News…
- Nalle Hukkataival has been keeping busy out in Bishop. Checking in on his 8a scorecard we can learn that he did a ground up ascent of Evilution (V12) with “no chalk on the holds, no tick marks, bad beta” which forced him to have to “try hard”. He also did the FA of a direct finish to The Swarm which, at V13, he felt was the same difficulty as the original Swarm.
- Guillaume Glairon-Mondet finished his trip to America in fine form with the 2nd ascent of Sean Diamond’s Direct North (V14) at the Buttermilks and the likely 4th ascent of Chris Sharma’s uniquely formed Iron Resolution (V13) in Joshua Tree. A few photos of the latter ascent can be seen here.
- According to his 8a scorecard Bryan O’Keefe repeated Hold Your Fire (5.14b) at Nevada’s Mt. Potosi.
- Don’t look now, but Alex Honnold has quietly risen to the top of 8a.nu’s rankings for American sport climbers on the strength of 24 5.14a’s or harder in the past 12 months including 3 this month in Kalymnos.
- Daniel Woods’ The Game (V16) in Boulder Canyon saw its first repeat the other week…by Daniel Woods
…and Notes…
- One of the better interviews I’ve ever seen with the legendary John Gill (Thanks to Upstate SC Bouldering for the link)
- Adam Roy interviews Chris Sharma for Matador Network
- DPM has a nice interview with Ryan Palo about his past year of climbing that culminated with an ascent of To Bolt Or Not To Be (5.14a) in Smith Rock, OR.
- Alex Savage is hard at work on his first climbing film, Western Gold, and he took the time to post a few screen shots like the one below on his website
Frame from Western Gold of Tom Moulin on the highball Ariana (V6) in Red Rocks, NV
- Jonathan Thesenga and Brittany Griffith report on their expedition to Algeria
- Pumpfactory Road has the transcript of an interview Jon Cardwell, Jamie Emerson and Chad Greedy did with ClimbTalk Radio last year in which they discuss the season that was in Colorado’s Lincoln Lake
- Black Diamond came out with another one of their excellent athlete profiles yesterday, this one features none other than Fred Nicole.
- Speaking of Black Diamond, they recently announced that they did about $125mm in sales for 2010 with sales in 2011 expected to be in the $135mm-$140mm range. They also revealed their intention to move into the apparel space within the next couple of years:
The Company [Black Diamond] also disclosed that it is targeting the fall of 2013 as a possible launch time for an outdoor technical apparel brand, expressing the view that both apparel and footwear represent significant long term opportunities to extend the Black Diamond brand. The Company believes that these categories can have a material impact on the Companys growth over the next decade and beyond.
[BD CEO] Mr. Metcalf commented, The next few years hold an extraordinary opportunity for our brand and the next logical step is apparel. We believe the market demand for Black Diamond apparel is substantial and, if executed well, that this category can become equal to or larger than the balance of our business within 5 years of launch.
- Climberism Magazine interviews Phil Schaal
- This ad from Organic, Pusher and Revolution that ran in the most recent Deadpoint Magazine has a lot of people talking..
lots of great tidbits for my humpday viewing.
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As I read “The Game (V16) in Boulder Canyon saw its first repeat the other week…” I started to think how the hell did I miss that and also who the hell did it. Then I finished the sentence and everything made more sense.
Also, since he’s clearly spent a fair bit of time within 15 ft of it, is Nalle going to be putting much work into Lucid Dreaming? Hopefully he doesn’t do what Paul did when he didn’t try Livin Large. I want to see hard shit go down, preferably with someone filming so I can drool from the comfort of my apartment.
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tru
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The link to the footage of the Game doesn’t work… and on DPM it says it’s private. Bummer…
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I saw the vid before it went down. It kinda sucked. Yeah you see him do it BUT there’s a terrible soundtrack (from Dumb andDumber!) and the edit has this old-school 8mm effect on it. IT makes the footage CRAPPY and hard to see details on. Bleh.
Just what I want when watching someone grab really small holds.
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I second on the crappy video…you didn’t miss anything.
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I think it was shot on an iPhone…can’t expect much more than that…
It is cool to see that DW is just running laps on his rig though…
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Don’t believe that’s correct…
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what does DW’s repeat of the game mean for the grade, esp when you go back to Paul Robinsons “When I think of 8C, I think of a climb that, for me, is very desperate to climb and would be really hard to repeat on command (and for 8C+ it is more like 1 in a million, doing it once is just as much strength and preparation as luck, everything has to come together perfectly for something of this caliber to even possibly happen).” obviously its a ridiculously hard climb- no doubt- and i know bouldering is super hard to grade and very subjective, just food for though no argument
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it is always easier to do things a second time. muscle memory, timing, and confidence all come together to make things feel easier once you KNOW that you can do it. combine that with a true competitor getting to show off for a couple bros… ‘game over,’ so to speak.
i also think that robinson is a little off base with his comment. even the lowest percentage moves (lucid) become easier once completed. I’ve fallen on the same jump move for days on end and then, having done it once, proceeded to do it five times in a row. does that mean the move a lot easier than i thought? maybe. it also might mean that i’ve come to know exactly how high i have to jump, how my lower hand shifts on the hold, how to minimize my swing, and any number of other factors.
if grades are meant to reflect how easy a problem feels when it is executed perfectly, i’ve climbed a lot of vHard’s that feel a lot easier than the vEasy’s. Then again, to paraphrase graham, “grades are the invention of an alien race bent on controlling humanity.”
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