News & Notes: Get Outta Town Edition

My apologies for the lack of updates on the exploits of others as of late…

• Dave MacLeod continues to be one of the more interesting pro climbers out there.  UKClimbing has an in depth interview with him about life as a pro climber that I found interesting.  On Dave’s personal blog there are also some cool pictures of him linking up his project on Ben Nevis.  Additional pictures at wife Claire’s blog.  Looks crazy…Here in the States you can see Dave Friday night at the International Climbers Festival in Lander, WY.  If you've never been to the ICF, I would highly recommend it.

Dave MacLeod's project on Ben Nevis

Photo:  Claire MacLeod

• Ryan Olson has a brand new photography website with lots of new pictures from his trip to Europe as well as pictures from back here in the States.
• Wade David has another high rez video for you to download.  This time it is Adam Lincoln climbing 3 problems at the Buttermilks in Bishop: The Hunk (V3), Checkerboard (V8) and Evilution (to the lip, V10).
• Two good recaps of recent World Cup comps at Routsetter.com:  One for bouldering and one for roped climbing
• Despite my recent “bashing” of the climbing mag sites, Climbing.com has a couple of interesting articles up right now.  One is about the various 5.13d climbs at Rifle with some interesting backstory on each route featured.  The other is an interview with low-key hardman Jonathan Siegrist who recently repeated Tommy Caldwell’s Grand Ole Opry (5.14a/c) at the Monastery.  I still wish I didn’t have to click through 8 times to read the entire articles…
• If you didn’t see it at Pimpin’ and Crimpin’ a few weeks back, they have some cool photos from Mt. Evans.  I don’t think there can be enough pictures of City Walls of Dying Dreams SDS on the interweb.
• Ty Landman is checking out the bouldering in Verbier, Switzerland with brother Jeff and Dave Graham.  First up on his ticklist is trying to repeat Dave’s unrepeated V14 Scarred For Life.
• Mike from ChossMonkey has a good write-up about how he climbed the Nose on El Cap in a day.
• An interesting article on the pros and cons of pooping in a bag.  I think I’ll just hold it thanks…
• Check out this article about climbing grades…you may just qualify as a professional climber...
• Via Joost we see that Nike has released their latest Sweet Spot video.  In this installment, Liv Sansov climbs some absolutely incredible looking boulder problems in Hampi, India.  Check out the video:

Next week I have a series of posts scheduled for your entertainment while we are in Yosemite.  You can expect a glut of posts about our trip when we return however I will do my best to balance them with continued spray on what others are doing.  Also coming are pictures from Rachel & Eddie’s ascent of The Nose which happen to include a few pictures of Hans & Yuji on their speed record as a bonus.