On 6 June 2026, Janja Garnbret completed the first female ascent of Bibliographie, a 9b+ route at the Céüse cliff in France. The send made the Slovenian only the second woman ever to climb the grade.
The steep limestone of Céüse
Bibliographie follows a brutally overhanging seam of blue-grey limestone high above the valleys of the Hautes-Alpes. The route demands power-endurance through razor-thin crimps and long, dynamic moves between poor rests.
The climb was confirmed on a Saturday. Céüse in early June typically offers the cool mornings and low humidity that powerful finger-strength climbing requires, though the exact conditions and the number of attempts were not disclosed.
Ten titles, one first ascent
The Bibliographie tick extends an outdoor record that already includes the first female onsight of an 8c route, achieved in Spain in late 2021. That milestone arrived barely three months after she won the first Olympic gold in women’s sport climbing.
Her competitive career is equally dense. At the 2025 World Championships in Seoul, Garnbret took lead and boulder gold to push her haul of senior world titles to ten. She remains the only climber to sweep every World Cup she entered in a single season — six boulder golds in 2019, topping a staggering 74 of 78 problems.
Bibliographie sits naturally inside that arc. It was climbed not during a quiet break but in the midst of a career that has already redrawn the sport’s entire horizon.
The limestone pillar at Céüse now carries one more piece of history, quietly carved into its holds by a climber who has spent a decade moving the line of what is possible.
