News & Notes – 9/14/2011

It was a big day on the big wall at Oliana yesterday as both Daila Ojeda and Joe Kinder grabbed repeats of Chris Sharma’s Mind Control¹, a stunning 5.14c most famous for being onsighted by Adam Ondra.  Big Up Productions is still out in Spain so look for footage of all this Spain stuff at, presumably, this year’s Reel Rock Tour.  Footage of Ojeda working Mind Control last year can be seen in this Sterling Rope spot.

In a post on Five Ten’s site Dave Graham reflects in his usual style on the last few months of 2011 which culminated with his FA of Memory is Parallax (V14):

In a day and age where each boulder problem is argued to be less and less significant (its not that hard, its not that cool, its not that tall, its not what I like, no one will go there, blah blah blah) I find it truly important to share when things do matter. When something I have done a boulder is significant. I took a lot from this experience as a person, even though I just climbed a rock, it was a massive milestone, and a true personal accomplishment, but it was because of how it fit into my life, where I was when I did it, and where I came from before I started trying it.

Shortly after winning the 2012 Dark Horse Championships Daniel Woods made the trek to Japan to compete in The North Face Cup and sample some of Dai Koyamada’s roof testpieces at Shiobara.  Woods won The North Face Open, besting a strong field that included Sachi Amma, and repeated both Catharsis (V14) and Hydra (V13) in a single visit to Shiobara according to his 27Crags ticklist.  Pictures from the comp can be seen here and here.