News & Notes – Mass Update

Thanks to James for compiling this massive list of updates. In this update you will find a lot of news on Dai Koyamada’s exploints in the Frankenjura. Also news from Daniel Woods, Jon Cardwell, Chris Sharma, Dave Graham, Lisa Rands and Paxti Usobiaga among others. This has taken me longer than anticipated so some of this is quite old news. However, catching up on bouldering:

• David Graham has repeated, among other problems, Landman’s Midnight Express on Jan 14, 2008 as well as Wing Chun (8B) on Jan 20, 2008 at Ibex, Utah. Dosage 3 has footage of James Litz climbing Wing Chun, which is the sit start to Bruce Lee.

Dave Graham climbing Wing Chun – Photo Joe Kinder

• Lisa Rands has repeated the Mandala (8A+) on Jan 21, 2008. This was the first female ascent. See this Climbing Hot Flash and this MVM news posting.

Lisa Rands on The Mandala in 2007 – Photo Bishop Bouldering Blog

Click below to read the rest…

• In early October 2007, Dai Koyamada journeyed to the Frankenjura, Germany. Dai is known for his long power-endurance boulder problems, notably the first ascent of the Wheel of life (8C+), and his mono-pocket problems. From 8a.nu, see the following pic of Dai on Hydra[G]. (See a previous post on climbingnarc.com for a link to Chris Webb Parsons repeat of Wheel.) Dai proceeded to repeat many of the hard problems put up by Markus Bock, Fabian Christof, Markus Windisch, and others. In addition, Dai himself had some hard first ascents. Since no topos exist for the Frankenjura, it seems that the local climbers were very hospitable to Dai, helping him out and showing him the problems and the projects. See the news section of boulderrausch.de for accounts of his trip and a video. Boulderrausch.de is in German, but the sections on Dai’s trip were translated into English. (Thanks to Maik Urbczat for creating and maintaining this cool site.) Highlights of the trip include:
  • Repeat of Forget about life for a while (FA by Fabian Christof).
  • Repeat of Riot act (8B+, FA by Markus Bock).
  • Questions arose about the grades of some of the problems (some not mentioned here). About those problems, there seems to be consensus that Riot act is real 8B+. Regarding Forget, Andi Barth also repeated it shortly after Dai did, and Barth commented that he felt that the problem was at least soft 8B with Dai’s beta (which sounds like a jump from a two-finger pocket to a sloper), and that the original beta used by Fabi was much, much harder.
  • Second ascent of Montecore (8C, FA by Bock) on Oct 14, 2007. This problem links Alpha Mann (8B, FA by Bock) and Omega Mann (8A+, FA by Markus Windisch) and the initial part of the boulder. It climbs the entire shield of the boulder. (From boulderrausch.de. Photo by Ikuko Serata.)
  • First ascent of Bongo (8C) on Oct 27, 2007. This problem was named after Markus Windisch’s pet dog. It is a link-up of Longbow (8B+) and Satipatthana (8B/+); both of these problems were FAs by Windisch. Dai felt that it was harder than Montecore.
  • Thus, it seems that the hard climbing that Dai has yet to repeat in the Frankenjura are Gossip (8C) and Corona (9a+), both FAs by Markus Bock. According to planetmountain.com, Corona “starts up the 1984 8c testpiece “Burn 4 U” before breaking off right up a severe set of sharp edges and pockets.” See rokmek for video of Bock on Corona, as well as Dai on Hydrangea.
  • See this old Climbing article (no. 235, Dec 2004) about climbing in Japan. (Just a rant, but I hate how climbing.com often never has any dates for its articles or it is really hard to find. I had to go to FreakClimbing to find this date.) And see this article from Gripped (vol 6 issue 6 Dec 2004/Jan 2005) about Dai Koyamada (posted on freakclimbing.com).
  • Note: most of this information was compiled from boulderrausch.de and 8a.nu.
• Daniel Woods is now residing in Europe. One of the highlights of the trip has been his repeat of Dreamtime (8B+, FA by Fred Nicole) on Nov 16, 2007 at Cresciano, Switzerland. Jon Cardwell later also repeated Dreamtime. See Cardwell’s blog for some accounts of his and Woods’ time in Europe. In addition, on a trip back home, Woods had the second ascent of Midnight Express (8B+, FA by Tyler Landman). Dreamtime is a problem with lots of history, being the first proposed 8C and since it is a hard boulder problem by Nicole. The sad issue also arose of it having been chipped. Regardless, for the elite climbers, to repeat it is on almost all of their wish lists.
• Urh Cehovin has proposed a grade of 8C for his boulder The end in Zalog, Slovenia, which he climbed in Dec 2007. This problem adds a start to his Beginning of the end (8B+). His description of the problem can be found on alpikor.

This post was originally only going to be a bouldering update, but so much other news.

• Patxi Usobiaga:
  • onsighted Bizi Euskaraz on Dec 11, 2007 at Etxauri, Spain. This was also the first ascent of the route, and he proposed a grade of 8c+. If the grade holds, this is the first 8c+ onsight. This route was bolted by Ekaitz Maiz four years ago.
  • Patxi also did the FA of Fuck the system (corrected) at Santa Linya and had the second ascent of Mendeku (FA by Iker Pou) at Egino, both 9a.
  • As stated in a previous post, he also repeated Esclatamasters (FA by Ramón Julian Puigblanque) at Perles, Spain. Regarding this route, Dave Graham describes the route as having a “nasty headwall filled with little sharp, skin-fucking crimpers (cursed little grips). At least the bottom of the route is 25 meters of burly collenette pulling out a crazy prow, which is blue, and very steep!” In a video on the old momentumvm.com, when asked, Graham replied that, for him, Esclatamasters was harder than A muerte.
• Chris Sharma had onsighted Digital system (8c) in Santa Linya, Spain in Dec 2007.
• Fred Rouhling had the first ascent of Salamandre at at St Pierre in Faucigny in Haute-Savoie, France in early November 2007. See the Beal website for a description of Salamandre (in French). Rouhling proposed a vague 9th grade for this route. Rouhling is most known for Akira, for which he proposed a grade of 9b. See this Climbing article (no. 232, July 2004) about Rouhling and the controversy surrounding Akira.