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Limestone Alps highlights
2/04/04 - Mauro “Bubu” Bole and Harry Berger made the fourth and fifth ascents, respectively, of Thomas Huber’s End of Silence on the Feuerhorn in Germany’s Berchtesgaden region. 2/04/04 - Slovenians Marko Lukic and Andrej Grmovsek pushed free-climbing standards across the Alps last season, with a remarkable string of high-level multipitch climbs. 2/02/04 - Canadian Nels Rosaasen won his fourth PCA bouldering competition in a row Saturday night in Salt Lake City, while Lauren Lee took her first PCA victory in the women’s competition. 1/30/04 - James Litz, the Tennessee stud, has been galloping up Hueco Tanks' hardest boulder problems since mid-December. 1/28/04 - Ben Firth has given an M13 rating to his new climb The Game in Canada, the first mixed route in the world of that grade. 1/26/04 - Italian Mauro Calibani has suggested a grade of 8c+ (V16) for his new boulder problem Tonino ’78 in central Italy. 1/26/04 - Favorites Harald Berger of Austria and Ines Papert of Germany won the 2004 Ice Climbing World Championships in Switzerland. 1/23/04 - Canadian Sonnie Trotter has made a second lead ascent of the Eric Decaria testpiece You Must Be High, aka Musta Bin High (5.13c R/X), the hardest of a recent crop of headpoint routes in Eldorado Canyon, Colorado. 1/21/04 - Who says sport climbing isn’t scary? American Cody Roth, now living in Innsbruck, Austria, climbed his second 5.14b in December, and the climb nearly punched his lights out before he sent it. 1/21/04 - Europeans dominated the 2004 Ouray Ice Festival competition in southwestern Colorado last weekend, although, as usual, the Canadians also made a strong showing. 1/20/04 - Deep cold and an unexpected serac barrier halted a winter attempt on 8,027-meter Shishapangma last weekend with only easy ground leading to the summit. 1/06/04- Ice World Cup champion Harald Berger has flashed the M12 mixed climb Vertical Limits. 11/15/04 - Mauro “Bubu” Bole has onsighted the M10 route Fly in the Wind in the Val di Landro of the Italian Dolomites. 1/14/04 - Chris Lindner is having a happy new year in northern Mexico. The 19-year-old Southern Californian has onsighted a slew of 5.13 sport climbs on the limestone walls of El Potrero Chico and the tufa-laden caves of El Salto. 1/12/04 - After a month of hard work, a Polish-Italian team is well-positioned to make the first winter ascent of 8,027-meter Shishapangma. 1/09/04 - The Adirondacks of upstate New York are experiencing a phenomenal ice season. At the Exit 30 Crag, Chris Thomas, a 20-year-old from the great ice climbing state of Maryland, led The Fecalator, a 40-foot, 120-degree-overhanging handcrack to a thin ice dagger. 1/08/04 - Tomaz Humar has forged a new line up the south face of Aconcagua with Ales Kozelj, the first major new route for Humar since a freak home-building accident nearly crippled his legs. 1/05/04 - Ben Heason has added a slab-climbing testpiece to the British gritstone crag Froggatt Edge According to www.planetfear.com, Heason soloed the unprotected Lonely Heart (E9 6c) after several visits for toprope rehearsal. 1/05/04 - Italian Anna Torretta has repeated Tomahawk (M10+/M11-) at the Swiss crags of Kandersteg. Established in 2001 by Robert Jasper, Tomahawk links a 30-foot rock overhang to a fragile Grade 5 ice dagger. 1/5/04 - Denis Urubko, the standout high-altitude mountaineer from Kazakhstan, has won the speed-climbing competition up Amangeldy Peak for the fourth time.  A “new” season in the Ruth
Unhappy with the short summer window in Alaska’s famed Ruth Gorge, climbers have long contemplated alternate times to visit.  Flat Mountain
This past March at Futagoyama, near Tokyo, Yuji Hirayama redpointed Flat Mountain, now probably the hardest sport climb in Asia.  Italian Reality
On the granite of Valle dell’Orco, Italy, this summer, Didier Berthod climbed a 12-meter roof crack, a strong candidate for Europe’s hardest crack climb. 12/22/03 - A Japanese expedition just missed the first winter-season ascent of the South Face of Lhotse (8,516 meters) in Nepal, according to www.mounteverest.net. 12/17/03 - Near the southwestern Colorado mining village of Eureka, home to the popular Stairway to Heaven ice climb, climbing guide Vince Anderson and Pike Howard established the four-pitch Dukes of Hazard (WI 6 M6). |
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