- Despite all the joking around about the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show there were a few cool products unveiled at the show. Probably the most intriguing thing I’ve seen so far is the upcoming Red River Gorge iPhone App from Wolverine Publishing. Coinciding with an upcoming release of a 3rd edition of the Red River Gorge guidebook, the iPhone app looks to be a fully functional guide that you can take with you right on your phone. The possibilities for something like this are pretty amazing so I can’t wait to see the finished product. You can read a bit more about it at Western Colorado Climbing.
- Iker Pou did the 2nd ascent of Chris Sharma’s Demencia Senil (5.15a) at Margalef, Spain. Pou is no stranger to the type of hard pocket pulling needed on Demencia Senil as he is well known for his early repeat of Wolfgang Gullich’s finger tweaking testpiece Action Direct (5.14d) back in 2000. Here’s a video of Pou doing a neighboring route at Margalef, Llamps y trons (5.14c):
- For all the props Chris Sharma gets for his First Ascents of super hard sport routes, he also deserves credit for bolting a lot of these new lines as well. Lately, he seems to be one of the few top climbers that actually bolts his own projects. In that vein, he bolted a new 50m line at Oliana dubbed Chaxiraxi (after their dog?) that could be one of the hardest routes in the sector according to Daila Ojeda’s blog:
This place is wonderful and the lines are five stars of course! and now also Oliana has a new line of 50 meters bolted by Chris the last week… the name is Chaxiraxi and it can be one of the hardest route in the sector… 9b?? We will see that the machine says.. If it’s like this Chris has bolted four 9b routes in Catalunya Golpe de Estado 9b in Siurana, Neanderthal 9b inSanta Linya, First round First minute 9b project in Margalef and Chaxiraxi 9b project in Oliana. And with this line Chris has bolted in Oliana 10 routes. Looks like Chris doesn’t want just to send the hard routes, he want to create it too.
- Finnish bouldering powerhouse Nalle Hukkataival has done his first 5.14c, Duela la realidad, in Oliana, Spain
- Also in Oliana, Jon Cardwell and Dave Graham both recently dispatched the 5.14b Identifacation y placas
- Desert Rat Productions has been hard at work on a guidebook for Moe’s Valley, a small bouldering area near St. George, UT. Check out their website for a free preview of the guide. They hope to have it ready by early Spring.
- If you live in the Ft. Collins, CO area Pat Ament’s The Disciples of Gill will be featured tonight at CSU. The movie is being shown in the Clark A Building Room 103 and it starts at 7pm. Tickets are $10.
- Renan Ozturk and Cory Richards completed the first ascent of a new line on Tawoche, a 21,000′+ peak in Nepal. Throughout their trip they somehow found the time, energy and internet connection to put together some pretty amazing video dispatches. The final dispatch is below and the others can be seen here.
TAWOCHE 2k10 dispatches #5 from renan ozturk on Vimeo.
- It’s cool to see companies like The North Face supporting projects like the one Ozturk and Richards just completed, however it’s not cool to see them doing things like this.
