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Via Jamie Chong’s blog comes word that Canadian Will Stanhope has done the 2nd all gear ascent of the iconic East Face (5.13d) of the Monkey Face at Smith Rocks, OR.
Not a whole lot going on this past week on the spray front. Here are a few interesting links to help get you to the weekend: Sonnie Trotter has an excellent discussion taking place on his blog about whether top climbers are born with genetic gifts or if they developed their skills through hard work [...]
News & Notes on Sonnie Trotter, Ethan Pringle, tribute to Todd Skinner, the Caldwell’s and more…

Peep this story from Scotland where Sonnie Trotter (in town working E11 trad route Rhapsody) helped rescue a ‘Non-Educated Delinquent’ Scottish youth when said youth climbed higher than he felt comfortable downclimbing and became stuck.
Based on the high level of interest in the list of potential V14 and harder boulder problems in North America, I thought it would be a good idea to try and assemble a similar list of Routes. To illustrate a certain point, I will limit the list to routes proposed 5.14d-ish or harder. Being that [...]
“Pilgrimage”, the Big Up movie featuring Chris Sharma and Katie Brown bouldering in Hampi, India, inspires anyone who watches it to dream of one day climbing in India. Unfortunately, getting there is both expensive and time consuming. Sonnie Trotter, who lately has achieved notoriety for his hard trad exploits that include FAs of The Path [...]
Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold spent Saturday romping up big walls in Yosemite. The pair free climbed Freerider on El Cap (6:45 climbing), the South Face of Mt. Watkins (2:40 climbing) and the Regular Northwest Face on Half Dome (5 climbing) in just over 21 hours. More at Climbing.com. So…how was your weekend??
Ethan Pringle is back at Mt. Clark, home to that one route first done by that one guy:
Projecting a route like this requires all of your attention, and having to devote all of your attention to a route like this can get really tiring really fast. At some point, you just want to get it over with. Of course, afterward you feel a mix of relief and loss. Relief that you’re done and the epic is over, and loss that this magnificent line doesn’t require your presence anymore. But for me, I think I’ll have to take a nice long break from serious route projects for a little while after this. Like Randy Levitt said, “It’s like a limestone El Cap.” Obviously, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it does sort of convey the amount of work required to complete a project of this caliber.
Pringle is no stranger to Jumbo Love, having tried it even before its FA back in 2008. You can see some footage of those attempts here.
I don’t know about you, but I always try my best to climb close to an actual bathroom. In case you don’t, the Access Fund has a nice refresher on what to do when nature calls.
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