Old Testpieces, Unfinished Business & What Comes Next
Some Lines Refuse to Become History
A week can say a lot about climbing when Biographie is still fulfilling childhood dreams 25 years after its first ascent, while Silence has two of the world's best climbers working through the same brutal sequence in Flatanger.
Elsewhere, Alexander Megos revisits an Australian benchmark, a new generation collects European titles in Augsburg, and the Speed season keeps rewriting its own numbers.
Dream Routes and Bigger Decisions
Biographie 9a+ becomes a childhood dream realised in Céüse, another ascent that shows how much meaning this line still carries a quarter century after Sharma's first ascent.
Natalia Grossman commits to climbing again without knowing whether that means days or years, Emily Harrington's Girl Climber reaches Netflix, and Patagonia turns its attention from protecting individual landscapes to the political forces shaping their future.
Biographie 9a+ Is Still Turning Into a Childhood Dream
Twenty five years after Chris Sharma's first ascent, the Ceuse line is still the one climbers grow up wanting. The climber here calls it the most beautiful route they have ever done, which says more about the line than the grade does.
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Emily Harrington's Girl Climber Lands on Netflix
The climb is only part of the story, as the trailer puts it. The film follows Harrington's own way through it and is streaming now.
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Patagonia Goes After the Politics Behind Public Land
The company has moved from protecting single landscapes to naming the money shaping their future. It calls out fossil fuel billionaires profiting from anti public lands policy and asks people to join in.
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Natalia Grossman Is All In One Last Time
It could be days, it could be years, and she says plainly that she will not know until she tries. What changed is that trying no longer frightens her, because she now knows who she is without climbing.
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Reader Question: How Do You Read a Topo?
Someone found us this month searching for how to read a climbing topo, and it is a fair question: the moment you leave the gym, the wall stops telling you where to go.
A topo is a photo or drawing of the crag with every route marked as a line, along with its name, grade and length. Read it in that order: find the line, check the grade, then the symbols.
Before you set off, match one obvious feature on the paper to the real rock in front of you.
The rest, bolts, anchors and how multi pitch topos are drawn, is in the guide: How to Read a Climbing Topo.
History Is There to Be Revisited
Alexander Megos takes just two attempts to climb White Ladder 8c+, Australia's first route of the grade and a benchmark dating back to 2004.
In Flatanger, Stefano Ghisolfi is trying to make the 8A+ second crux of Silence automatic enough that it will still work after the first, while a wet key pinch forces Will Bosi to refine the true start instead. Adam Ondra, meanwhile, looks back at Hansjörg Auer's free solo of The Fish and the exposure that made it one of Marmolada's defining ascents.
Adam Ondra Returns to the Free Solo of The Fish
He apologises for leaving Hansjorg Auer out of his recent video, then explains why it deserved the space. The Fish in the Marmolada is low percentage and exposed, and Auer climbed it without a rope and with almost no preparation.
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Will Bosi Works the True Start While Silence Stays Wet
The key pinch in the first crux has been wet for days, so the time has gone into wiring the second crux and learning the true start instead. It adds a move or two, slow and physical ones.
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Alexander Megos Needs Two Tries for White Ladder 8c+
Australia's first route of the grade, climbed back in 2004 and a real piece of the country's history. Megos lost the flash and had it on his second attempt, using the original beta.
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Ghisolfi Wants the Second Crux of Silence to Be Automatic
After the first crux he can rest around four minutes in the kneebar, then meets what he puts at roughly an 8A+ boulder. He wants it consistent, because falling there having already climbed the first crux is the thing he would rather avoid.
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Winged Tiger V11 With El Capitan in the Background
One granite testpiece underneath another. The boulder sits in Yosemite with El Cap filling the back of the frame, which is a fair summary of climbing there.
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An Hour of Drying Holds for One Minute of Climbing
The Castle Low Low went first go at 8a+, but only after well over an hour spent drying every hold. The sit start adds a hard and unusual move, at least until the battery on the blower gave out.
View post →Records Fall While the Next Generation Arrives
Chongqing brings another round of Speed records, with Jérôme Morel and Capucine Viglione setting a European mixed relay record on their way to bronze and Omasa breaking through for a first individual gold.
In Augsburg, Isaac Sutton completes a perfect U19 Lead campaign while Connie Bridgens defends her European title and Rhys Conlon takes U21 gold. The PCL, meanwhile, is opening a very different route to the elite level, with two Boulderfest winners earning funded places alongside the league's established names.
Two Boulderfest Winners Get a Funded Way Into the PCL
Qualifiers run across eight cities until 2 October, with the finale in St Paul in late October. The two winners take wildcard places on the same start list as the best in the world, with trips to Berlin, Paris and London paid for.
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Three European Youth Lead Titles Go to Great Britain
Isaac Sutton topped every round of the U19 event before taking gold, his second major win in a fortnight. Connie Bridgens defended her U19 title and Rhys Conlon claimed his first European title in U21.
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A European Relay Record and Bronze for France in Chongqing
Jerome Morel and Capucine Viglione set a European mixed relay record of 11.48 on the way to bronze. In the women's relay, Louise Fontaine and Viglione broke the French record with 13.70 and finished fourth.
View post →The Speed Season Moves On to Chongqing
From Guiyang to the next stop, and the podium produces both a first time gold medallist and a record holder back on the top step. The series keeps rewriting its own numbers as it goes.
Read article →A First Gold for Omasa, and Hunt Back on Top
Six podium finishes had gone by without a win before the Japanese climber finally converted in Chongqing. The US record holder answered the previous week's early exit by returning to the top of the podium.
Read article →Eight Golds Across Lead and Speed in Austria
The Austrian rounds handed out eight gold medals between the Lead and the Speed events, which makes it one of the fuller weekends of the season so far.
Read article →New to climbing?
Start with our guides
Plain English explainers on gear, grades and skills, so every edition makes sense from the first read.
All guides →Autumn Means Rock Again
Black Diamond's Fall Cragging Kit arrives just as cooler conditions start making bolts and gear more attractive again, while Evolv positions the Shaman Trance somewhere between an aggressive bouldering shoe and something you would actually want to wear on a hard route.
Patagonia takes a different kind of step into the season with a new store at the foot of the Alps in Salzburg.
Patagonia Opens a Store at the Foot of the Alps
The new shop is in Salzburg, and the opening ran as a friends and family evening with hikes, trail runs and screen printing rather than as a sale. Worth a stop if your travels take you that way.
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Black Diamond Puts a Kit Together for Autumn Cragging
Conditions are turning, and the collection is aimed squarely at a season of clipping bolts and placing gear. The sending part, as the post notes, is still on you.
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The Shaman Trance Sits Between Boulder Shoe and Route Shoe
Evolv is pitching it at climbers who would rather not choose between an aggressive boulder shoe and something comfortable enough for a long route. It is resolable and aimed at boards, spray walls and steep sport.
View post →The Risks We Accept and the Ones We Miss
Two ground falls at The Spot in Louisville reopen an uncomfortable conversation about auto belays and the simple failure to clip in, while UK mountain rescue teams report their busiest month on record and question how sustainable the current workload is.
Sasha DiGiulian reflects on the slow reality of coming back from injury, and Yosemite Facelift offers the other side of climbing culture, where looking after a place can be as much a part of belonging there as climbing on it.
A Rope Coiling Contest Is Part of Yosemite Facelift Too
A throwback to last year, when Rab ran a friendly coiling competition at the clean up. The evening programme is the part people miss if they head off once the work is done.
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Sasha DiGiulian on the Slow Part of Coming Back
Injury is where the days drag, and she writes for the people currently in that stretch. Her point is that the hardest moments tend to be the ones that shape you, mentally as much as physically.
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Two Ground Falls at The Spot, and What Actually Happened
Both were first reported as auto belay accidents, but the gym owner says neither climber was on an auto belay route. Witness accounts and the closure of the auto belays afterwards point at the simplest cause, a failure to clip in.
View post →UK Mountain Rescue Reports Its Busiest Month on Record
Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team went public with the numbers over the weekend, and with the question behind them, which is how long volunteers can carry a workload that keeps growing.
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