Climbing Narcissist » Sport Climbing

Golden Direct Repeated By Ben Spannuth

Narc — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:10:14 +0000

Ben Spannuth, who recently started a blog at LT11, grabbed a rare repeat Golden Direct at the Cathedral in Southern Utah according to his 8a scorecard. Golden Direct was first done in 2008 by Joe Kinder at a suggested grade of 5.14d and was subsequently repeated by the likes of Chris Sharma and Jonathan Siegrist. Having climbed five other routes in the 5.14c/d range in the past 6 months, Spannuth felt Golden Direct warranted a grade of 5.14c.

Golden Direct Repeated By Ben Spannuth from Climbing Narcissist

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Vicious Fish (5.13d) Repeated By 12-Year-Old Drew Ruana

Narc — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:16:17 +0000

Last weekend 12-year-old Drew Ruana took his climbing to the next level by repeating Vicious Fish (5.13d) at Smith Rock, OR. The route description on Mountain Project sounds nightmarish for the small statured:

This is the ultimate prize on the Churning Buttress. Each winter hardmen flock to this site in search of ‘good’ (read: frigid) conditions for the redpoint. This is another great example of a route without holds. Sure, there are holds in spots, but in the business, you’re basically slapping and sloping on pitiful ripples.

Drew Ruana on Vicious Fish – Photos by Ryan Palo

Ruana has been climbing since he was 3 but only started climbing seriously the past 3 years or so. This ascent builds on previous notable sends by Ruana at Smith Rock including Churning In The Wake (5.13a), Oxygen (5.13b) and Rude Boys (5.13c). Here are a pair of so-so quality videos showing the latter two sends:

Vicious Fish (5.13d) Repeated By 12-Year-Old Drew Ruana from Climbing Narcissist

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First 5.14d(ish) For Alizée Dufraisse In Siurana

Narc — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:14:48 +0000

Alizée Dufraisse has done the 4th overall and first female ascent of La Reina Mora, a 5.14b/d¹ in Siurana, Spain. Writing on her blog:

Yesterday I had an incredible fight and I send it. It is the most beautiful and hard route I’ve ever done.

This ascent comes not long after she climbed Patinoso, a 5.14c also located in Siurana. Here is some footage of Nico Favresee climbing La Reina Mora.

Well, it was opened at 5.14b by Ramon Julian Puigblanque and the grade has creeped up with subsequent repeats so a consensus is still lacking ↩

First 5.14d(ish) For Alizée Dufraisse In Siurana from Climbing Narcissist

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News & Notes – 1/17/2012

Narc — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:42:52 +0000

News…

Dai Koyamada adds a potential V15 called Shanbara near Toyota, Japan:

On 20th December 2011, I completed a new line in Toyota, Japan.
This problem is a sit down start version of Agartha, V14, and is called Shanbara.

Iker Pou is well known for repeating finger intensive testpieces like Action Directe (5.14d) and Demencia Senil (5.15a), so it’s not surprising to see Kairn reporting that Pou has done the FA of Nit de bruixes in Margalef, Spain suggesting a grade of 5.15a for the line.
Sasha DiGiulian has been in Hueco Tanks for the past couple of weeks where she’s done a couple of V10′s¹ and the V11 Sunshine according to her 8a scorecard.
In the past couple of weeks Jimmy Webb did the 3rd ascent of Daniel Woods’ Crook By The Book (V14) in Hueco and added two V13s near Chattanooga according to his 8a scorecard.
Isabelle Faus and Kasia Pietras were also in Hueco and both succeeded in repeating Sunshine (V11), with Pietras following that up with another V11 once she got home to Chattanooga.
Jorg Verhoeven and Katha Saurwein have been cruising around Bishop climbing several notable highballs including Ambrosia (V11) for Jorg and Golden Shower (V10) for Katha. Check out videos of them getting high off the deck here, here and here.
Alex Johnson has been busy on the higbhalls of Bishop this winter as well:

On this trip she has taken things to a new height by getting off the deck on some of the area’s taller problems. It impresses to hear of her ascents of Mesothelioma (v7), Golden Shower (v10) and The Ninth (v6), all at The Pollen Grains (a.k.a. Lydija Boulders) in a day.

Magnus Midtbø climbed two 5.14ds in Santa Linya, Spain as 2011 came to a close with repeats of Fuck The System and Open Your Mind Direct. Footage of the latter route can be seen here.

…and Notes…

Short interview with Camp 4 Collective’s Renan Ozturk who went from nearly dying in an avalanche last year to being part of the team that did the FA of Meru Shark’s Fin:

Yeah, it was a really intense year going from a complete state of helplessness after the big accident (two broken vertebrae in my neck, fractured skull, severed vertebral artery) to taking part in a very intense and demanding Himalayan expedition

Rock band The Killers come to the defense of Red Rock:

As members of the rock band The Killers, we don’t usually get involved in local politics. When we learned how Red Rock Canyon is being threatened, however, we wanted to do all we could to help. Timing is urgent.

Alex Honnold reports on the gym scene in Poland:

The contrast to US gyms was stark. Where a US gym is meant for fun, Polish gyms reminded me more of small training centers. Systems boards, steep bouldering caves, campus boards, and a few weights all crammed into a dark, extremely dusty little nook. Not really a place to play, but certainly a place to get extremely strong.

The 2012 Hueco Rock Rodeo fast approaches with this year’s event scheduled to take place March 3rd and 4th. This year’s event, which is sponsored by adidas, features clinics, slideshows and much more. Can anyone keep up with Daniel Woods?

Save the dates of September 27-30 for the 2012 Idaho Mountain Festival

She also flashed the problem 10-10 which is listed as V10 in the guidebook but I think everyone pretty much agrees that it is not V10 any longer. ↩

News & Notes – 1/17/2012 from Climbing Narcissist

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Enzo Oddo Repeats La Rambla Original (5.15a)

Narc — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:45:08 +0000

16-year-old French phenom Enzo Oddo has climbed yet another 5.15 with his repeat of La Rambla original in Siurana, Spain. The route was first climbed before Oddo was even born by Alex Huber to a stopping point 3/4 up the wall, and it was subsequently extended by Ramón Julián Puigblanque. The accepted grade for this route these days seems to be 5.15a, but Rock and Ice has a good recap of this history of the route including Huber’s thoughts on how the grade of this route and many others has been inflated over the years:

“It’s a fact that La Rambla increased in grade from 8c+ (5.14c) to 9a+ (5.15a). Often people believe this is due to the route extension, but in reality the difficulties do not change substantially with this extension.”

Enzo Oddo Repeats La Rambla Original (5.15a) from Climbing Narcissist

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News & Notes – 12/20/2011

Narc — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:58:09 +0000

Tell Santa to take the week off…News & Notes is back with this massive dump of news…

In case you missed the video, Nalle Hukkataival flashed Crown Of Aragorn (V13) in Hueco Tanks a couple of weeks ago. This is the 2nd V13 to be flashed in Hueco after Paul Robinson pulled off Nagual in one try back in 2007.
Ben Spannuth persevered through some less than ideal late-season conditions in the Red River Gorge to nab a repeat of Adam Taylor’s The Goldent Ticket (5.14d) according to DPM. You’ll remember that earlier in his trip Spannuth managed to climb two 5.14c’s in a single day.
Paul Robinson and Daniel Woods have been having a good trip to Font. Looking at their respective 27Crags ticklists we can see that Robinson has added a repeat of Supertanker (V14) and Woods has done The Traphouse (V14) and Gecko Assis (V14).
Sonnie Trotter repeated Kevin Jorgeson’s Ambrosia¹, the super highball at the Buttermilks. See a picture of him on the line here.
These kids are good at rock climbing
Dan Beall is in the Buttermilks where, according to this post on the Bishop Bouldering blog, he did the 3rd ascent of Direct North (V14) and did the FA of Misdirection (V14). Both problems are variations and/or link ups on the Grandma Peabody boulder.
UKClimbing reports that Japan’s Sachi Amma has done the first repeat of Chris Sharma’s Pachamama (5.15a) in Oliana, Spain.
Speaking of Fred Nicole, he was in Boulder, CO in October, and he found time to repeat Trice (V12) using old school beta more akin to how it was done way back in the 1970′s by Jim Holloway.
Both Ian Dory and Nalle Hukkatiaval have repeated Dave Graham’s Lost In The Hood (V14) in Cowell, Arkansas.
According to his 8a scorecard Gregor Peirce did his hardest problem to date with an ascent of The Swarm (V13/14) in Bishop, CA.
And finally, according to his 8a scorecard Jimmy Webb notched another V14 in his belt with a repeat of Esperanza (V14) in Hueco Tanks. He followed that up with an ascent of the iconic Slashface (V13) and the 2nd ascent of Daniel Woods’ Yellow Diamonds (V13).

Or at least what people are referring to as Ambrosia. Breaking of holds has led to some changes in how people do the bottom section. ↩

News & Notes – 12/20/2011 from Climbing Narcissist

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“Why On Earth Don’t I Live Here?”

Narc — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 01:45:43 +0000

Writing for Five Ten about his recent time spent in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge¹, Dave Graham unleashes another classic entry for the internet to enjoy:

I will admit, as this is my second trip to this place, I am blown away by the quality of the rock, the natural nature of the way the routes flow. The fact that I have never dedicated some time to climbing here confuses me, and makes me question whether I even know what the hell I am doing after climbing for 15 years.

Why on earth don’t I live here?

And writing on her blog, Emily Harrington offers some pictures and some insights she gained from climbing with Graham the past couple of weeks:

Dave is one of those individuals who doesn’t train for climbing. He doesn’t believe in it. Instead, he believes in his own creativity and self-expression, and it’s evident when he climbs. He never stops believing in his ability to do a move or complete a route….As Dave has shown me, sometimes using your mind is more important than everything else.

A time that has been plagued by fickle weather and trips to the mall to visit Hot Topic ↩

“Why On Earth Don’t I Live Here?” from Climbing Narcissist

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Successful Trip To The Red River Gorge For Jorg Verhoeven

Narc — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:00:17 +0000

Jorg Verhoeven reports on his blog that he had a pretty successful trip to the Red River Gorge with repeats of Pure Imagination (5.14d), Fifty Words For Pump (5.14c) and Southern Smoke (5.14c) among the routes on his ticklist. Check out a video of the Pure Imagination send here.

Successful Trip To The Red River Gorge For Jorg Verhoeven from Climbing Narcissist

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Adam Taylor Brings 5.15 To The Red River Gorge

Narc — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:35:53 +0000

It’s strange to think that just a little over five years ago Kentucky’s Red River Gorge had a small selection of “easy” 5.14s and no truly hard¹ testpieces. With a few notable open projects laying in wait and seemingly endless walls of sandstone filling the Kentucky hills, many people felt as thought it was a matter of time before routes in the hard 5.14 or even easy 5.15 range started to get done.

Visiting climbers like Mike Doyle, Joe Kinder and Jonathan Siegrist helped usher in a handful of hard climbs in the past few years with their FA’s of routes like Lucifer (5.14c), Southern Smoke (5.14c) and Pure Imagination (5.14d) respectively. In addition to these visitors, a local climber, Adam Taylor, has been having as much if not more success pushing the limits in the Red. The generally under the radar Taylor has repeated all the aforementioned hard routes² and established one of his own in The Golden Ticket (5.14d) which he did the FA of back in 2009.

This fall Taylor has been seen repeating Lucifer again and doing the 2nd ascent of Siegrist’s Twenty Four Karats (5.14c), so it shouldn’t be that surprising to read this report from DPM that Taylor has done the FA of what is likely the hardest route in the Red, Southern Smoke Direct. Southern Smoke Direct climbs the direct start to Southern Smoke ³ adding a difficult, potentially V13 or V14, boulder problem onto the start bumping the grade up to an estimated 5.15a.

Read the full report here to find out more about Taylor’s thoughts on the route as well as how many pull-ups he could do at the top of Southern Smoke after taking a training lap⁴.

In the grand scheme of things ↩
Among many others ↩
Which itself is actually a more direct start to Ultra-perm (5.13d) which climbs up an adjacent slab before transitioning onto the headwall. 3 starts, 1 finish. Got that? ↩
Hint: way more than I’ve ever done on the ground ↩

Adam Taylor Brings 5.15 To The Red River Gorge from Climbing Narcissist

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5.14c Repeats By Spannuth & Zachariash

Narc — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:10:31 +0000

Since I have barely been able to budge in my quest to rise up the climbing grading scales for several years now, I’m always fascinated by climbers who seem to defy logic and show rapid progression, particularly at the high end of the scale. Two such recent examples are Ben Spannuth and Jeremy Zachariash.

It’s been a pretty incredible 2nd half of the year for Colorado’s Ben Spannuth as he’s rocketed up the grading scale. He made headlines a couple of months ago with his repeat of Sharma’s Era Bella (5.14d) during his trip to Spain, his first of the grade. Back on U.S. soil he hasn’t slowed down as evidenced by his repeat of Grand Ol’ Opry (5.14b)¹ at the Monastery in Colorado which he completed shortly before setting out for Kentucky’s Red River Gorge.

Looking at Spannuth’s 8a.nu scorecard we can see his trip the Red has been even more productive with multiple 5.13d flashes and a single day where he managed to send neighboring 5.14cs in Southern Smoke and Fifty Words For Pump with a late day send of Omaha Beach (5.14a) thrown in for good measure. Climbing.com has a bit more on his big day in this update.

Another climber who has rapidly progressed up the difficulty scale is Jeremy Zachariash. In just the past couple of months he’s improved his hardest repdoint from 5.13c to 5.14c according to his 8a scorecard with a slew of repeats mainly at Little Si, WA. In the span of two days at Little Si he repeated Pornification (5.14a) and Whore Of Bablyon (5.14b) in addition to the 2nd ascent of Jonathan Siegrist’s New World Order (5.14c). Not bad for someone who according to their scorecard has only been climbing since 2007.

This route was also apparently repeated by Mark Anderson ↩

5.14c Repeats By Spannuth & Zachariash from Climbing Narcissist

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