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→ Charlie Porter∞

Posted February 27, 2014 at 8:33 am · Comments { 0 } ·

Great interview from Rock & Ice’s archives with legendary climber and alpinist Charlie Porter who passed away recently at the age of 63:

To an idealistic youth, who believe in honesty and – if you will – chivalry, my first impressions of many of my early idols were disappointing. More often than not, these people came across as a little too full of themselves, a little too competitive, and a little too quick to judge others while turning a blind eye to their own shortcomings. This, however, was not the case with Charlie. His character left a bigger impression on me than the sum of his climbing accomplishments.

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→ Fred Nicole: A Climbing Trip To Patagonia∞

Posted February 26, 2014 at 8:01 am · Comments { 0 } ·

Fred Nicole is still out there exploring new bouldering areas at the age of 43, this time in Patagonia:

The rock is beautiful and compact. In places it reminds me of a quartzite and in others more of a granite. Hard to say, but the forms and holds are beautiful and most of the lines are clear and pure.
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PataClimb has a few topos of these areas showing problems from V4 to V13.

Also, Fred Nicole is on Instagram if you’re into that sort of thing.

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→ What I Know Now∞

Posted February 19, 2014 at 7:09 am · Comments { 0 } ·

Cool piece on The Stone Mind where a number of climbers share things they wish they had known when they started climbing.  I think I most identified with what Fitz Cahall had to say:

I wish had understood that failure is a pivotal part of the process. When I’m saying failure, I’m not talking about blowing onsights and sending a sport climb second go. I’m talking about wretched, abject butt kickings, the kind of thing that would have been embarrassing to report upon return to Camp 4.

For me it’s not so much that I never failed, but I don’t think I failed nearly enough.  Oftentimes I would play it safe while picking which routes or boulder problems to try, always playing it on the safe side trying things that seemed well within reach.  This works well enough in the short term, but long term I know it has limited the upside potential in my climbing.  How can you really hope to truly push your limits if you are afraid of getting close to them?

 

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→ Honnold & Caldwell Pull Off “Mother Of All Traverses” In Patagonia∞

Posted February 18, 2014 at 7:08 am · Comments { 0 } ·

Rolando Garibotti, reporting in a post on SuperTopo:

Between the 12th and 16th of February, Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold completed the first ascent of the much discussed “Fitz Traverse”, climbing across the iconic ridge-line of Cerro Fitz Roy and its satellite peaks in southern Patagonia.

This ridge-line involves climbing Aguja Guillaumet, Aguja Mermoz, Cerro Fitz Roy, Aguja Poincenot, Aguja Rafael Juárez, Aguja Saint-Exúpery and Aguja de l’S.
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In all they climbed across over five kilometers of ridge line, covering close to 4000 meters of vertical gain with difficulties to 7a (5.
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11d) C1 65 degrees. They simul-climbed much of the climb, dispatching 20-pitch sections such as Pilar Goretta in a mere three pitches.

Not bad for Honnold’s first visit to Patagonia.
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→ Climbing Edition Of The Stars Are Just Like Us∞

Posted February 14, 2014 at 11:00 am · Comments { 0 } ·

Jakob Schubert, in a photo posted to Facebook during his current visit to Hueco Tanks:

In the end it wasn’t worth it though, at the second to last move I heard a loud noise and hoped a hold broke, but instead it was my finger.. seems like this climbing trip is over for me.. don’t have a diagnose yet but doesn’t feel good..

See, just like those trashy montages in Us Weekly, we have evidence that famous climbers are just like you and I and aren’t immune from injury.

Wait.  What’s that?  Oh. Schubert’s injury happened while he was en route to being the 3rd person to flash Nagual, the legendary Fred Nicole V13 on East Spur that has previously been flashed by Paul Robinson and Sean McColl.  

Hmm.  Well, if I ever tried that problem my fingers would probably explode too, except for me it would just be attempting to pull off the ground.  So yeah, maybe climbing stars aren’t quite like us…

Post by Jakob Schubert.
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→ Man Makes History By Climbing 1,500-Foot El Sendero Luminoso With No Net∞

Posted February 12, 2014 at 7:46 am · Comments { 0 } ·

Not The Onion:

In January, Honnold made history by becoming the first person to ever scale El Sendero Luminoso (Mexico) without the help of other climbers or safety equipment. That’s right, one wrong move could have produced devastating results.

El Sendero Luminoso is rated at 5.
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12d on the Yosemite Decimal System, which means “the surface is as smooth as glass and vertical.” The scale only goes up to 5.13.

Oh?

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→ Steven Roth & Ethan Pringle Go Big∞

Posted February 11, 2014 at 8:01 am · Comments { 0 } ·

Alex Honnold’s boulder problem free solo Too Big To Flail, which was featured in 2012’s Reel Rock 7, has seen a lot of action of late.  First up was Lonnie Kauk who repeated the problem late last year, and then this past weekend Ethan Pringle and Stephen stepped and repeated the line as reported in this post by DPM:

Roth, a relatively unknown Berkeley college student who works at Touchstone Climbing, went first and, utilizing slightly different beta than Pringle, steadily cruised the line and was standing on top in disbelief in minutes. His movement was confident and precise, just like his prior burns on top rope, and his execution was flawless.

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