http://www.verticalworld.net/news/index.php Вертикален свят - Портал за катерене и алпинизъм bg http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=823 Видеоклип с олимпийския огън на Еверест 2008-05-09 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=822 Mike Anderson and Rob Pizem have added yet another desperate free climb in Zion National Park. Shake That Bear (5.12d R) ascends the steep face of Mt. Kinesava just to the left of King Corner; seven of the route’s 11 pitches are 5.12. The two weekend warriors endured five or six 10-hour drives to Zion from Colorado’s Front Range to establish the climb, including one trip when snow prevented them from even getting on the route. They would do the nearly two-hour approach hike in the dark, so they could have a full winter day to work on the line. 2008-05-09 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=821 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. Climbing in separate pairs, Brittany Griffith and Zoe Hart, and John Dickey and Jonathan Thesenga, led Cracker Pterodactyl 5000 (VI 5.10+) ground-up, following corners, ramps, and cracks up the heavily featured wall. They climbed onsight and used no bolts or pitons, the preferred style for the large majority of routes on the desert face. The route may share some ground with Paradies der Fakir (Oberhauser-Jochler, 2003), but it appears to be mostly independent. 2008-05-09 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=820 Dean Potter has completed a 40-foot sandstone roof problem near his Moab, Utah, home that he called “definitely the hardest roof crack that I know of.” Potter said Zen Garden is a 29-move power-endurance test along an undulating finger and hand crack, ending with an insecure mantel. The problem, off Moab’s Potash Road, also has a highball feel: “Though only about 20 feet high, it tops out right above a tree and feels quite scary,” Potter said. As to difficulty, Potter said, “I don’t grade anything I climb other than with adjectives,” but he said the route is “a giant step up from the Crack House,” the 80-foot roof crack near Moab that he first climbed a decade ago. Crack House is generally given 5.13a. 2008-05-09 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=819 A Russian climber has BASE jumped from the upper tower of Cerro Torre, making the first known flight from Patagonia’s iconic spire. Valery Rozov leaped from a point “a little bit lower [than] the traverse on the route Compressor,” according to a report on Mountain.ru. “It seems to me that it is the only point possible to make the jump.” The Compressor Route’s 90-meter bolt traverse begins at about the 12th pitch of approximately 28 pitches on the upper route, which starts after an approach of several thousand vertical feet. 2008-05-09 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=818 Once again a phenomenally strong young European climber has climbed a hard 5.14: This time it’s Geoffray de Flaugergues from France, who redpointed La Novena Puerta (8c+/5.14c) at Santa Linya, Spain, during his February school vacation. De Flaugergues is just shy of his 13th birthday and stands only 4 feet 11 inches tall, forcing him to make three dynos to reach holds during his redpoint of La Novena Puerta. De Flaugergues made 10 attempts on the route in all. 2008-05-09 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=817 Italian Christian Core has completed the long version of a boulder problem called Gioia at Varazze, Italy, and given it 8C (V15). Core worked for four months on problem, which has 14 hard moves and bad feet, and said it was his hardest ever. Core originally sent the line at V12 from a standing start in the middle of the cave, but then decided to work on the full traverse. Core, 33, was the world bouldering champion in 2003. He has climbed many desperate problems in Europe, including Dreamtime and New Base Line (both given V14/15) in Switzerland, and his own Kimera (V15) in Italy. 2008-05-06 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=816 The north face of Mt. Temple, looming above Laggan's Bakery in Lake Louise, has been called the Eiger of the Rockies. Ian Welsted, fresh from an ascent of the actual Eiger, did not disagree. Even more attractive for weekend warriors like Eamonn Walsh and me, Temple, like its more famous cousin, has a great climbing-to-approaching ratio: three hours of skiing puts one at the base of nearly a vertical mile of nordwand. From March 8-10 this year the three of us camped our way up the Greenwood-Jones (IV/V 5.9 in summer, 1300m) on Temple's north face. Mostly we were just out to have an adventure, though the fact that the Greenwood-Jones was the last major line on the north face without a winter ascent added motivation. 2008-05-06 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=815 Less than a month after Simon Anthamatten and Roger Schali broke the team (seilschaft) record on the Eiger Nordwand (see the February 5, 2008 NewsWire), Daniel Arnold and Stephan Ruoss of Switzerland have done it again. Besting Anthamatten and Schali by forty minutes, their ascent from the bottom of the Heckmair Route (ED2, 1800m, 1938) to the top of the Eiger (3970m) took 6 hours, 10 minutes. 2008-05-06 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=814 From March 2-3, Americans Jesse Huey and Toby Grohne established a new route near the Southwest Ridge of Aguja St. Exupery (2558m) in the Fitz Roy Range of Patagonia, Argentina. The pair had spotted the line, which "links two of the most striking, splitter crack systems on the [west] face," from the Niponino camp on a rest day in the earlier part of February. An imposing, mandatory traverse of the black dyke that bands the lower part of the face inspired much debate about whether the features would link up, but in early February, Huey hooked up with Mike Pennings for a recon climb to the dyke. "We found a lot of climbable features that, amazingly, made the dyke traverse look easy," recalled Huey. "It gave us hope that the route would go." 2008-05-05 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=813 SWEET PHOTO RIGHT? WELL NOW YOU CAN HAVE IT! To download the image click on the photo and either right or control click, and "save image as". ENJOY! 2008-05-05 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=812 On the 7th, of March Valery Babanov, Hervé Barmasse, Ettore Taufer, Giovanni Amort, Elio Sganga and Marco Farina (Alpine Training Centre), Christophe Profit and Pemba Doma Sherpa all received their Saint Vincent Awards for Mountain Professionals in front of a packed evening audience in the Casino of the Valley. The people who filled the Casino’s ballroom were filled with anticipation as well as a certain amount of curiosity: what was this International Saint Vincent Award all about? And what were the mountain guides and professionals in uniform who had chosen to dedicate their professional lives to the mountains being awarded for? Yes, there was an air of curiosity and expectation for this first edition. But these questions disappeared into thin air as soon as the curtain was raised. 2008-04-30 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=811 Nicolas Favresse, the extremely talented climber who recently moved base from his home in Belgium to Italy's Arco, invites all to reflect about the impact our vertical game has on Mother Nature. In particular, the 28 year old examines the impact dry tooling has on rock, the consequences and possible alternatives. While it's clear that one of the most beautiful aspects of outdoor climbing lies in the fact that it’s a game "without rules" and referees, it’s equally clear that nature is not an infinite resource. And that Mother Earth needs our help. According to Nicolas, respect for the environment should take prime position in a climber's conscience, above all personal motivations and gratification. The text published below is an open letter, the appeal is there for all. 2008-04-30 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=810 Everyone knows that Christian Core enjoys bouldering outdoors. The former World Champion has a predilection for losing himself between one boulder and the next, for attempting to solve moves and problems of all shapes, sizes and intensity. And his quest for perfection has often led him to explore the most famous boulder problems in to world. Now though, thanks to his friend Marco Bagnasco, Core's latest "perfect" boulder problem has sprung to life in Varazze, right in Core's home stomping gound. 14 moves inspired by none other than Dreamtime, the famous problem at Cresciano. 14 moves which are are continuation of the magnificent boulder which all climbers dream of. 2008-04-30 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=809 Nicola Sartori and Nicola Tondini have made the first ascents of three new multi-pitches on Monte Cimo (Brentino, Val d’Adige, Italy). These are Vola via (8 pitches, max 8a+), Gioco di equilibri (5 pitches, max 7c+) and Via di testa (6 pitches, max 8b+, 7c obb). 2008-04-30 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=808 Last weekend was marked by great winter climbs on the remote Piz Badile, with two extremely important independent solo ascents carried out by the Italians Fabio Valseschini and Rossano Libera. Fabio Valseschini kicked off the solitary action with his lone winter ascent of the British route (550m, VI & A2 - VIII free) on Badile's NE Face. The route had been first ascended by the extremely strong Mike Kosterlitz and Dick Isherwood who, while attempting to repeat the Corti-Battaglia, failed to notice that they had just climbed a new line up one of the most out-there walls in the Alps, right in front of Piz Cengalo. 2008-04-29 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=807 The five pitches of “Illuminati”, the beautiful and delicate mixed route in Vallunga (Val Gardena, Dolomites) graded M11 WI6+ has now been repeated for the second time. First ascended by Albert Leichtfried on a raid from Austria on 24 January 2006, Illuminati was first repeated this winter by locals Florian Riegler and Herbert Klammer. Last weekend Klemen Premrl from Slovenia and Erik Svab from Italy managed to seize the day on what is considered to be one of the hardest mixed multi-pitches in the world. According to Svab, who a year ago carried out the first spurless repeat of Jedi Master in Val d’Aosta (another top ranking multi-pitch mixed route), Illuminati is “probably the hardest of its kind, not only in the Alps but worldwide” 2008-04-28 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=806 On Thursday 07 February 2008 the Italians Rolando Larcher, Fabio Leoni and Elio Orlandi succeded in reaching the summit of Patagonia's Central Tower of Paine via their new East Face route called 'El Gordo, El Flaco y l'Abuelito' (1250m 7a+, A3+). The new 23 pitch line includes various 65/70m pitches climbed free up to 7a+, with some hard aid up to A3+ which totals circa 20% of the highly esthetic line. Gear was initially transported to the base of the route with the help of 5 other Italian mountaineers and when these left the trio set to work. 2008-04-28 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=805 In January 2006, the strong Austrian mountain guide Albert Leichtfried established one of the world's most beautiful, difficult and fragile multi-pitch mixed climbs: Illuminati (M11+ WI6+, 5 pitches, 150m), Val Lunga, Dolomites, Italy. Located in a 90-meter-high cave that resembles the Grande Grotta in Kalymnos, Greece, it overhangs 45 meters and is decorated with three ice drips. It went without another recorded ascent for two years, requiring very specific conditions and its potential ascensionist to be in peak physical form. Little did I know that my ascent would kick off a series of other adventures. 2008-04-28 http://www.verticalworld.net/news/news.php?id=804 Beth Rodden, Yosemite poster child and author of "There and Back Again" in Issue 12, established a single-pitch traditional route in late February that she named Meltdown (70'). The grade checks in at around 5.14, making it one of the most difficult climbs in Yosemite National Park. Rodden has not proposed a grade, but if it is 5.14c, which some have suggested, the ascent likely makes her the first woman to climb that difficulty on traditional gear. 2008-04-28