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Another 5.14+ Route for Eva Hammelmüller

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  • Sealing high tech rope ends

    Videos climbing hownot2
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    HowNOT2H
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDSfl_nyQi4
  • The Line—Reward and Risk on Kaqur Kangri

    General News climbing
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    American Alpine ClubA
    Three teams will be honored with Piolets d’Or in Italy this December, and all three contributed feature articles about their climbs to the 2025 American Alpine Journal (AAJ). Tom Livingstone wrote about his and Aleš Česen’s new route on Gasherbrum III in Pakistan; Dane Steadman described the first ascent of Yashkuk Sar, also in Pakistan, with August Franzen and Cody Winckler; and Spencer Gray told the story of climbing the southwest arête of Kaqur Kangri in Nepal with Ryan Griffiths. There’s a lot to love about Spencer’s AAJ piece —it documents an amazing ascent. But we were also struck by the final passage, in which he reflects on the inherent and sometimes insidious risks of Himalayan alpinism. No one got hurt on the climb of 6,859-meter Kaqur Kangri, but afterward Spencer tallied 20-plus minor incidents that each could have ended very badly. Honest self-assessments like this are essential to a long life in the mountains, so we’ve shared Spencer’s thoughts here for readers to consider in light of their own climbing. Objectives like the southwest arête of Kaqur Kangri used to be what most climbing was: trying something kind of hard, an inconvenient distance from home, and relying on imagination as much as effort to turn a thing dreamt into a thing done. There are still plenty of places to contrive that same experience. We just have to look harder—and be willing to court risk in an unpredictable operating environment.  Our team didn’t have what we’d consider a close call, but in debriefing, I still counted 23 discrete times when the risk ticked up. A mule nearly broke my knee with a kick when I tried to bring it into camp one morning. On our first day of climbing, we hustled up a ramp that was probably at the outside edge of the ricochet zone of the upper serac band. Two days later, Ryan [Griffiths] and I both simultaneously realized that we were pushing our unroped luck on low-angle but hard-frozen talus above the west face. “If we slip here, it’s to the bottom, eh?” I said. Of four minor rockfall incidents, we mitigated two by our choice of protected belays and bivvies. Another was friendly fire: On rappel, I chucked a baseball-sized rock so the ropes wouldn’t dislodge it. But I misaimed, and the rock bounced down the snow slope and nailed Ryan in the shoulder. I reasoned that Ryan had probably done something in a prior life to deserve getting punched in the clavicle. He was less sure. On day three, below the snowfield, we pulled through suspended, stacked blocks in a roof that would have chopped the rope had they dislodged. On the upper headwall, my ice tool tethers got tangled behind a cam after I had campused out a diagonal rail. I couldn’t reverse the move, and I couldn’t continue until I had unthreaded the tools. Half growling, half screaming, I locked off on one arm, frontpoints screeching, and freed myself. When he followed, Ryan simply lowered out and jugged.  On the descent, Ryan and I had probably our riskiest moment when we crossed a 40-foot-wide wind slab partway down the upper northwest face. It appeared suddenly, a shallow pocket of cross-loaded danger in an otherwise stable snowpack. The tension on the slope and the soft, hollow thump as our boots and ice tools pressed through the snow put us both on edge. But with no other signs of failure or propagation, and a morning of downclimbing a similar aspect and angle above us, we each judged it safe enough to proceed. An hour before we regained the base of the mountain, fed up with navigating the messy corners of the final glacier, we briefly but obtusely committed to soloing steep glacial ice, embedded with crushed pebbles, as we traversed 15 feet above the bottom of a closed crevasse. We were spurred on by our friend Matt’s tiny light in the distance and the promise of fresh Snickers. Perhaps a week on the mountain and the tedious descent had dulled our nose for risk.  Three days later, we stopped at Chyargo La on the trek back out and took in our final view of Kaqur. I crouched beneath fluttering prayer flags to lounge against a rock, my fingers getting sticky pulling globs of gulab jamun out of a can we’d saved until now for a treat. Kaqur’s summit seracs glinted in the midday sun from what seemed like a very long ways away. Matt and Ryan laughed as I passed them the can for a shot of syrup to wash it all down. https://americanalpineclub.org/news/2025/11/18/the-linereward
  • Guidebook XV—Policy Spotlight

    General News climbing
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    American Alpine ClubA
    Consider the following true story: It’s the mid-2000s and two friends are on a long, multi-pitch sport climb. They’re excited—it is the climbing vacation to paradise they’ve dreamt about. They’ve been on clean, hard limestone all week. They’re prepared and plenty experienced for this climb. The leader has reached a belay stance and is getting ready to bring up their partner. They are building an anchor on two shiny new bolts. As the leader flakes the rope, they see the first bolt on the next pitch is close, and they decide to clip the rope into it—giving their partner a little more of a top-rope in the last moves and setting them up for swinging into the next pitch. The follower gets to the anchor and clips in. What a climb! They both lean back to laugh. Both anchor bolts break. They fall. Only that extra bolt on the next pitch holds, keeping them from dying, but all three bolts were shiny and brand new. Corrosion isn’t always visible, and there are a few different kinds of severe corrosion that result in scary failures like the one described above. These have been known for a long time in industries like construction and nuclear power, but it has only been in the last 20 years or so that we’ve recognized them in climbing anchors. These failures don’t require a lot of corrosion, just a very small amount. The two main types are Stress Corrosion Cracking (SCC) and Sulfur Stress Cracking (SSC), but there are others as well. For a number of reasons, these are really terrifying problems in climbing safety: they can happen very quickly without any easy-to- spot outward signs; they are difficult to predict; and they happen on stainless steels that climbers and route developers commonly think of as bomber. Like in any other part of climbing, assumptions can kill. Starting in the late 1990s, climbers started talking about this issue. The problem seemed particularly obvious in coastal climbing areas, but it began to crop up elsewhere as well. Companies were quietly adjusting the alloying content of their wedge bolts, scientific papers were being written, and developers were beginning to use glue-ins and titanium. And ultimately, the Union Internationale des Associations d’Alpinisme (UIAA) Safety Commission (SafeComm) started looking into the issue in a rigorous way. The UIAA is where the buck stops with global climbing safety. It is a union of climbing federations from 73 countries that works on things like mountain medicine, protecting climbing areas globally, organizing Ice Climbing World Cups, and standardizing training curricula and safe practices. It is where gear failure from all countries gets analyzed. It is where climbers, manufacturers, and labs come together to make climbing safer. As the national organization for climbers in America, the American Alpine Club is the U.S. representative to the UIAA. To address the SCC issue, the SafeComm worked for almost 15 years to develop a new Rock Anchor Standard that tests the complete anchor—UIAA123. In the summer of 2025, we updated it at our 50th anniversary meeting with guidance on welding. SCC starts with a pit on the surface of the material. This could be a small defect in the steel, damage caused by placing the bolt, or something left over from manufacturing. Pitting corrosion can also start the process. Pitting corrosion causes deepening pits to form in the surface and is typically fueled by the presence of chlorine. In all these types of corrosion, chlorine isn’t consumed, it is just something that facilitates the corrosion’s progress. That means it doesn’t take very much to make this happen—a high concentration, but not a large amount. Once there is a deep enough pit, the process changes—in some cases it will stop here, but in others, the corrosion will develop into SCC and a crack will begin to extend from the bottom of the pit. This crack drives forward through the shaft of the bolt via a complex mechanism that doesn’t cause the outside of the bolt to corrode. In a short time, the bolt could break with body weight but show little sign of this danger. Sulfur Stress Cracking (SSC) is similar in effect, but not in process. For now, we’ll focus on SCC. Stress Corrosion Cracking requires three things: a susceptible material, a suitable environment, and sufficient stress in the material. None of these things are quite as straight-forward as they seem and the rate of cracking can ... https://americanalpineclub.org/news/2025/8/14/guidebook-xvpolicy-spotlight
  • James Pearson on Send of Master’s Crack E9

    General News climbing
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    GrippedG
    Master's Crack was first climbed by James McHaffie at E9 - watch a short film by James Pearson about the route below The post James Pearson on Send of Master’s Crack E9 appeared first on Gripped Magazine. https://gripped.com/profiles/james-pearson-on-send-of-masters-crack-e9/
  • The Prescription—Fall on Rock

    General News climbing
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    American Alpine ClubA
    This July, we look back at an accident in 2019. A climber took a serious lead fall while clipping the third bolt on a popular sport route in North Carolina called Chicken Bone (5.8). This climber made a fairly common error when his rope crossed behind his leg while climbing. This oversight resulted in serious injury from what should have been a routine fall.     During the afternoon of May 6, Ranger J. Anderson received a call reporting a fallen climber. When Anderson found the patient, Matthew Starkey, he was walking out, holding a shirt on the right side of his head and covered in blood. However, he was conscious and alert. After ensuring the patient’s condition did not worsen, Anderson accompanied him on the hike. Medical assessment revealed a two-to three-inch laceration on the right side of his skull and light rope burns on his leg. Starkey explained to rescuers that he had been lead climbing outdoors for his first time on the route Chicken Bone (5.8 sport). As he was nearing the third bolt, he lost his grip on a hold and fell. His rope was behind his leg, and this caused him to flip upside down and hit his head on a ledge below. Starkey said he was unsure, but felt like he had “blacked out.” He was not wearing a helmet. (Source: Incident Report from Pilot Mountain State Park.) Many of us have fallen and had the rope catch behind our leg. Usually, we get nothing more than a bad rope burn. Unfortunately, there can be severe consequences if we get a hard catch, flip upside down, and strike our head. Pete Takeda, Editor of Accidents in North American Climbing, is back with some advice on how to fall correctly. Pete Takeda, Editor of Accidents in North American Climbing; Katie Ferguson, Executive Assistant; Producers: Shane Johnson and Sierra McGivney; Videographer: Foster Denney; Editor: Sierra McGivney. Location: Canal Zone, Clear Creek Canyon, CO. Avoid getting your feet and legs between the rock and the rope. A fall in this position may result in the leg snagging the rope and flipping the climber upside down. While many sport leaders pass on wearing a helmet, this accident is a good example of its usefulness. Leading easier climbs can increase the risk for injury, as they often tend to be lower angle and/or have ledges that a falling climber could hit. (Source: The Editors.) Editor’s Note: This was Starkey’s first outdoor climbing lead, and his lack of experience perhaps contributed to the accident. Lead climbing carries inherent dangers regardless of the grade and amount of protection. Popular moderates might be more perilous than notoriously dangerous routes, as climbers can be more easily caught unawares on “easy” and well-protected terrain. https://americanalpineclub.org/news/2025/7/24/july-prescription
  • 1 Votes
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    UK ClimbingU
    NICAS (National Indoor Climbing Award Schemes) is proud to announce a new partnership with Access Sport to create more inclusive climbing opportunities for disabled young people across the UK. https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?n=779143
  • Olympic Champs Win Gold Again in Koper

    General News climbing
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    GrippedG
    At the Lead World Cup in Slovenia, Janja Garnbret and Toby Roberts had flawless follow-ups to their Olympic performances The post Olympic Champs Win Gold Again in Koper appeared first on Gripped Magazine. https://gripped.com/indoor-climbing/olympic-champs-win-gold-again-in-koper/
  • 0 Votes
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    climbingC
    The White Rim in Canyonlands, Utah, has some of the world's best and hardest roof cracks. But climbing there takes planning and insider knowledge—get those permits now! https://www.climbing.com/places/white-rim-climbing/