- After leaving Arkansas, Paul Robinson moved on to Red Rocks, NV where he’s established 2 V13s (Meadowlark Lemon and The Grand Hustle), repeated another V13 and climbed a handful of V12s. Check the newly redesigned DPM for video of Paul doing Wood Grain Grippin’ (V14) in Arkansas.
- Matt Wilder added a new problem in the hard V12 or easy V13 range called The Bandersnatch to Hueco’s West Mountain:
This new problem is a good candidate for the list of hueco classics with its varied movement, length, ground level location, and striking feature. Like the mythical bandersnatch, this problem warrants some fear mainly because an unplanned fall from one of the several heel hook moves could result in an unpleasant tumble down the slab behind the climb. Mostly, though, the climbing is safe.
- Starting 2010 much like he finished 2009, Adam Ondra opened A Present For The Future (5.14d/5.15a) at Madonna della Rota, Italy
- Congratulations to Will Gadd for climbing 194 pitches of ice in Ouray, CO over a 24 hour period this weekend to raise money for dZi Foundation. That’s over 29,000 around 25,000 feet of climbing!
- The so-called super project at Boulder Canyon’s Cob Rock aka the “last great problem on the Front Range” has received a lot of attention in the past week or so. Likely V15 (at least), this problem has been tried unsuccessfully by many of the world’s strongest climbers. Jamie Emerson was there yesterday when Daniel Woods did all the moves and he has an excellent post with photos and some thoughts on longstanding projects. Here is some video that Chad Greedy put together to give you a better feel for the problem:
- VideoClimb.com has a nice post of the top 10 most popular climbing videos of 2009
- Dave Graham, Jon Cardwell and Kilian Fischhuber all repeated Dani Andrada’s Buma Ye (5.14c) in Margalef, Spain.
- Jamie Emerson lists his top ten climbing sites
- How much does it cost to go on a seven month international road trip?
Throw in a contingency plus a few hundred dollars for oversize baggage fees (crashpad) and we get to our grand total of $11,000 for seven months of international fun. If you are a climber in need of motivation to save money, I’d say this is a good place to start. I’d take the trip of a lifetime over buying a house or new car any day of the week!
- From half way around the world, Renan Ozturk and Cory Richards are producing some amazing videos as they undertake an effort to do a first ascent on the 6000m Tawoche Himal:
TAWOCHE 2k10 dispatches #2 from renan ozturk on Vimeo.
- Continuing his return to form, Chris Webb Parsons ticked off The Mystery (V12 although many 8a commenters seem to indicate this problem is ripe for a downgrade) at the Buttermilks in 2 tries. The Low Down has a nice interview with Parsons and the Dungeon Training blog has these videos of him climbing The Mandala and The Mystery:
- Nice gallery of pictures from the fall gathering of Petzl athletes in Spain
- And in case you hadn’t noticed, ClimbingNarc.com has undergone a bit of a redesign for 2010.
Update 1/12/10: Following up on the Chris Webb Parsons note, check out his website for some thoughts on grades and how 8a.nu affects things.
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