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Six Climbs Nominated for Piolets d’Or
3/10/09 - Six climbs from 2008, including one by an American, have been nominated for the 17th Piolets d’Or — the “golden ice axes” — which will be presented during a four-day festival at the foot of Mont Blanc in April. 3/05/09 - Separate teams of Norwegian, German, and Swiss climbers seized the day in unusually cold temperatures during February and established gigantic new ice routes on Norwegian cliffs the size of Yosemite Valley’s walls. (Updated - 3/11/09) 3/02/09 - Ian Austin and Josh Hurst have completed Luna Kahuna (180m, M8 5.11 NEI5+), a five-pitch mixed route above Lake Willoughby in Vermont. 2/27/09 - Nalle Hukkataival, 22, of Helsinki, Finland, has been making quick work of many boulder problems at Hueco Tanks, Texas, including the first flash of Fred Nicole's classic Full Monty (V12). 2/27/09 - Jacinda “JC” Hunter has completed the first female ascent of Breaking the Law (5.14b) at the Black and Tan area southwest of St. George, Utah. 2/24/09 - Will Gadd and EJ Plimley have climbed 1,000-foot Hunlen Falls in Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, east of Bella Coola, British Columbia, the first ascent of Canada’s third-highest waterfall. 2/23/09 - After a three-season effort, a team of Canadians has completed a major new mixed route in Alberta with a long crux pitch that could be as hard as M12. 2/23/09 - Chris Sharma has completed the first ascent of a 9a+ (5.15a) roof project at Margalef in Spain. 2/23/09 - A 13-year-old European has climbed a possible 9a (5.14d) route in Spain. No, it wasn’t Adam Ondra. 2/18/09 - French climbers Philippe Batoux and Lionel Daudet have completed a new 12-pitch mixed rock and ice route on an overhanging 1,000-foot wall at Freyssinière. 2/16/09 - Daniel Woods and Alex Johnson won the adult Bouldering National Championship at the Spot gym in Boulder, competing in a field that included some international superstars of bouldering. (Updated - 2/17/09) 2/12/09 - Coloradan Daniel Woods has posted a first-person account of his three-and-a-half-week New Year’s trip to Arkansas at the Sportiva website. 2/10/09 - The Belgian-American team of Nico Favresse, Sean Villanueva, and Ben Ditto have completed a 13-day, all-free ascent of the South African Route on the east face of the Central Tower of Paine in Chilean Patagonia. 2/09/09 - Simone Moro (Italy) and Denis Urubko (Kazakhstan) have reached the top of Makalu, completing the first winter ascent of the world’s fifth-highest peak. 2/06/09 - On January 11, Gianluca Daniele, of Rome, has linked the most difficult moves of three existing routes (from 5.13c to 5.14a) in the Areonauta Cave, Sperlonga, Italy, to create Grandi Gesti. 2/05/09 - Hard-core winter climbing thrives in Russia, and a quartet of climbers has proved it again with the first winter ascent of the north ridge of Mizhirgi East in the Caucasus Mountains. 2/04/09 - During a long trip to France, British climber Tim Emmett has completed some rarely repeated ice and mixed routes, including the first free ascent of a seven-pitch testpiece from the mid-1990s. 1/28/09 - During a six-week trip to Queen Maud Land in Antarctica, Bavarian brothers Alex and Thomas Huber, along with Stephan Siegrist from Switzerland, climbed new routes on two enormous, otherworldy rock towers thrusting from the ice cap. 1/26/09 - In a two-day comp near Salt Lake City, Coloradans Carlo Traversi and Emily Harrington won the 2009 SCS Adult National Championships, sponsored by the North Face and Sterling Ropes. 1/23/09 - Ade Miller and John Plotz took advantage of a rare spell of good weather in Washington's North-Central Cascades to complete the first winter ascent of the Backbone Ridge with Fin Directon Dragontail Peak. 1/23/09 - Rob Pizem and Mike Brumbaugh have free-climbed Gentleman’s Agreement on Zion National Park’s Three Marys formation at 5.13b. 1/21/09 - Matt Wilder climbed a number of hard problems during a three-week trip to Bishop, California over his winter holiday in December 2008 through early January 2009. 1/20/09 - Josh Wharton has completed a self-described “arbitrary” goal of redpointing an M10 mixed route, V10 boulder problem, and 5.13 rock route in a single week of climbing. 1/19/09 - The Swiss climber Ueli Steck has climbed the north face of the Matterhorn by the Schmid Route in 1 hour 56 minutes. (Updated - 1/23/09) 1/19/09 - Ines Papert and Cory Richards have climbed a new route on the historic, 1,200-meter north face of Kwangde in Nepal. |
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