Black Diamond athlete Alex Honnold has skills—serious, bone-crusher rock climbing skills. Case in point: check out this video of Honnold onsighting two of the hardest 5.13 crack climbs in the Utah desert: Trail of Tears and No Way Jose. Lacking a second ascent since the late-great Jose Pereyra's FA back in 1998, No Way Jose had gained a hefty rep with a grade rumored to be in the 5.13+ range. Honnold, as he often does, coolly dispatched the route onsight with little fanfare, calling it one of the best cracks he'd ever done. Fortunately photographer Andrew Burr was there to capture the action and put together this video.
In June 2005 Steve House and Marko Prezelj climbed a new route on Cayesh, an 18,765 peak in the Cordillera Blanca of Peru. The new route on the west face was completed in 16:30 roundtrip from the glacier. The climbing on this 11-pitch route was uncertain from start to summit: The initial 450 feet of an ice/snow couloir was followed by eleven steep pitches of mixed climbing (M7+), one pitch of pure rock (5.10 at 18,000 feet) and a last pitch of ice/snow that led to the corniced summit.
Best Short Film: Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival 2010.
From the feature length movie "Welsh Connections", available on DVD and HD download. www.bamboochicken.tv
Black Diamond grassroots athlete Jesse Huey worked with photographer John Dickey last year to put together this video clip of an ascent of the Canadian Rockies' famed The Real Big Drip. At M7 WI 6, The Real Big Drip is a 200-meter battle of testy mixed terrain and uncertain ice curtains, and this video does an amazing job of showcasing what doing battle with such a testpiece is all about.
www.naturized.com
After a summer of climbing a lot of slabs, I’ve been climbing for the last two weeks in the giant roofs of Margalef. Here’s a wee clip of climbing and 8b and 8c (might be 8c+ now after I broke a crucial hold) in the roof of Sector Finestra. These are definitely not slabs!
Black Diamond athlete Sonnie Trotter loves his homeland of Canada—just about as much as he loves hanging it out on dicey, runout trad lines. Check out this video of Sonnie going for it on Lake of Fire (5.13c R) at Squamish, with some classic commentary by fellow BD athlete Alex Honnold.
Steve McClure climbing his longest route ever, Batshadow 8c+ at Malham Cove, England. Video by Alastair Lee, www.posingproductions.com
The lads call this talus field at 12k nearby the country's highest paved road in the Mt. Evan's Wilderness Area of Colorado: Wolverine Land.
This talented crew of some of the currently strongest boulderers in the world seem to have had a fun summer exploring this previously unclimbed field of granite blocks. Hopefully they did a good job of picking up after themselves and removed the dozens of crash pads daily that were used for these multiple 'projects'.
