At the end of December, Bjørn-Eivind Årtun and Ole Lied climbed a gnarly new route on the west side of Torre Egger’s south face in Patagonia. They’ve dubbed the line Venas Azules and tacked an AI6 grade to the the overall route! Torre Egger is the second highest spire (8,809 feet) in the Fitz Roy massif of southern Patagonia, and though [...]
As reported earlier by Jules and Dave, Quebec alpine climber Louis Rousseau is attempting the first winter ascent of Gasherbrum I (GI) also referred to as Hidden Peak in the Karakoram Range of Pakistan.¬† He’s hoping to establish a new route on the south side of the mountain and to be a part of the second team to ever summit [...]
After the impressive historic winter ascent of GII by Simon Moro, Denis Urubko and Corey Richards. The Montreal alpine climber Louis Rousseau and his team are at the base camp of Gasherbrum (GI). Keep posted as Rousseau is suppose to be in touch with Kurv.tv and release an audio recording of their progress. Moro, Urubko, and Richards wrote history this [...]
Lake Willoughby is home to some of the stoutest and most aggressive ice and mixed lines in the lower 48.  With conditions so good this year and a psyched couple of climbers, boundaries were pushed yet again in this aesthetic northern New England playground. In December 2010 Josh Hurst and Ryan Brooks were rappelling off Call of the Wild when [...]
Poke-O-Moonshine is home to many great rock and ice routes, some of the best in the Northeast. This past weekend during the Adirondack Ice Festival, Matt McCormick, Bayard Russell and Matt Horner carried on tradition by making the first ascent of Endangered Species, a 3 pitch, M6+ NEI5+ R. The new route parallels a thin line established by Jeff Lowe [...]
Kevin Mahoney, Bayard Russell, and Matt McCormick, three of the strongest Northeast ice climbers, made the first ascent of “Pole Dance” on December 17th; A NEI 5 to 5+ on the Frankenstein Cliff. According to Bayard Russell of White Mountain Rock and Ice, the line is to the right of Bragg Pheasant (another NEI 5ish ice climb on Frankenstein) and [...]
Teaser: Peter Kamitses pulls off another hard route on the Highgrade ledge in Marshfield, VT. Kamitses is grading the route at a mid to hard 5.14 and says “It’s hard to grade because it is totally not my style of climbing.” In a phone conversation, Peter was psyched to have finally climbed the route after three years of working it. [...]
Teaser: Nathalie Malo, who has only been climbing for four years, has climbed Toit de Ben, a 5.13a roof in Val David, Quebec; snagging the first female ascent! Another notable ascent of hers is the 5.12d/5.13a super long Zombie Roof in Squamish. Malo says she will try the famous La Zébrée in the Val David next year, as it is [...]
Erik Fors recently put together a small short film highlighting¬† what looks to be an amazing area with a lot of potential bouldering problems. Besides fighting off desperate mosquito’s the crew put up new lines in an amazing picturesque setting. The relatively unexplored area is located in Kiruna in Sweden and north of the Arctic Circle. Pudde Hanson, guidebook author, [...]
Sometimes it is hard to keep my mind from drifting outside the Northeast when such cool things are happening. Here are a few climbing achievements worth mentioning. Jacinda Hunter sent her 5.14 project outside of SLC, Utah Dead Point Mag reports, The route, now dubbed Fantasy Island 5.14b FA sits inside a large cave mouth. The climbing is steep and powerful [...]
