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World Cup Bouldering Kicks Off
3/21/06 - The 2005 runners-up in World Cup bouldering came out firing on opening day this season, as France’s Jérôme Meyer and Russia’s Olga Bibik dominated the year’s first comp in Birmingham, England. 3/17/06 - Jon Walsh and Caroline Ware have used the long winter days of March for some big ice linkups in western Canada. 3/16/06 - Curious about where top climbers are headed this summer? Here’s a short list of interesting expeditions planned by well-known North American and British alpinists. 3/10/06 - Crystal Davis-Robbins and Jon Walsh climbed the Casarotto Route on Fitz Roy in Patagonia, with Davis-Robbins making the probable first female ascent of the classic pillar. 3/07/06 - Harald Berger of Austria and Ines Papert of Germany are the 2006 Ice Climbing World Cup champions. Berger won the final competition in Hemsedal, Norway, last weekend to seal the victory for the season. 3/07/06 - Daniel Woods and Emily Harrington won the Sterling Rope/USA Climbing Adult National Championship on March 4, giving the two Coloradans the top spots on the 2006 U.S. Adult Difficulty Team. 3/02/06 - Americans Tommy Caldwell, Topher Donahue and Erik Roed have free-climbed Linea di Eleganza on Fitz Roy at 5.12+, onsighting the second ascent of the Patagonian route in a single, team-free push. 3/01/06 - Robert Jasper and Markus Stofer have created a 12-pitch mixed route behind the Staubbachwasserfall in Switzerland, one of the highest waterfalls in the Alps. 2/28/06 - Bean Bowers and Josh Wharton free-climbed the Casarotto Route on Fitz Roy in Argentinean Patagonia in 16 hours from the bergschrund to the summit. 2/27/06 - Scott Muir has made the second ascent of Jedi Mind Tricks in Colorado, calling it “by far the hardest route I have ever completed.” 2/24/06 - American Whit Magro soloed the 700-meter water-ice climb Losar (WI5) in the Khumbu region of Nepal in early February. 2/22/06 - Hundreds of boulderers jammed The Spot and Boulder Rock Club in Boulder, Colorado, last weekend as the ABS Adult and Youth Bouldering Nationals went down. 2/17/06 - A new route and a couple of superb repeats have been accomplished in Patagonia in the past few weeks. Alexander Huber and Stephan Siegrist climbed a 25-pitch new route up the south face of Aguja Desmochada, reaching the summit at 10 a.m. after a single bivy 800 feet below the top. 2/16/06 - The American Alpine Club honored Henry Barber with its Robert and Miriam Underhill Award, the nation’s highest honor for climbing achievement, at the club’s annual meeting and Mountain Fest in Attitash, New Hampshire. 2/15/06 - Mike Anderson and Rob Pizem have free-climbed Zion’s classic Touchstone route, using a new variation to the second pitch. 2/15/06 - Vince Anderson and Steve House have won the 15th Piolet d’Or, the annual prize for the year’s top feat in mountaineering. 2/08/06 - Over five days in mid-January, Switzerland’s Ueli Steck soloed The Young Spider on the North Face of the Eiger, the second ascent of a route that he established in 2001 with Stephan Siegrist. 2/07/06 - Dave Graham has repeated El Techo de los Tres B, a desperate boulder problem established last spring by Fred Nicole at Hueco Tanks, Texas. 2/02/06 - Americans Taki Miyamoto, Dave Sharratt, Paul Turecki and Freddie Wilkinson climbed a new route on the northwest Pillar of Aguja Rafael in Patagonia in late December. 1/31/06 - Jean-Christophe Lafaille, one of France’s greatest modern climbers, is now believed dead high on the slopes of Makalu, where he was attempting the peak’s first winter ascent completely solo. 1/31/06 - Stephen Koch, Dean Potter and Marko Prezelj forged a massive link-up from the lowest cliff at the base of Cerro Torre’s eastern flank to the summit of the Patagonian spire. 1/30/06 - Jean-Christophe Lafaille, attempting to solo Makalu in winter, has not been heard from since Thursday. 1/30/06 - Tired of hearing about mixed climbing in scrappy, low-ceilinged caves? Albert Leichtfried has established a more substantial mixed route—a lot more substantial. 1/27/06 - Markus Bendler has climbed Hell’s Angels Paradise (M13), a severely overhanging mixed routes in the mountains of Tirol in southern Austria. 1/24/06 - Local climbers have completed two major new routes on the famed Stanley Headwall, home of such Canadian Rockies testpieces as French Reality and The Day After Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot. |
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