came with questions about touching the pads. LaCrux reports that Wheeler's first video showed a foot touching a pad, after which he climbed it cleanly two attempts later, and that Lee's first send showed his shirt brushing a pad, so he repeated it without his shirt.

Big walls: the fourth free ascent of the Dawn Wall

Sebastien Berthe made the fourth free ascent of the Dawn Wall on El Capitan, Yosemite (32 pitches, 5.14d), topping out at 8 a.m. on 31 January 2025 after a 14-day push, supported by Soline Kentzel, Gripped reported on 7 February 2025. Gripped names the earlier free ascents as Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson's first in 2015 and Adam Ondra's in 2016. The third free ascent was not identified in the sources we read. The background to El Capitan's big walls is on Yosemite and the big walls.

Taipei 101, January 2026

Gripped reported that Alex Honnold free soloed Taipei 101 (508 m, 101 storeys) on 24 January 2026, in about 1 hour 31 minutes, after a one-day weather postponement. Netflix broadcast it live as Skyscraper Live. Whether it was the biggest urban solo is disputed: Gripped says it would likely be the biggest single bottom-to-top urban free solo but that the criteria are argued over; Dan Goodwin argues that his 1986 double-lap free solo of the CN Tower elevator shaft was harder and longer; and Gripped notes that Alain Robert climbed Taipei 101 on a top rope about two decades earlier.

Alpine ascents

Four alpine ascents of 2025, including the first ascent of Jannu East by Benjamin Vedrines and Nicolas Jean from 12 to 15 October 2025, received 2026 Piolets d'Or awards. They are listed on the Piolets d'Or page.

Sources