February - March 2006
World
News
Alpine Hat Trick
Austrian climber Harald Berger, best known as a mixed and ice specialist,
has repeated Silbergeier, a six-pitch sport climb in the Ratikon mountains
of the Swiss Alps. Originally freed by fellow Austrian Beat Kammerlander
in 1994, Silbergeier features delicate face climbing that is not only technically
demanding but also mentally intimidating due to the extremely long run-outs,
a result of Kammerlander’s decision to drill on lead. Throw in the
variable alpine weather; six pitches of climbing that break down to 5.13d,
5.13a, 5.13c, 5.12a, 5.14a and 5.13b; and Silbergeier has the makings of
one of the toughest multi-pitch sport climbs in the world.
Berger spent a total of eight days working the route before his redpoint
attempt, a single push from the ground. Despite high temperatures, Berger
had a trouble-free run-up to the crux 5.14a fifth pitch, but fatigue and
the heat finally caught up to him. After slipping high on the crux pitch
and then resting for an hour on a ledge, Berger sent the pitch on his second
attempt, despite failing reserves.
With his redpoint of Silbergeier, Berger also became the second climber
to complete the so-called Alpine Trilogy. First done by Stefan Glowacz,
the trilogy includes two other 5.14 alpine sport climbs, The End of Silence
in the Berchtesgadener Alps in Germany, opened by Thomas Huber, and the
Kaiser Neue Kleider at Wilder Kaiser in Austria, by Glowacz himself. All
three were first ascended in 1994. Individually, the routes are three of
the most difficult multi-pitch climbs in the Alps; collectively, the trilogy
is perhaps the biggest prize in the rarified discipline of Alpine sport
climbing.
After the completion of the Alpine Trilogy, it would be logical for Harald
Berger to turn his attention to Beat Kammerlander’s other alpine creation,
Unendlichte Geschichte, also 5.14a, also on the Ratikon. Until recently,
the 12-pitch 380 m route, first done in 1990, had stood unrepeated since
the first ascent. In late fall, Italian Pietro del Pra made the long-awaited
second ascent of the route. Unendlichte Geschichte is the first 5.14 multi-pitch
in the Alps, and typical of Kammerlander’s routes, it is run out and
psychologically taxing. Kammerlander has long considered it more difficult
than the Silbergeier. The fact that Silbergeier has been repeated numerous
times since its ascent while Unendlichte Geschichte has only seen one, would
seem to confirm this view.
The Long Road of Life
The last couple of years have seen the top end of bouldering dominated by
problems that demand more endurance than sheer difficulty. Mauro Calibani’s
Tonino ’78, Dai Koyamada’s The Wheel of Life and many other
top problems demand extreme endurance. Add to this list the latest from
Italian powerhouse Christian Core, The Long Road of Life V15. Core’s
latest invites comparison to Koyamada’s test piece not only because
of a similarity in name but also because of its character. Like The Wheel
of life, The Long Road of Life, situated in Core’s home area of Varazze,
is also a link-up of multiple problems, adding up to 57 moves in all. Perhaps
these new extended problems signal the maturation of bouldering. It could
be that this new fascination with endurance signals that top boulderers
are getting close to the limit of how small a hold can be used.
Master Category
In sports, a master is someone of consummate skill; who comes from the more
mature category of participants. Whichever definition you choose, England’s
Ben Moon qualifies. Although his contemporaries have long ceased to operate
at the top end or even to climb, Ben Moon is still showing the kids how
it is done. His latest, Voyager V13, is a brand new problem at Burbage North
in England’s Peak District. The five-move problem climbs out an overhanging
arête below the classic route The Sphinx, and combines powerful crimping
with technical heel hooks.
The Nearly Man
Basque climber Patxi Usobiaga has won World Cups and finished on the podium
numerous times; climbs 5.14+ in a handful of tries or less; has onsighted
eight 5.14a routes, which is at least five more than anyone else; and has
even done Realization 5.15a. Arguably, Usobiaga is as good as any of the
top climbers out there and better than most, so why isn’t he better
known outside of his native Spain? The answer is that Usobiaga has the unfortunate
habit of not being first. When he onsighted his first 5.14a, a handful of
others had already done it, so the incredible speed of his sends garnered
little attention. Frenchman Sylvain Millet got the second ascent of Realization
just before Usobiaga made the third. His latest achievement, an onsight
of Gaua 5.14b in Navarra, Spain is a cutting edge ascent; however, it comes
on the heels of Yuji Hirayama and Tomas Mrazek’s 14b onsights, which
all but guarantee that Usobiaga will receive a fraction of the attention
of more famous climbers. Perhaps this will cement his cult hero status among
the cognoscenti.
Swedes on Crack
It would seem the Swedes have a taste for crack. Swede Petter Restorp has
onsighted Tricks are for Kids 5.13b at Indian Creek, Utah, placing all gear
on lead. Though gear climbs have been pushed up to 5.14- range, 5.13 onsights
of gear climbs are still relatively rare, the famous example being Yuji
Hirayama’s onsight of Sphinx Crack, 5.13b more than ten years ago.
Big Hammer
Christian Bindhammer has made the first ascent of a 1992
open project at Pinswang, Austria. Big Hammer consists of 15 m of 5.14a
climbing that leads to a nine-move V 11 boulder problem and 5 m of easy
climbing to the top, adding up to one 5.14d.
– Andre Cheuk
ALPINE NEWS
Hard Mixed on a
Big Himalayan Peak
A difficult 1,800 m ice route up the northeast face of Cholatse (6,440 m)
in Nepal, was pioneered by Americans Seth Hobby and John Kear last autumn.
The climb offered WI 5+ and M6 climbing and shows what can be done by fast-moving
teams using modern ice and mixed techniques in the Himalayas
First Ascent of
Classic Himalayan Peak
England’s amazing partnership of Mick Fowler and Chris Watts made
the first ascent of the beautiful pyramidal peak of Jajaquiao (6,447 m)
in Tibet. The ascent took six days and was made via the Northwest Ridge
during extremely cold temperatures. Fowler, who has climbed new routes in
most of the great ranges, rated it as one of the best mountaineering adventures
he’s had.
Germans Settle Score
on El Murallon
In November 2005, the highly experienced team of Stefan Glowacz and Robert
Jasper returned to their project on the north buttress of the remote Murallon
in Patagonia.
Their new route, Vom Winde Verweht, was 27 pitches long, with climbing up
to 5.13 and four A2 pitches. The pair had previously gotten to within seven
pitches of the summit before retreating because of poor weather. In 2003,
they established Lost World 5.10+ M5 1,500 m on the same peak.
New WI 6 at Lake
Willoughby
A thin steep line to the left of Called on Account of Rains at Vermont’s
Lake Willoughby was climbed in December by Doug Dillon, Will Mayo and Alden
Pellett. The three-pitch route had a long dangerous first pitch up a two-foot
wide icicle, graded WI 6, R/X followed a pitch of WI 4+ and one of M5. It
is currently the hardest route on the cliff, which is the home of some of
New England’s longest steep ice routes.
New Route Revives
Cerro Torre Debate
On November 13, Allessandro Beltrami, Rolando Garibotti and Ermanno Salvaterra
completed a difficult route up the north face of Patagonia’s Cerro
Torre. Much of their route shared the line claimed to have been taken by
Cesare Maestri in 1959. Maestri, Toni Egger and Cesarino Fava climbed a
dihedral up to the Col of Conquest. Fava descended from this point and Maestri
claims to have continued to the summit with Egger in conditions that allowed
him to climb relatively easily over steep ice-covered rocks. No evidence
of their climb has been found above the Col, subsequent parties have found
the rock on the upper part of the wall extremely difficult and the conditions
Maestri described have never recurred on the route. Egger died on the descent,
so Maestri’s account of the climb cannot be corroborated. Maestri
returned to bolt the Compressor Route in 1974. The trio named their route
El Arca de los Vientos, and is 37 pitches long.
Climbers Help out
in Pakistan Disaster Relief
The October 8th earthquakes in northern Pakistan killed more than 70,000
people. Many more died as a result of the collapse of the social infrastructure,
the onset of the early winter because of the high altitude and lack of medical
treatment and food.
The people of the region have been hosts to mountaineers from around the
world for more than a century and mountaineers were quick to help out in
the massive relief efforts. The North Face, the American Alpine Club, the
Central Asian Institute and many more organizations from around the world
sent shipments of tents, warm clothing and money.
The Alpine Club of Pakistan (ACP) made extensive contributions to the coordination,
distribution and organization of aid, from collecting donations to helping
the Pakistani Army carry it to remote villages. The Pakistani Army was managing
conflicts in the region prior to the quake and is sorely stretched to continue
to do so and to deliver the aid to relieve the suffering. The president
of the ACP, well known mountaineer Nazir Sabar, stated that the ongoing
relief efforts are estimated to cost five billion dollars. Donations can
still be made to the ACP Earthquake Relief fund at www.alpineclub.org.pk,
the President of Pakistan’s Earthquake Relief Fund, www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk,
or the websites of the organizations mentioned above.
– Gripped Staff
Banff Mountain Film
Festival, 2005
There is a place and time – within say a 24-hour drive and/or two
calendar months on either side of November – where you can simply
say “Banff” while in the company of mountain people and everybody
will know exactly what you are talking about.
At the absolute nadir of the Rockies’ shoulder season, folks around
here wax the Subaru and dress up in their best American soft shells, then
accessorize with French scarves. They forgo their usual weekend pursuits
to forage for tickets, park illegally and mass in the foyers at the doors
of the Banff Centre’s several theatres. They do this for no good reason,
really, at least as such things are measured in the recreational universe.
After all, what can be the big deal about travelling and paying for a first
look at a bad trekking documentary or an earnest animal short that might,
if the film is lucky and gets distribution, find a place for itself on the
Discovery Channel, or National Geographic cable, on a Tuesday, in summer,
late at night? But the Banff Mountain Festivals are now a 30-year-old tradition,
and I haven’t missed the event since the 80s.
Banff is the real thing. It is more than a fantasy show for wannabes. The
audiences are knowledgeable and experienced. I’ve shaken hands with
Ricardo Cassin there, drank a beer to Alex Huber, and pointed Yvon Chouinard
back to his hotel. These are not people who are easily awed or amazed. Why
does everybody want to be in Banff, when they could just wait and order
the video later, or page through the book down at MEC? Maybe it’s
just because the collective feeling there reflects what we all know about
our chosen lives; that this stuff somehow matters a lot.
So, of course there are prizes and winners and parties and product to push
with the program, but the crucial thing is the fact of the Festival itself
existing – existing as a gathering to celebrate the things that most
of us who love climbing and the mountains believe and revere. And probably
this is the particular scent – the pine and buckskin aroma –
that carries out the kitchen window from the Festival in the form of 250
plus “Best of Banff…” dates that are booked around the
world for the months following each year’s presentations.
If the Banff Festivals remain strong and vibrant it is because they offer
a showcase for an art and culture that grows increasingly more expressive
with each passing year. It was clear in the ’05 entries, for example,
that climbing film work has come of age. Josh Lowell’s latest, Dosage
III, makes his efforts from only a few seasons ago look like the video equivalent
of ’fridge-front crayonings. And author and historian David Roberts,
ever the bad boy of mountain writing, bit down and rained death metal dark
readings about guilt and redemption on the silver-haired as they bowed their
heads over their coffee saucers and elaborate desserts at the 20-dollar-a-plate
‘Literary Luncheon.’ Director Bernadette McDonald presented
disciplined cultural research in the wake of a trip to Nepal that was taken
specifically for the purpose of interviewing and writing about the legendary
Himalayan librarian Elizabeth Hawley. Jim Perrin’s winning book The
Villain: A Portrait of Don Whillans astonished by not really being a biography
of a man at all, but something much, much larger and more ambitious. (It
could also impressed by having more footnotes than a Norton Anthology.)
And Timmy O’Neil, both hilariously live and maniacally on screen in
the Indian Creek doc Parallelojams, showed that he is well beyond standup
and shtick and auditioning for the role of Shakespearean fool for all of
climbing. His contribution to the noon hour discussion on ‘Near Misses’,
subversively swapping suggestive asides with English Arctic explorer Sir
Ranulph Fiennes, convulsed the panel moderator and had the CBC recording
engineers reaching for their live delay buttons.
To add the ambiance, the mountain weather and conditions were such that
good moments could be found during the Festival for both rock and ice climbing.
This was pretty cool, because speakers like Marco Prezelj and Andy Cave
and Steve House were instantly inspiring. They were often out during the
day, barely making it back in time to pick up their laser pointer for the
evening’s shows. As it should be.
In all, there was too much at Banff to mention everything worthwhile. Visit
the website www.banffmountainfestivals.ca for a better look at the photos
and the bios and the program. You can find out who and what won, and which
awards went where. Even better, see the “Best of…” show
when it comes through your city. And make a promise to yourself to come
west for the real thing next year. Bring your boots.
– Dave Dornian
