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Australian photographer Simon Carter has a nice dispatch from Catalunya that includes some of his usual amazing pictures and a brief note on how public perception of how quickly things are being sent over there doesn’t always meet reality:
I first noticed something strange when a climber sent a route second time that they were on the route that day, and their ascent was reported in the media as “second go”, yet the detail about them having been on the route the previous year didn’t make it through to the news report.

Writing on his blog about his recent redpoint of his first 5.14d―Escalatamasters (5.14d) at Perles, Spain―James Pearson offers some insight into the fact that sometimes grades do matter:
I loose count of how many times I must have said grades are not important, insisting instead it is the beauty of the climb and the moves that I search for. Yet for the last few years, hiding just a little way beneath everything else, was an urge to succeed only for a number. It might have been small, barely noticeable at times, but there it sat none the less, an ever present hope for something I thought perhaps I would never achieve.
But it’s a nice number, don’t you think? 9a [5.14d]. I hope you can forgive my shallowness?
Check out the full post for a nice recap of Pearson’s effort on the line as well as a handful of nice pictures of the route.
Update: Thanks to the commenter who unearthed this footage of Dave Graham on the route
It was another low gravity day (or days) at Oliana as Americans Sasha DiGiulian and Ben Spannuth both had good days over the weekend
Everybody who’s anybody is climbing 5.14 in Spain right now
New V14s in Hueco Tanks and Albarracin from Dave Graham and Paul Robinson
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.
© 2012 Climbing Narcissist. All Rights Reserved.




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