2008 Golden Piton Awards

2008 was the year of the winner: Britney Spears won back her sanity; Michael Phelps took eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics; and — oh, yeah — Barack Obama won his bid for the Oval Office.On the climbing front, the bar, pushed almost immortally high in the aught decade, was notched higher yet. Once again, in 2008, the unthinkable — a trad 5.14 up El Cap in 20 hours; a 250-foot, mondo-cave 5.15b; and a free solo of a multi-pitch 5.12+ — has become reality.As with last year’s GP awards, we’ve prioritized vision (being the first, or interpreting old testpieces in a fresh, unflinching way) over volume, with an eye toward honoring those recipients who haven’t yet sat at the table. We know each selection won’t be without controversy — we each have our heroes — but Climbing’s editorial crew sat down, talked to our sources, and wrapped our heads around the subjective animal known as “climbing achievement,” to bring you the trend-setting-sends and highlights of 2008.

Sport Climbing Chris Sharma

Twenty-five years into the “bolted revolution” and it’s hard not to feel like elite sport climbing has lost its luster. Link-ups, bouldering starts, and third-try-Beta-flash shenanigans — the mind reels. Then there’s Chris Sharma, who mainly devotes his energies to first ascents with staying power. This year it was Jumbo Love, a 250-foot 5.15b at the remote desert fortress of Clark Mountain, a limestone amphitheater in California.

Traditional Climbing Beth Rodden

Establishing a 5.14 crack takes grit. But establishing a crack so thin it barely takes the first knuckle, so sharp you only get three burns per day, and so unrelenting you have to duct-tape key pieces to your harness — well, that takes something else entirely.

Beth Rodden, 28, put that something else to work during her Valentine’s Day FA of Yosemite Valley’s Meltdown, likely the hardest trad pitch in America (and the hardest FA by an American woman). Rodden spent 40 days — between September 2007 and February 2008 — working the route, facing a ligament injury to her hand, a baffling crux, and giant Sierra snowstorms. She was also plagued by doubt that the route would even go: “Basically, I was like, ‘What am I doing here?’” says Rodden. In the end, however, determination (she calls it stubbornness) won out, with Rodden snagging a placing-all-gear-on-lead ascent; the climb remains unrepeated.

Honorable Mentions:

• Ethan Pringle, for fast repeats of 5.14 trad climbs, including The Path, Alberta; Cobra Crack, Squamish; and China Doll, Iron Monkey, and Orangutan,Colorado
• Matt Segal, for his FFA of the 25-foot Colorado roof crack Orangutan (5.14-), as well as repeats of Cobra Crack and China Doll.

Bouldering Paul Robinson

On January 1, 2008, Paul Robinson, now 21, kicked off a year featuring more than 80 V11 or harder problems with his second ascent of Terremer (V15/V16), at Hueco Tanks, Texas. Shortly thereafter, Robinson placed first at the 2008 ABS Nationals Championships while attending classes at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Then it was Midnight Express (V14), Boulder Canyon, The Fly (V14; on TR), Rumney, and a third-place finish in the Bouldering World Cup in Vail, Colorado — all before bouncing out to the Rocklands, South Africa.

There, climbing with fellow hardman and good friend Daniel Woods (among others), Robinson rocked the house with the third ascent of Amandla(V14) in an hour and a half, with Woods also nabbing an ascent just days later. In Switzerland, Robinson finished his streak with 30 problems rated V12 to V14. Unfortunately, on October 14, Robinson fell off the final move of a Magic Wood bloc, breaking his left tibia and tearing ligaments. Recuperating at his parents’ New Jersey home, Robinson is reportedly already training again. Honorable Mentions:

• Lisa Rands, for her January 18 first female ascent of The Mandala (V12), in the Buttermilk, California, and as ascent of Nutsa(V12), Rocklands.
• Tyler Landman, for a storm of hard ticks, including the second ascent of Chris Sharma’s Practice of the Wild (V15), Magic Wood, in late September.

Alpine Fumitaka Ichimura, Yusuke Sato, and Katsutaka Yokoyama

“The ‘Giri Giri Boys’ are badass,” says The American Alpine Journal senior editor Kelly Cordes. “They’re like full-on modern-day samurai.” Translated from Japanese, Giri Giri means roughly “last minute” or “close call,” a philosophy three Giri Giri Boys — Katsutaka Yokoyama, Yusuke Sato, and Fumitaka Ichimura — took to a logical extreme last May 11-18 when they enchained two high-end Denali routes.

Yokoyama, Sato, and Ichimura made their link-up alpine style: beginning May 11, they tackled the Isis Face (Alaska Grade 6: 5.8 M4 A1, 60 degrees; 7,200 feet), to the top of the South Buttress, and then descended to the Kahiltna Glacier. On May 15, they set off via the Slovak Direct (Alaska Grade 6: 5.9, 100 degrees; 9,000 feet), summited on TK DAY, and then descended on May 18. “Among serious Alaska Range climbers, I don’t think anybody had even contemplated an enchainment of that magnitude,” says Cordes. “Such things often take an outsider’s vision.”

Honorable Mentions:

• Rolando Garibotti and Colin Haley, for bagging the long-attempted (since the 1980s) Torre Traverse, Patagonia — linking Cerro Standhardt, Punta Heron, Torre Egger, and Cerro Torre from January 21-24.
• Ueli Steck and Simon Anthamatten, for Checkmate (VI M7+ or M6 A0, 85 degrees; 6,500 feet), their April 21-24 alpine-style FA on Tengkangpoche’s North Face, in the Khumbu Valley, Nepal.

Solo Climbing Alex Honnold

When Alex Honnold, 23, one day in September 2007 free-soloed Astroman (V 5.11c) and the Rostrum (V 5.11c), he entered the history books alongside Peter Croft and John Bachar. This April 1, Honnold upped the ante, free soloing Zion’s 1,200-foot splitter-crack testpiece Moonlight Buttress (V 5.12) in 83 minutes. His chalk-shoes-and-iPod ascent was, to hear Honnold tell it, no big deal. But barring perhaps Hansjörg Auer’s 2007 free solo of Via Attraverso il Pesce (aka The Fish ; 5.12c, circa 3,000 feet), in the Dolomites, or Michael Reardon’s onsight free solo of Romantic Warrior (V 5.12b), in the Needles, California, nothing like this had ever been done.

Since 2004, Honnold says he’s free-soloed “thousands of gumby pitches,” this year attaining “a whole new level of comfort in the mountains.” Accordingly, he capped his 2008 tear with a September 6 free solo of Half Dome’s Regular Northwest Face (VI 5.12a; 23 pitches). Honnold, 2007’s Rookie of the Year, has proven himself no mere flash in the pan. In 2008, no other climber came close to matching his solo accomplishments.

Honorable Mentions:

• Dave Turner, for his January capsule-style, 34-day sufferfest roped solo of the 4,000-foot Cerro Escudo, in Chile’s Paine region.
• Steph Davis, for her free solos of the North Face of Castleton Tower (5.11a; 375 feet), Castleton Valley, Utah (followed by a BASE jump), and Pervertical Sanctuary (IV 5.10d), on the Diamond, Longs Peak, Colorado. (See Climbing No. 272 p.98 for a Perspective with Davis.)

Breakaway Success of the Year Alex Johnson

The 2008 Bouldering World Cup, held in Vail, Colorado, last June 6-7, saw the world’s strongest women — Lisa Rands, Alex Puccio, Anna Stohr, etc. — test their mettle. So many spectators’ reaction when they saw Alex Johnson topping the podium might have been, “Who?!”

Johnson, 19, started climbing in a Wisconsin gym in 1999 and, despite good performances nationally and in international speed events (and 5.13 redpoints at the Red River Gorge and Rifle), long remained under the radar. Vail was her first World Cup, a win she parlayed into serious momentum over the summer and autumn, with sends of two V11s — Chaos Canyon’s Sunspot and Poudre Canyon’s Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves — in her new home of Colorado. Then on August 25, Johnson made a one-day send of the crimpy Clear Blue Skies (V12), at Mount Evans. “I don’t think I approached climbing any differently this year,” says Johnson. “Things just really started falling into place.”

Honorable Mentions

• Jonathan Siegrist, climbing only four years, for redpointing Colorado testpieces like Vogue (5.14b/c), Grand Ol’ Opry (5.14b/c), and Must’a Been High(5.13c R).
• Brad Weaver, also climbing four years, with sends like the Red’s 50 Words for Drama (5.14b/c) and Transworld Depravity (5.14a).

Humanitarian of the Year Malcolm Daly

Since taking up climbing in 1968, Malcolm Daly, founder of the Boulder, Colorado-based Great Trango Holdings, has endured more than a few epics. In May 1999, Daly fell attempting a new route with Jim Donini on Thunder Mountain, Alaska, breaking both legs. Daly then waited 44 hours on an 18-inch-wide ledge while Donini went for help; years later, Daly had his right leg amputated below the knee due to continuing complications from the frostbite. Then, in 2004, he was hit with a major heart attack, which he barely survived.

With a prosthetic leg and an iron will, Daly returned to climbing and other outdoor activities. Today, Daly serves as the executive director of Paradox Sports, offering his experience and support to others in the disabled community. Paradox, founded in 2007 by Army Captain DJ Skelton and the climber Timmy O’Neill, works to get disabled people involved in outdoor sports like climbing, padding, biking, hiking, and surfing. In addition to running the show, Daly has also helped Paradox develop a climbing-specific prosthetic foot, the Eldorado Z-axis, in conjunction with Evolv and TRS Orthotics. Honorable Mentions:

• Climber and doctor Geoffrey Tabin, director of the Himalayan Cataract Project, for introducing an eye-care infrastructure to the Himalaya to combat rampant blindness from preventable or treatable causes.
• Arian Lemal, the “Sweeper of the Summits,” for picking up 1,000-plus-pounds of trash from mountains worldwide, and for raising awareness of trash in the high alpine.

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