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Colorado Headpoint Gets Four Repeats
4/23/08 - The trad-style/headpoint testpiece Must’a Been High (5.13c R), on the Rincon Wall in Eldorado Springs Canyon, Colorado, saw a record four ascents over a three-week period in late February, early March. 4/21/08 - Coloradan Daniel Woods finished third in the first bouldering World Cup of 2008, in Hall, Austria. The podium finish was Woods’ best result ever at a European competition. 4/20/08 - The superb all-arounder Toni Lamprecht has climbed his hardest boulder problem—and perhaps the hardest in Germany—with the first ascent of Assassin, Monkey and Man (ungraded) at Kochel in Bavaria. 4/18/08 - The American Alpine Club has announced the 2008 winners of its two major expedition grants: the Lyman Spitzer Cutting-Edge Award and the McNeill-Nott Award. Seven grants totaling $19,500 will help American climbers attempt new routes from Alaska to Pakistan. 4/14/08 - The Fly, a short 5.14+ route or V14 boulder problem in Rumney, New Hampshire, has seen two quick repeats, including the second bouldering ascent and the second one-day ascent of the climb. 4/11/08 - Dave Graham has completed a longstanding project at Fontainebleau, France, and graded it 8C (V15). (New Photo Added - 4/14/08) 4/09/08 - Americans Vince Anderson and Steve House climbed a new route through the rock headwall atop Mt. Alberta’s 3,250-foot north face in late March—the first time this daunting Canadian Rockies wall has been ascended in full winter conditions. 4/08/08 - Some thought it was an April Fools joke. Who would, or could, free solo Zion’s Moonlight Buttress (V 5.12d; 1,200 feet)? No joke, it turns out, and the climber was Alex Honnold, 22, of Sacramento, California. 4/08/08 - Ryan Johnson and Sam Magro, recipients of a 2008 Mugs Stump Award, have made the first ascent of the north face of the West Tower of the Mendenhall Towers (near Juneau, Alaska), via a beautiful 2,500-foot mixed route. 4/08/08 - Italian mountaineer and artist Alberto Peruffo has unveiled a plan for a series of mountaintop protests of Chinese repression in Tibet. 3/31/08 - A Soviet era Mi-8 helicopter owned by the state carrier Tajik Air, which was transporting eleven climbers, crashed in the Pamir mountains, according to a statement issued by the Interior Minister. 3/27/08 - Natalija Gros has redpointed Histerija, an 8c+ (5.14c) route at Misja Pec in Slovenia. 3/26/08 - Two major Canadian Rockies walls have had significant ascents in winter conditions: one by a first winter ascent, and the other by a new route. 3/26/08 - An all-star international team has reaped a rich bounty of new ice and mixed climbs in the Canadian Rockies during a nine-day trip to the remote Icefall Brook area. 3/24/08 - François Bon has made a speed-flying descent of the south face of Aconcagua, one of the world’s great mountain walls. (New Video Added - 5/20/08) 3/22/08 - Rob Pizem has done the first ascent of a long horizontal crack near Moab, Utah, that he is giving 5.13d, making it one of the hardest roof cracks in America. 3/21/08 - Alex Honnold crushed two wicked crack routes, Bushido and Hong Kong Phooey, in the arid southeast desert of Utah, between March 9 and March 11, 2008. 3/19/08 - After making news earlier this month for his free solo of a possible 5.14b in Spain, all-star all-arounder Dave MacLeod returned to his home in Scotland, where he finished off one of the hardest winter routes in the United Kingdom. 3/14/08 - The bold Scottish climber Dave MacLeod has soloed a 5.14b sport climb in Spain. MacLeod free-soloed Darwin Dixit (8c/5.14b) at Margalef; he had made the third ascent of the climb last spring. (New Video Added - 3/17/08) 3/13/08 - Jim Donini and Thom Engelbach have made the first ascent of the southernmost Avellano Tower, a group of remote granite spires northwest of Lago General Carrera in Chilean Patagonia. (New Photos Added - 3/17/08) 3/13/08 - Americans Toby Grohne and Jesse Huey established a striking new route on Agjua St. Exupery, a satellite peak south of Fitz Roy in Patagonia. 3/11/08 - On February 14 (Valentine’s Day), Beth Rodden made the first ascent of what’s likely Yosemite’s single hardest traditional pitch: Meltdown, a 70-foot 5.14 crack at Upper Cascade Falls. 3/11/08 - Blind mountaineer Erik Weihenmayer has climbed the 700-meter frozen waterfall Losar (VI WI5) in Nepal. 3/07/08 - Mike Anderson and Rob Pizem have added yet another desperate free climb in Zion National Park. 3/06/08 - Four Americans climbed a new route on the 900-meter south face of Jebel Misht, the enormous limestone wall in Oman, at the eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. |
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