Latest News & Events Diary

THE METOLIUS COMPETITION: 25 years, 25 cams, 25 days

More details at this Competition article: METOLIUS COMP: 25 years, 25 cams, 25 days, where we will post the answers to the previous days questions and the winners.

NOTE: Only the Ultralight TCU's, Ultralight Power Cams, SuperCam (small and medium) and the MasterCam are available in the UK. If you have a model and size preference, please state it in your email, subject to availability.

Beyond Hope, based in Mossley, Greater Manchester are the UK distributors for Metolius, Evolv, prAna and Scapegoat. More information at www.prana-metolius.co.uk

Andy Parkin

You can watch a trailer of 'Andy Parkin: 'Life in adaptation" below:

There is an unprecedented number of climbing film premieres at this years Kendal Mountain Festivals ( 20th - 23rd November); of the 75 films being shown, over 20 are film premieres and have never been seen before by the public.

Buy tickets for Kendal Mountain Festivals here www.mountainfilm.co.uk

The producers of 'Andy Parkin: 'Life in adaptation" wish to thank Paramo and Media partners: UKClimbing.com and Climbing Magazine (USA), for their valuable support in making this film possible.

Jens Larssen of 8a.nu in a discussion at 8a.nu says that, "The E-grading system is just a joke in the upper scale." as he still has difficulty reconciling that the E reflects both physical difficulty - the difficulty of the moves and how sustained a route is - and the boldness, or risk of danger of a route. He continues:

"According to the E-tables an E8 can be between 7b+ and 8b+ and even so Alex (Honnold) puts the E8 6c End of The Affair as an 7b. E8 6c have been registered as both 8b and 7b+ in the data base." See discussion associated with the news item, "Why so few 8b+ trad sends" at 8a.nu

At his blog, James Pearson asks Alex Honnold what grade does he think, End Of The Affair is? "E6," Honnold replies. Pearson continues,

"I asked Alex to assume, from a historical perspective, that End Of The Affair is E8 (the grade it has been for the last 22 years) and then asked him what grade The Promise would be in relation to this? His answer was without hesitation – E10.

The crux of James' discussion is that he believes that some believe that E10 and the English tech grade of 7a is the limit of difficulty and that our grading system is not being treated as open-ended, and that because of this there has been "backwards condensing” of grades. As regards the E-grade system he says that:

"I don't think it is broken, but I do think it is being misused and if it is to regain any usefulness there need to be some fundamental refines, starting with the insanity that is the ever widening English tech grade!"

Read James' full discussion at: jamespearsonclimbing.blogspot.com

The Rostrum

The question asked by many climbers was when would somebody make a BASE solo of a big wall, particularly in Yosemite, perhaps of The Nose or the Salathé Wall? They are certainly tall enough at 3,000 feet (over 900m). The answer from our BASE and Yosemite expert is that such big walls have slabs and a slabby apron and that it would be difficult for a BASE soloist to orient themselves and fly away from the wall - if they fell off a move.

However some Yosemite walls are steep enough, Rock and Ice reports:

"The soloist Dean Potter has made the first solo of the Alien Roof (5.12b .. E5 6b)) on the Rostrum in Yosemite.

For his solo of this very exposed, thin variation to the Rostrum, Potter wore a 5-pound BASE parachute rig. While BASE jumping in national parks is illegal, free soloing while wearing a parachute is not, and the technique affords a small modicum of safety in the event of a fall, assuming you can orient yourself properly mid-air, deploy your chute and fly away from the wall rather than into it. All of this, of course, before hitting the ground. Potter soloed to Alien via Rostrum North Face, an 800-foot, eight pitch 5.11c, considered one of the Valley's finest long crack lines."

Nuptse

Nuptse (7,864m), which lies just south of Everest, was first climbed in 1961 by a British-Nepali expedition under Joe Walmsley. It was a classic siege, following a tricky rightward-slanting central ridge on the South Face to a large snowfield, then a long leftward traverse along these snow slopes and over a difficult rock barrier to reach a couloir breaking through the upper rock walls to the summit arête. After establishing eight camps, the first summit party, Dennis Davis and Tashi Sherpa, reached the top on the 16th May. A day later Chris Bonington, Les Brown, Jim Swallow and Pemba Sherpa followed in their footsteps. To date, no other party has reached the main top from the south, and the original route is considered one of the first technical 'big walls' climbed in the Himalaya.

Read the full report by Lindsay Griffin on the BMC Website

'Kangch' lies on the border between Nepal and the Indian state Sikkim and was first climbed in 1955 by a British team that included Joe Brown and George Band. Since then, around 200 climbers have reached the summit. But so far no Swede or Norwegian has climbed to the summit and no one has skied off the summit of Kangchenjunga.

Fredrik and Jörgen spent three weeks in their base camp on the Yalung glacier at an altitude of  5100 meters. Over this period they acclimatised with reconnaissance climbs and skiing on Kangchenjunga. The pair were carrying skis on their back, had randonne boots on their feet and did not use supplemental oxygen. All these things stacked up against the pair, making their plans extremely impressive, but they remained optimistic until the bitter end, commenting just before they missed the summit:

“The mountain looks very good at moment. There is a lot of snow so if we can make it to the summit the chances are good that we will be able to ski all the way down to the snow level at 5500 metres. We are acclimatising well and are now ready to make our summit push.”

The pair were stopped short of the summit due to heavy snow, but their ski descent, which was to be the highlight of the two month expedition, went without incident:

"To make it down without getting avalanched we had to use all our experience and all the tricks in the book. There were some scary sections but mostly we could enjoy nice powder turns on one of the highest mountains in the world. I am disappointed that we didn't reach the summit but at the same time relieved that we made it down safely. We had a great experience in a beautiful environment and I will definitely return one day to make a new attempt on Kangchenjunga."

Ericsson is one of the world's leading high altitude skiers with ski descents on some of the highest mountains on earth, including; Peak Somoni, Shisha Pangma, Gasherbrum 2, Laila Peak and Dhaulagiri.

Fredrik explained his skiing aspirations:

“I have already skied on three of the 14 8000-metre peaks, but now the aim is towards the absolute highest. The project spans over three years and I will try to ski the three highest mountains in the world, [including] K2 (8612m) next summer and Mount Everest in the autumn of 2010.”

Mountain Guide and high altitude expert Kenton Cool summed up what Ericsson is about:

"I know Fredrik quite well and he is a sound lad.  I think what he is doing is pretty good; low key, small teams, minimal spray, yet getting the shit done.  He didn't get the summit on Kanch this season due to heavy snow, or Dhaulagiri last autumn, but he got very close - around 200 metres from the summit I think. He skied from high points on both. Fredrik normally has small teams, no O2 and little or no Sherpa support.  I reckon he is a lot more 'Real' than many of the folk out there."

• Fredrik's Website: www.fredrikericsson.com.
• Kenton Cool's Website: www.dream-guides.com