The climbs featured in the AAJ don’t happen in a vacuum—they are part of the broader evolution of climbing performance. The following achievements in 2018 provide additional context for the big-wall and mountaineering ascents documented in the 2019 edition of the AAJ. – The Editors

January

Filip Babicz (Italy) dry-tooled a 62-meter cave route in Poland that he called Oświecenie and rated M16/D16, the first in Europe of the grade. In December, Darek Sokołowski (Poland) completed Parallel World in the Italian Dolomites, also longer than 60 meters and also rated D16. Notably, both climbs also were rated DTS or “dry-tool style,” meaning no figure-four moves were used during the ascents. Gord McArthur (Canada) proposed the world’s first D16, in August 2017, for Storm Giant in British Columbia.

February

Adam Ondra (Czech) flashed Super Crackinette at Saint-Léger, France, the first flash of 9a+ (5.15a) route. Ondra had been attempting this feat since 2012, when he tried to flash Biographie (9a+) in France and flashed Southern Smoke Direct at the Red River Gorge in Kentucky (then given 5.15a but downgraded by Ondra to 5.14d). Visiting the U.S. in the fall of 2018, Ondra onsighted Just Do It (5.14c) at Smith Rock, Oregon, and made a strong attempt to onsight-free the Salathé Wall on El Capitan.

May

Alex Megos (Germany) redpointed Perfecto Mundo at Margalef, Spain, making him the second person to do the first ascent of a 9b+ (5.15c) route. (Adam Ondra was the first to free climb 9b+ and 9c routes.) Stefano Ghisolfi (Italy) repeated Perfecto Mundo in December.

June

Katrin “Kaddi” Lehmann (Germany) completed Kryptos in the Basler Jura, Switzerland, becoming the second woman to boulder 8C (V15). In 2016, Ashima Shiraishi (USA) climbed two problems graded V15.

October

Free Solo, the documentary film featuring Alex Honnold’s solo of El Capitan, opened in theaters and soon became the highest grossing climbing film ever made, with over $21 million in box office sales at press time. Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the documentary won a BAFTA (U.K.) award and an Oscar in early 2019.