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BASECAMP ... where every climber starts Issue 15

Third Ascent of The Path

Boulderer turned headpoint-trad climber Matt Wilder recently made the third ascent of one of North America’s proudest gear-protected climbs, The Path (5.14 R), at Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada. This 60-foot face takes slippery crimps through beautiful black and white stone, and is sparsely protected by just a few TCUs. The Path was originally bolted as a sport climb, but it remained an unclimbed project until Sonnie Trotter made the first ascent of this modern test piece, but not before removing the route’s bolts first after seeing the potential for solid, albeit sparse, IN THIS ISSUE gear. Ethan Pringle, in his first year of trad , quickly achieved the route’s second ascent and, in doing so, brought Still Unclimbed recognition to the climb as being a new-school classic. Photo Contest Does Anyone know Wilder spent four days trying the route on toprope, and took two who Scott is? days trying it on lead, during which time he fell off of the last hard Triple Crown move and took a 35-foot whipper onto a gray Metolius Master Series Cam. On his seventh day of work, he made the . Birkett and MacLeod in You can see a great video of Wilder trying The Path by logging on Good Form This to www.rockandice.com and visiting the Breaking News section, or Summer by simply clicking here. Got Reynauds? Video: Hound Ears —Andrew Bisharat Beta Rocktoberfest Don't Miss These Climbing Events!

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STILL UNCLIMBED

The summer season for Himalayan and Karakorum has drawn to a close, and one of the biggest prizes in the ranges, /North Ridge of Latok I, still remains unclimbed. This year, Josh Wharton, Dylan Johnson and Colin Haley traveled to the north side of Latok 1, in northern Pakistan, but came away empty-handed. This summer marks Wharton’s third trip in three years to the Choktoi glacier to attempt this objective.

“It's disappointing,” writes Wharton on his Mammut blog, “to have given so much time and effort to Latok without getting the proper conditions and weather for a decent attempt, but alpine climbing can be a fickle game. I'm certainly not the first person to be beaten back by Latok, as I know of at least five other climbers that have been on three expeditions to the peak. And there have been at least 35 unsuccessful expeditions to Latok in the last 40 years! Obviously it is not an easy mountain.”

The North Ridge of Latok 1 was famously first attempted in 1978 by Jim Donini, Michael Kennedy, George Lowe and Jeff Lowe. Over 26 continuous days, the foursome nearly completed the route, turning around just 300 feet below the summit ridge. Despite many other attempts, no other team has managed to match this high point.

“Will I be back?” writes Wharton. “I'm not sure. I wish I could say my obsession had run

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it's course, but I've never seen another peak that wrapped difficulty and beauty into such a perfect package. I don't think any climbers have been to Latok four times, maybe fourth time's the charm!”

Josh Wharton is one of America’s most accomplished alpinists and all-around climbers, with difficult ascents in sport, bouldering, trad, mixed, ice and in the mountains. To read a feature profile of Wharton that appeared in Rock and Ice Issue 171, click here.

—Andrew Bisharat

PHOTO CONTEST DEADLINE APPROACHING!

Rock and Ice is proud to announce the Second-Annual Photo Contest presented by Mammut.

Now is your chance to show off your great climbing photos! Simply email your images to Rock and Ice and we will publish the best submissions in our Everyman’s Exposed in every issue this year. Then, on October 15, we’ll announce the best of the best who will receive great prizes from Mammut . Each winner will also be profiled in Rock and Ice—you’ll get your photos and your own mug in print!

Each contestant may submit a total of 15 photos. Send photos, in 72 dpi jpegs, to: [email protected]. Deadline for entries is October 1, 2009. The editors of Rock and Ice will select the winners.

Winners must have a US or Canadian shipping address to receive prizes.

Check out www.rockandice.com/mammutphotocontest for more info on the contest and visit www.mammut.com to learn more about the prizes.

All entries must be submitted by October 1st. Be sure to get your photos in to have a chance to be published and win cool prizes from Mammut!

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DOES ANYONE KNOW WHO SCOTT IS?

That was the question posed by Hans Florine, stalwart of the Yosemite climbing community, in his latest e-newsletter.

“My friend Tom [Lambert] picked up a hitchhiker this summer in Yosemite. The hitcher’s name was Scott,” Florine wrote, “and he said he did THE Link Up. Does anyone know Scott's last name or his partner’s name? Scott works with SAR.”

Florine is seeking to update his annals on “the Link Up,” the best-known combination—that is, of and —in Yosemite climbing.

Even in the wake of the recent stunning loss and profound appreciation of , it is hard to convey the significance of his and ’s achievement, in 1986, in first combining these two giant walls, doing the classic Nose and Regular Northwest Face routes in a day. No matter how much we respect anyone climbing 5.14 and 5.15, it will always be amazing to think of covering 55 pitches, with many miles of hiking in between.

Croft and Bachar’s feat was not repeated for nine years. Then it fell to Peter Coward and Joe Terravecchia, followed next by Greg Murphy and Chandlee Harrel.

Even today, approaching a quarter-century later, as far as is shown on record only 10 other parties and two individuals have linked El Cap and Half Dome, for what is thought to be a total of less than 30 persons. The latest reported ascent was this summer by Aaron Jones, age 22, and Hayden Kennedy, age 19, in 19 hours.

Over the years, some have added amazing fillips to the feat: Dean Potter and Timmy O'Neil threw in Sentinel Rock on top of El Cap and Half Dome, and later swapped in Mount Watkins for their third consecutive wall. Potter free climbed both the 5.12+ Free Rider on El Cap and the 5.12- RNWF onHalf Dome, as did Sean Leary and Leo Houlding (UK).

This past May, set a new speed record (8.5 hours) on the free Salathé with Leary, with the pair intending to proceed to the RNWF, but storm thwarted them. (In June they were stopped by hot temps after zipping up the Salathé in a new record of 4:55, and in 7 hours, planning on Half Dome next.)

Nancy Feagin remains the only woman on record as having accomplished the link up, climbing it with Florine in 1998 for only the fourth completion. In 2004, Heidi Wirtz and Vera Schulte-Pelkum did the Nose in 12:15, creating new women’s speed records on it as well as the West Face of Leaning Tower and the RNWF within nine days. The two had intended those climbs as preparation for linking Half Dome and El Cap, but Schulte-Pelkum

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ran out of vacation time.

Florine and Potter have done the linkup the most, four times each, including a solo linkup by each that created one of our sport’s great races.

According to Florine’s own history on his website, speedclimb.com, the process essentially began in 1998 when Dean managed a “mind-blowing” (rope) solo of the Regular route on Half Dome in 4 hours and 17 minutes. “I got wind that Dean was trying to get fit enough to not only do the link up, but do it solo!”

Florine also thought a solo linkup could be possible, given his own previous solo time of 14 hours on the Nose, and the inspiration of Potter’s Half Dome time. He began aspiring to solo them in the 1999 season.

Being an open and eager personality, Florine told his friends of his plan, and soon the whole Yosemite community knew he would attempt it during the full moon of July 28th. Potter heard about it, too. Having put work into the project himself, he swiftly booked a flight to Yosemite and soloed the the day before Florine did.

The names involved in the history of the El Cap-Half Dome linkup range from those you know to those you have never heard of, those you didn’t realize were so hard core, and those you mourn: Micah Dash as well as Bachar. The late Jose Pereyra also figures strongly in the history of “multiple” Yosemite walls.

See http://www.speedclimb.com/yosemite/linkups.htm and keep an eye on it for updates.

—Alison Osius

TRIPLE CROWN BOULDERING SERIES

Rock and Ice is proud to sponsor the Triple Crown Bouldering Series

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BIRKETT AND MACLEOD IN GOOD FORM THIS SUMMER

British headpointing (trad climbing with top-rope rehearsal) is a strange game most famously practiced on a celebrated rock type known as “grit” described by Niall Grimes as “a little dark dirty thing a few feet tall with the misfortune to exist only in scruffy, industrialized, over-populated Northern England.”

The two best British headpointers, Dave Birkett and Dave MacLeod [See The Brave Daves, No. 170] rarely visit the grit, however, focusing their energies instead on cliffs closer to their homes in the Lakes and , respectively.

This summer both men have continued their reign as masters of the genre.

On August 9, Birkett made a quick repeat of Nick Dixon’s sandstone route, A Thousand Setting Suns (E9 7a, or 5.13+X). According to High Sports Blog, this route took the talented Dixon—who has also climbed the notorious E9 Indian Face—three solid years of efforts. Birkett, who has onsighted E8 6c or 5.13- X, confirmed the .

Back at his home crags, Birkett added “one of the biggest unclimbed lines in the Lakes,” according to UKclimbing.com, with an ascent of a 5.13X.

Meanwhile, after sending three new routes on the sandstone of Torridon, Seanna Mheallan, Scotland—Present Tense (E9 7a or 5.14X), Kelvinator (E8 6c, or 5.13X) and Kolus (E8 6c, or 5.13X)—Dave McCleod has turned his attention to the highest sea cliff in the UK (1,100- feet), St. John’s Head, on the coast of Hoy, in the Orkney Islands of Scotland where he is working on a free ascent of the 1970 Oliver Hill, Ed Drummond Longhope Route, the biggest wall climb in Britain. In 1997 John Arran and Dave Turnbull made a free ascent of

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much of the route, but escaped left to avoid the headwall cracks, according to Dave MacLeod’s blog.

The 1997 free version of the Longhope Route is still quite difficult, with 23 pitches of runout, dirty, trad climbing up to 5.13b. But the headwall cracks, which begin at 18 offer another level of climbing entirely. MacLeod describes the headwall as similar to Rhapsody, his groundbreaking E11/ 5.14c R trad route at Dumbarton Rock. The headwall is “a smooth, long leaning wall, with a thin crack petering out into the wall with tiny edges beyond. But this time it was 18 pitches up!” This 50-meter pitch, estimated to be somewhere in the range of trad 5.14b/c, has yet to be freed.

“The pitch looks, and climbs very similar to a lovely 8c [5.14b] I was on just right of La Rambla in Siurana earlier in the year,” MacLeod wrote. “But unfortunately it’s not bolted, or at a roadside crag in Spain! I still can’t quite imagine carrying a large armory of cams up the route, and this pitch, getting past the fulmar [an ornery sea bird] below the crux without being doused in ming [bird vomit], trailing 100 meters of rope and then sticking those tiny edges just before it rejoins John’s 8a [5.13b] section. So although I’m not totally sure how possible the route will be for me to actually climb, I’m at least certain that I’m going to try.”

—Jeff Jackson

GET READY FOR ROCKTOBERFEST - OCT 9-11

The RRGCC will be celebrating its 9th Annual Rocktoberfest fundraiser event in Slade, Kentucky on October 9, 10, & 11, 2009 with all proceeds benefitting the Coalition’s purchase of the 700 acre + Pendergrass-Murray Recreational Preserve. This event will again feature the Reel Rock Film Tour local premier, climbing competitions, vendor booths, silent auction, music, food, and clinics taught by professional climbing athletes. Be the first to receive updates and registration info by signing up for the email list on the right hand side of the RRGCC’s home page: www.rrgcc.org

GOT REYNAUDS? GO AWAY! T REYNAUDS? GO AWAY

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A year and a half ago, Andy Luks of Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center was supervising the medical care for a group traveling to Ladakh, India, when one of the travelers said that she had Raynaud's Phenomenon, a disorder that shuts down peripheral circulation.

“When the trip organizers found out about this and consulted their local physicians, they got all in a huff about how she would have lots of problems at high altitude and probably should not go on the trip,” Luks says.

It was the second time that Luks, an assistant professor in pulmonary and critical-care medicine, had heard of that advice, and he decided to poke around the medical literature to see if it was based on any data.

“I couldn't find any good information in this regard,” he recalls, “and figured it would be worthwhile to start the process of gathering this information by surveying people with Raynaud's to see what happened when they went to the mountains.”

By posting on the website, he recruited 142 subjects to see whether high altitude has been shown to trigger more frequent or severe attacks of Raynaud's. He published the results of the study this summer in Wilderness and Environmental Medicine.

“The most significant finding from the study,” he says, “is that with some planning beforehand and vigilance while they're out on their trip, people with primary Raynaud's can travel to high altitude and engage in a variety of different activities, even during the winter.”

Since his article and an update on the AAC site both appeared, he has received a number of e-mails from other people with Raynaud's saying that the results confirmed their own experiences.

People with Reynaud’s (including this writer) often try various tricks, from chemical packs to heating herbs to the medication Procardia XL, which is somewhat expensive.

“Interestingly, Viagra has also been studied for preventing Raynaud's and appears to work,” says Luks. “Now that might get your friends’ attention!”

Luks has written a synopsis of the study on www.americanalpineclub.org: Due to the design of the study we were unable to determine whether the hypoxic environment at high altitude leads to more frequent or severe attacks of Raynaud's phenomenon but the study did show that motivated, prepared individuals with primary Raynaud's Phenomenon (i.e. not associated with scleroderma, lupus or other forms of collagen vascular disease) can travel to elevations above 8,000 ft (2,440 m) and successfully engage in a wide variety of different activities. 46% of the survey respondents have been above 15,000 ft (4570 m) and 11% have traveled above 20,000 ft (6,100 m). This pattern of activity runs counter to the advice that is sometimes imparted to people with Raynaud's that they should avoid travel to high elevation areas for fear of provoking worsening symptoms of their disorder. Of particular note was that even though cold is a trigger for Raynaud's phenomenon, 89% percent of the 142 people who participated in the survey reported doing some form of winter activities in the mountains and only 22% reported changing their mountain activities because of their Raynaud's disease. Of

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concern, however, is the fact that fifteen percent of respondents did report having an episode of frostbite during a trip to high altitude at some point in their life.

He advises caution in interpreting the frostbite data, however, as the study had no control group.

You may contact Luks at [email protected].

FREE DIGITAL ARCHIVES

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The Rock & Ice digital archive is now available for everyone. Click here for 6 recent years of history of Rock & Ice.

VIDEO: HOUND EARS BETA

The days of August are drawing to a close, and there are hints of autumn in the air. The fall season is the best season for climbing, period, especially so in the Southeast. Autumn marks an exciting time for Southeastern climbers, who are gearing up for the largest outdoor bouldering competition series in the country, the Triple Crown.

The goal of the Triple Crown is twofold. First and foremost, the mission is to raise funds for two organizations dedicated to maintaining climbers' access: the Southeastern Climbers'

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Coalition and The Carolina Climbers' Coalition. These two organizations have been instrumental in the acquisition of land for the climbing community, in a region that is riddled with access issues. Second, this unique event will once again provide a tremendous opportunity for vendors to promote the sport of bouldering, which has quickly become the focus of the ever-growing climbing community.

The first leg of the Triple Crown takes place at Hound Ears, in Boone, North Carolina, on October 3. To get you psyched for the event, photographer and videographer Andrew Kornylak has put together a great video of the beta for two classic problems at Hound Ears.

To watch Paul Fuelling of Boone, North Carolina spray you down on Controller and They Call Me Nobody, please click here.

For more on the Triple Crown, visit their website http://www.triplecrownbouldering.com /default.htm

ACTION SPORTS PHOTO CAMP

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DON'T MISS THESE CLIMBING EVENTS!

8/22/09 Rifle Clean Up Rifle CO [email protected] 8/31/09 Whitman College Climbing Center Grand Opening Walla Walla WA (541) 231-2474 9/11/09 Pine Mountain Pulldown Ojai CA www.pinemountaincomp.com 9/12/09 Idaho State University Pocatello Pump Pocatello ID 208.282.3912 9/12/09 American Foundation for Children with AIDS Climb Up Kilimanjaro Harrisburg PA www.climbupsokidscangrowup.com 9/17/09 HERA Foundation Climb4Life Salt Lake City UT www.herafoundation.org 9/19/09 Castlewood Canyon Adopt a Crag Englewood CO [email protected] 9/19/09 American Foundation for Children with AIDS Climb Up the World Harrisburg PA www.climbupsokidscangrowup.com 9/26/09 Salt Lake Climbing AllianceAdopt-A-Crag: Ferguson Canyon Salt Lake City UT www.saltlakeclimbers.org 10/1/09 Philadelphia Rock Shop Midnight Burn Valley Township PA www.philarockgym.com 10/3/09 Triple Crown Bouldering Series #1 - Hounds Ear Boone NC triplecrownbouldering.com 10/3/09 Northern Colorado Climbers Coalition Horsetooth Hang Fort Collins CO [email protected] 10/3/09 Rochester Institute of Technology Indoor Climbing Competition Rochester NY 585.475.6229 10/9/09 Rocktoberfest Red River Gorge KY www.rrgcc.org 10/12/09 Sportrock Beat the Heat Alexandria VA www.sportrock.com 10/24/09 Texas A&M - Commerce Gravity Check Climbing Competition Commerce TX 903.468.3174 11/6/09 American Foundation for Children with AIDS Climb Up Charlotte Harrisburg PA www.climbupsokidscangrowup.com 11/7/09 Triple Crown Bouldering Series #2 - Horse Pens Steele AL triplecrownbouldering.com 11/21/09 Stephen Austin University East Texas Climbing Competition Stephen Austin University TX www.sfasu.edu/campusrec/outdoor 11/21/09 University of Maine - Maine Bound Adventure Center Boulder Bash Orono ME 207-581--1708 12/5/09 Triple Crown Bouldering Series - Stone Fort Chattanooga TN triplecrownbouldering.com

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