February - March 2008
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Patxi Usobiaga –Extraterrestrial?
Newly Minted World Cup Champion Patxi Usobiaga has been on a tear of late, with performances that can only be described as otherworldly. Despite an unusually poor performance at the final World Cup in Kranj, Slovenia, Usobiaga’s form in the month following showed his preparation was extremely thorough and that he is indeed the strongest climber in the world at the moment.
Usobiaga started his month on the rocks with a pair of one-day 5.14c first ascents. Faxismoaren Txontxongiloak and Kidetasunaren Balio Erantzia are both at the Etxauri crag in Navarre, Spain. Impressed? Usobiaga was just warming up. Arriving at Siurana, Usobiaga wasted no time in dispatching La Rambla, one of the few routes widely regarded as a definite 5.15a. Having attempted the line a handful of times in 2004, Usobiaga needed only three tries over two days for his successful redpoint, the quickest ascent to date by far. As if that wasn’t enough to demonstrate his superior form, Usobiaga sent Ramon Julian’s Stado Critico 5.14c/d a mere two hours after La Rambla.
At Montsant, Usobiaga onsighted La Esclava del Temps 5.13d, Falconetti 5.14a and Variante Monocroma 5.14b (the latter also a first ascent), for a no-fall spell at the Spanish stamina crag. He then polished off Dani Andrada’s La Novena Enmienda in a mere four attempts. La Novena Enmienda was thought to be 5.15a by Andrada, who is no stranger to routes at the cutting edge of the grade scale. Still unsated, Usobiaga ticked Escalatamaster 5.14d in only two tries and took care of an old Andrada project at Santa Linya by putting up Fuck the System. Fuck the System, perhaps by virtue of being a first ascent, gave Usobiaga slightly more trouble than other 5.14ds, taking him all of five attempts before the route succumbed. Developing a taste for first ascents, Usobiaga returned to Etxauri for an onsight ascent of the open project Bizi Euskaraz. Usobiaga feels the route is a serious candidate for 5.14c, a view endorsed by the original route developer Ekaitz Maiz, who was on hand to witness the impressive ascent. Usobiaga’s onsight of Bizi Euskaraz is the first at the 5.14c level, if the grade holds; given Usobiaga’s recent output, which is rewriting the standards of hard climbing, there is good chance the grade will stand.
With such quick ascents of routes at the current limits of sport climbing, just how much further can Usobiaga raise the standards if he projected a new line? Usobiaga responds: “The question isn’t whether it is possible to do something or not. At the moment the problem is that we haven’t got enough time for everything. We need to train for competitions, go to competitions and only afterwards climb rock. I climb as fast as possible because I like climbing and two or three weeks, maybe a month, isn’t enough to try a 9b or a 9b+. It’s because of this that I haven’t tried harder routes than La Rambla or other 8c+ or 9as. I think it’s possible to climb harder, but you need to invest a lot of time to succeed.”–AC
The Specialist
In many ways Frenchman Fred Rouhling is the antithesis of Patxi Usobiaga. Where Usobiaga focuses on competition climbing and prefers to quickly dispatch established routes, Rouhling shuns competitions to focus on first ascents. All the routes for which Rouhling is best known – Hugh 5.14d, De l’autre côté du ciel 5.14d and the notorious Akira 5.15b – are first ascents achieved after long efforts. Rouhling’s latest, Salamandre, continues the lineage.
Salamandre begins with moderately overhanging 5.13b leading to steeper ground and the route’s crux, a mono pocket only a half pad deep. Once successful in sticking and pulling off the mono, Rouhling faced a stout 5.14a finish. To do the route’s crux, Rouhling undertook specific training by mono campusing one cm deep rungs. Still, Rouhling never managed to do the section without numb fingers.
After the controversy about Akira, Rouhling is understandably reticent about the grade. He says, “it’s somewhere in the 9 range. I think grades are very personal and subjective. My references maybe come from a more severe period, even in an old-school sandbag place like Buoux they tend to upgrade. Salamandre is among my most extreme routes. Concerning De l’autre côté du ciel and Mandallaz Drive, most of the strong climbers who have tried them tend to think that they are more 9a+. I really prefer to keep in mind the uncertainty of such an ascent more than a grade emptied of any substance. Salamandre is very hard, very force specific, and very, very … what I wanted to do these times.”–AC
Rockies New Routing Spree
The Rockies saw a busy fall season with new alpine routes of all kinds going up at a rapid rate. Although many of these routes were reported in Gripped, Dec. 07, the state of play needs a quick re-cap. Raphael Slawinski and Eamonn Walsh got a late season rock route in with the first ascent of the often discussed West Face of Mount Alberta V 5.10+. The face has been an obvious goal for many climbers but the challenging approach and dubious rock quality repelled previous attempts. Two weeks later, Cory Richards, Dana Ruddy and Ian Welsted climbed Polarity VI WI 5+, a committing new 800 m ice route on the north face of Mount Snowdome. It ascends steep technical ice with good protection and ends beneath some huge seracs.
Walsh and Steve Holeczi made the first ascent of the Northwest Face of Mount Bell via the 12-pitch Zeitgeist IV M7 – WI5 R. Rock was relatively good quartzite, although protection was sometimes difficult, with birdbeaks supplementing pitons and nuts. Walsh continued his incredible season, teaming up with Rob Owens to add a hard mixed line on an unnamed peak half an hour from Banff. Finding superb mixed, mainly in the M4 category but with some M6 and two M8 cruxes, they praised the quality of both the climbing and the opportunity that the medium-sized faces close to the road provide as “a great alternative to bolting yet another mixed route.” The peak may have been unclimbed and has tentatively been name Mount mog (Men of Girth) to commemorate the ascent.–DCS
The Generalist
If the examples of Patxi Usobiaga and Fred Rouhling point to the necessity of specialization at the highest levels, then Scotland’s Dave MacLeod stands as evidence of how close a supremely talented generalist can come to the top of multiple disciplines.
MacLeod had most recently garnered headlines for Rhapsody, a 5.14b/c trad line that may be the hardest in the world, but he is a gifted all rounder who is among the best mixed climbers at a global level and has bouldered up to V13. Of late, MacLeod has turned his attention towards sport climbing. After a successful foray at the cliffs of Siurana earlier in the year, MacLeod returned for a month-long expedition with the express purpose of an assault on the Rich Simpson route, A Muerte 5.14d.
MacLeod initially dismissed the standard sequence through the crux – a nearly full span slap for two finger pockets out to each side – as unworkable, for an alternative sequence involving matching on razor-sharp pockets. After two weeks of fruitless attempts with nothing but torn fingers to show for it, the tenacious MacLeod gave the original sequence another chance and surprised himself by sending up to the last move. Two full days of rest were enough for MacLeod to return to seal the deal.
MacLeod has already professed that his ultimate aim is to complete a world class ascent in each of climbing’s disciplines. With the completion of A Muerte, his hardest sport send to date, MacLeod lacks only a top tier boulder problem to complete the set, so a V15 must be in his sights.–ACWorld Cup 2007
Heading into the final World Cup of the year held in Kranj, Slovenia, on November 18, 2007, there were three climbers still in contention for the overall men’s title. Patxi Usobiaga was in the lead with fellow Spaniard Ramon Julian close behind. Dutchman Jorg Verhoeven was a distant third, with a distant shot at the title.
Thus the stage was set for the thrilling finale with an epic duel between defending World Cup titleholder Usobiaga and the reigning World Champion Julian. In the semi-finals, the script was thrown out the window, as both Usobiaga and Julian possibly succumbed to pressure and made uncharacteristic mistakes, falling low on the devious semi-final route. Usobiaga ended up in lowly 18th place while Julian dropped to 26th. This opened the window for long shot Verhoeven to take the overall title, but he needed a win in Kranj to clinch it. In the end, victory eluded Verhoeven, who only managed sixth on the day. Swiss climber Cédric Lachat triumphed, and so Patxi Usobiaga retained the World Cup title for a second consecutive year.
Where the men’s competition in Kranj was a nail-biter down to the wire, the women’s side offered no such excitement. Maja Vidmar of Slovenia already had the title locked up by the time the circuit hit Kranj for the last round. After a slow start at the beginning of the season, where she only managed 10th at season opener Imst, Austria, and 21st in Zurich, Switzerland, Vidmar had gone on to dominate the World Cup this year, winning the next five rounds of the World Cups leading up to the finale. For Vidmar, climbing in front of her hometown crowd, Kranj was closer to a coronation than a competition. And Vidmar did not disappoint her subjects, as she put on a virtual clinic on how to win a World Cup competition on the final route, methodically and statically making her way to the top and crushing all rivals.
One of those rivals was dethroned former champ, Angela Eiter of Austria. After three consecutive World Cup titles, during which the Austrian looked invincible, Eiter’s reign finally ended this year. No doubt Eiter, who had grown used to the taste of victory,
will find her second overall a bitter pill to swallow and enter the off-season more motivated to retake the title than ever. Rounding out the podium for the women is the perennial contender Muriel Sarkanny, who has come back to competition climbing after having a year off to rediscover her motivation following a couple of lacklustre seasons.–AC
Olympic Recognition
On December 10, 2007, the International Olympic Committee’s Executive Board granted provisional recognition status to the International Federation of Sport Climbing, the governing body for competition climbing at the world level.
This recognition will confer on the IFSC an official association with the ioc and full membership status in ARISF, the Association of the IOC Recognised International Sports Federations, both of which are necessary preconditions to the eventual inclusion of competition climbing as an official Olympic event. The executive board of the IOC cited the IFSC’s focus on youth development programs as a key factor in its decision, a point also emphasised by Marco Scolaris, the President of the IFSC. “We are grateful to the ioc for this reward that our athletes, our sport and our International Federation deserve, at the conclusion of an intense year devoted to building up a sport focused on youth and its needs in today’s world. Being part of the Olympic Movement gives us now additional motivation to continue our work.”
Though this provisional recognition by no means guarantees future inclusion in the Olympics, it is thus far the most significant development in the IFSC’s stated mission to get competitive climbing into the Olympics.
Established in 1997, the IFSC currently boasts 72 member nations spanning five continents, as well as being a member of the International World Games Association, where climbing is an established event.–AC
First Canadian Woman to Climb 5.13 Trad
On November 11, British Columbia’s Jasmin Caton redpointed the classic 5.13a crack line, Fallen Arches, in Little Cottonwood Canyon, near Salt Lake City. The overhanging, left-leaning crack was first climbed by American Steve Hong in 1985 and is well known as a sustained and technical pitch. Caton lives in Salt Lake City and has numerous difficult routes to her credit, including first ascents of big walls in the Vampire Spires and significant repeats in Yosemite. This could be the first traditional 5.13 route climbed by a Canadian woman.–DCS
Humar Solos South Face of Annapurna
On October 28, 2007, Slovenian Tomaz Humar soloed the South Face of Annapurna 1 (8093m). One of the hardest 8,000ers, Annapurna 1 was first climbed in 1950 by the French team of Maurice Herzog, Lionel Terray, Gaston Rebuffat and Louis Lachenal. The second ascent came 20 years later with a massive 1970 British South Face expedition led by Chris Bonington. Annapurna is Humar’s first major summit since a controversial 2005 attempt on Nanga Parbat’s Rupal Face that led to a dramatic helicopter rescue. The twelfth highest mountain in the world, Annapurna has only been climbed by 106 individuals from 120 documented expeditions and 51 climbers have died attempting it.–DCS
The Thirty-Second Annual Banff Mountain Festival
The Banff Mountain Festivals are a bigger deal every year. We don’t notice so much here in Canada. They’re like a tree in our front yard that buds green, shades the lawn for a season, and then scatters leaves all over the neighbours’ property. We don’t notice, as it stands there every year, how much thicker the trunk is becoming, or how much further the branches are spreading.
There was a time when the Banff Mountain Festival was a little schedule of films designed to entertain the community and lure a few recreational tourists during the shoulder season. But year by year, the Banff Centre has built their property into a juggernaut program of mountain-related academia, art, activism, distinguished faculty, and yes – still entertainment.
Festival ticket holders today seldom see the program in its entirety. They drive out from Calgary to spend a day viewing selected films, or walking the trade show halls, trolling for brochures and stickers. They might listen to an evening presenter, watch the slide show, and then buy a book and have it signed. Some line up for muffins and coffee at the intermissions, others race outside through new snow and down dangerously greasy wooden stairs to remote campus venues for lunch hour readings or afternoon panel discussions.
This is a sign. With every passing year, the proper news and significance of the Banff Mountain Festival is more and more becoming the Festival itself. As it grows, you have to back up across the street to see the whole living organism. Festival goers will invariably talk about this person or that video, complain they can’t see El Capitan in Retro Reels at the Max Bell when at the same time Lincoln Hall is presenting in the Eric Harvey Theatre, or wonder why the Petzl Charlet rep isn’t at his table. But in the welter of personal opinion about all the things that happen at the Festival, what gets missed is that the Festival itself is now – and maybe has been for some time – second to none in the mountain universe. There is nothing bigger, more influential, or farther reaching when it comes to mountain-related media. People await, see and discuss the Banff tour programs all over the world. The prizes from Banff, unfairly awarded or not, are equal to any in any genre in their importance.
Sales increase after a good showing in Banff. Careers are made or mocked. Personalities and paparazzi alike descend on the place just because they have to – right or wrong, you can’t call yourself a mountain player and blow Banff off.
You don’t really get a sense of this importance of the Banff Festival from its promotional materials, either, and this is probably just because they are promotional materials. The tight control that the Festival organizers exercise over their program and the careful direction in their advertising belie the (excuse another florid metaphor) pulsing behemoth the event has become. If you attend, expect photo contests, filmmakers’ seminars, museum and craft collections, a lot of drinking, nearby climbing and climbing competitions, sponsorship for projects, arguments in foreign languages, writers’ workshops, charity parties, book and film launches, merchandizing, radio broadcasts, art shows, side deals, expedition planning, and more than a few opportunities to hook up with someone from halfway around the globe.
It’s about the guys with accents and scarves and four-day stubble beards. It’s about women who carry camera gear instead of poles and spend their winters skiing switch. And the Festival is always, about the gossip.
For North American climbers, mostly raised on low rocks and climbing gyms and regional enthusiast magazines, the relative importance of personalities and product at the Banff Festivals can be a bit of a puzzle. This year, for example, many of the lads were asking why the aforementioned Lincoln Hall, an Australian whose wreck on Everest was barely a footnote in Gripped, was headlining the premier Festival evening. The simple answer is – Hall wrote a goddamned great book about the experience. Calgary local Andrew Brash, who in actual fact was one of the more able climbers who rescued Hall from the North Ridge, was asked to go to the podium as part of Hall’s introduction.
This kind of thing takes some getting used to. But it should be argued that it is entirely appropriate, and you could point to the continued growth and importance of Banff as proof. People like Bernadette McDonald, who sport climbs 5.10, carefully, on a good evening, presented for half of a book festival afternoon to a packed theatre – because she’s written biographies of Elizabeth Hawley, Charlie Houston, and now is in the process of profiling the great and controversial Slovenian alpinist Tomaz Humar. Likewise Paul Diffley and Dave Brown (who actually are dab UK climbers themselves) always have film product in the program and are attending the adventure filmmakers seminar and are out sucking up all the beer and babes in the pub every night. You don’t see their names mentioned so much in the climbing web forums on the Internet. But you recognize every one of the climbers they have on speed dial on their cell phones – like Dave MacLeod for example – and realize that these are the guys who are begged to go out when the next big route is about to go down. You also realize that the route would never be such a big deal without them. So – who’s the star?
You can even enhance your rep – or rap sheet – by not attending Banff when you’re expected to. Legendary Jim Bridwell, scheduled for an in-depth interview in a leather Craftsman chair across from Geoff Powter on the Friday morning this year, was apprehended by customs officials when he landed at the Calgary airport on the Thursday. Bridwell spent 10 hours in custody, and then was summarily deported to the U.S. on the next available flight. Krzysztof Wielicki – Polish winter Himalayan pioneer – showed why he was truly A-list by putting on the lapel mic with only a few hours’ notice, and made it sound like he and Geoff had scripted for months.
I saw some stuff. I watched Sean Penn’s feature Into the Wild. Here’s what I think about that – it would have won – maybe – if director Sean Penn had accepted his invitation and shown up for the awards, the mostly female admin of the Festival were so excited they squeaked. But otherwise the film was pretty, and pretty manipulative. Kind of a Titanic for schizophrenics. You can only give so much credit for high production values. Read Jon Krakauer’s book (the source of the screenplay) for more truth and fewer raindrops on camera lenses and bad banjo soundtrack.
In the way of more reviews from the book front, the best climbing book at this year’s Festival wasn’t even a book about climbing, but was rather a collection of whacked-out articles about travel, women, truth, going fast, and trying to stay awake to the world, written by legendary skier Dick Dorworth, and titled Night Driving. Personal opinion only. It didn’t win a prize. But read it anyway. You’ll get it. It’s your life.
The category winner and also actually the “Best Climbing Film” of this year’s Banff Mountain Film Festival was, hands down, Josh Lowell’s and Peter Mortimer’s King Lines. In it, Chris Sharma looks good, climbs good, and talks so politely. The DVD wasn’t only popular with the film jury, either – Mags from the writing program, a non-climber herself, seized control of the remote during our (re)view and kept pushing ‘pause’ during the shirts-off beach scenes, while Niall Grimes and I squawked for more deep water solo beta from the great arch. Pure Club Med.
Between trying to score local weed for A-list presenters, write sample work for Mountain Writing seminarians who were more interested in a complimentary D-list Jackson Triggs red, and flog a new National Ski Mountaineering Race series to potential sponsors inhabiting the Festival’s trade show, I didn’t sit in the dark and see much film this year. But what the hell … damn, did I eat canapés. El próximo año, babe.–David Dornian
More on Banff Mountain Festival:
Find the list of all the book winners from this year’s Banff Festival at
http://www.banffcentre.ca/mountainculture/festivals/2007/book/awards.asp
Find a list of all the film winners from this years’ Banff Festival at
http://www.banffcentre.ca/mountainculture/festivals/2007/film/awards/
See the Banff Mountain Festival touring program when it comes through your community.
