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Rising Stars: 5.14 at Age 13
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. 1/14/09 - The Piolet d’Or will return this spring after a one-year hiatus and a search for a new format that aims to make such prizes acceptable to those who believe alpinism has no winners and losers. 1/13/09 - The applications received for 2009 included many strong teams with objectives in far-flung corners of the mountaineering world, from Patagonia, to Pakistan, to the Canadian Rockies, to Alaska. 1/12/09 - Ryan Pasquill has succeeded in climbing a desperate new route at the Ilkley Crag in Yorkshire, England. 1/12/09 - Josh Wharton and Dawn Glanc won the mixed-climbing competition at the 14th annual Ouray Ice Festival in southwestern Colorado. 1/09/09 - Fueled by the drink of the gods, Kevin Jorgeson, has made the first ascent of a bold 45-foot tall face on the Grandpa Peabody boulder at the Buttermilk Boulders, near Bishop, California. 1/09/08 - Colin Haley has done a rare solo ascent of Fitz Roy in Patagonia, via the Supercanaleta (a.k.a. Super Couloir), the amazing ice and mixed line that splits the mountain’s west face. 1/07/09 - Ice climber Keith Spencer died January 2 when a rare and powerful avalanche swept the Main Vein ice climb in the South Fork Valley, near Cody, Wyoming. (Updated - 1/14/09) 1/07/09 - Scotland’s Dave MacLeod has made the second ascent of The Walk of Life, a 50-meter steep slab on England’s North Devon coast that was given the unprecedented grade of E12 7a when James Pearson made the first ascent last year. |
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