News & Notes – 9/8/2010

News...

• Kairn.com reports (in French) that Adam Ondra made a trip to Céüse, France over the weekend where he cleaned up two open projects bolted by Sylvain Millet.  One goes at 5.15a while the other goes at 5.14d.
• Proper Soul (5.14a) using only natural gear.  A bit contrived perhaps, but an interesting exercise nonetheless.  Proper Soul was also repeated in the more traditional bolt clipping manner earlier this summer by Red River Gorge legend Porter Jarrard.
• Blogging about his trip down under in Australia, Phil Schaal reports that he repeated, among many other problems,  Catalyst (V14) at Sydney's Crumbly.
• 8a.nu reports that 15 year-old Geoffray De Flaugergues did his second 5.14d, Shortcut at La Balme, France.
• Climbing.com reports that Peter Croft and Matt Ciancio teamed up to climb the 1,200 ft. Incredible Hulk 4 times in a single day back in late July.  Located in the northern Sierra Nevada, the Incredible Hulk tops out at over 11,000 feet.
• Speaking of the Incredible Hulk, Lisa Rands put together a nice writeup about her trip up the Hulk with Peter Croft for The North Face's blog.  You can see their trip featured in the upcoming 2010 Reel Rock Film Tour.

And Notes...

• Black Diamond warns against the use of daisy chains when cleaning sport anchors
• Interesting article in The Telegraph about comp circuit power couple Kilian Fischhuber and Anna Stöhr. (H/T to Luke for the link).
• New book seeks to "examine climbing within a philosophical framework"
• Climbers successfully buy Washington's Index Lower Town Wall
• Excellent interview with Arno Ilgner
• This story about a climber who lied about summiting K2 this summer isn't rock climbing related, however I think it bears keeping in the back of our minds as our sport becomes more commercialized.
• The 2010 Youth World Championships start tomorrow in Edinburgh, Scotland.  Watch live on the internet starting tomorrow at 6am east coast time.
• The Banff Coaching Conference will be held this year from October 8-11 in Banff, Alberta, Canada.  Featuring clinics from the likes of Sean McColl and Katie Brown, this year's theme is "Long-Term Athletic Development" for young climbers.  Full press release here.
• Last year's Summit Series Road Trip which featured James Pearson, Gaz Parry and Keith Bradbury driving around to an insane number of crags in Europe in only 40 days was, to me, a great example of the positive things a sponsor like The North Face can offer the climbing community.  You'll recall that many videos were made during the trip, and now you can purchase a movie of the entire trip for whatever the US $ equivalent of £6.00 is.
• Another company that is no stranger to supporting innovative multimedia concepts is Patagonia.  The latest project with their backing is called Tracing the Edge. Filmed by The Season co-creators Fitz Cahall and Bryan Smith, Tracing the Edge seeks to shed some light on the "human stories" behind 3 Patagonia's ambassadors Gerry Lopez, Colin Haley & Krissy Moehl.  Colin Haley's first episode is below and the rest can be seen here.