(via Colorado MoJo, Prana)

Seen in Dosage V, Neanderthal follows a long and sustained 40 meter line with a hard dyno near the top of the wall.

(via ClimbingNarc, Dead Point, 9b)

UKClimbing has an extensive overview of Yosemite climbing.

Dead Point Magazine interviews Big Up Productions.

Tommy Caldwell and Jeremy Collins win the fourth annual 24 Hours of Horseshoe Hell in Arkansas.

Alexander and Thomas Huber became the first to redpoint Eternal Flame (5.13a) on the south face of Trango Tower in Pakistan (Climbing Magazine, Alpinist, TheLowDown)

Patagonia Terminates Relationship with SIGG Water Bottles

Statue of bare-bottom climber causes stir in western Colorado

Each $25 donation gives you a chance a winning one of five historic Kor climbs:

Castleton Tower with Steph Davis, The Cruise with Jimmie Dunn, Kor’s Flake with Tommy Caldwell, Kor pitches at the Gunks with Eric Horst, or Washington Column with Conrad Anker…. Each time you donate, we’ll toss your name in a hat. As a thank you, we’ll give back to you what we’re able to give: these climbing days and some amazing gear bundles donated by prAna, Five Ten, Mammut, Marmot, North Face, MSR/Therm-a-Rest, Clif Bar and Backcountry.com, every month.

Full details at http://laytonkorclimbing.com/ and Stewart Green’s blog.

Phil Schaal Does 5th Ascent Of Jade (V15)

Steve McClure repeats Hubble

13 year old summits Carstensz Pyramid

Italian Climber Riccardo Cassin Dies at Age 100

Rock & Ice interviews Adam Ondra

In just a couple weeks, the 2009 Reel Rock Film Tour will kick off in Boulder on September 10. There are two main attractions for this fourth installment of the tour. Big UP will present Progression featuring Chris Sharma, Kevin Jorgeson, and Tommy Caldwell.

Sender Films and Nat Geo Adventure Channel will preview First Ascent: The Series, a new TV series set to air in January 2010.

The Reel Rock Filmmaking contest is also back this year. Last years entries were quite good, so don’t forget to vote by August 31.

Here’s a link to the trailer on the Big UP site and the full tour schedule can be found here.

UPDATE: More details have emerged and can be found on Mountain Project, Climbing, and from Stewart Green.

The Dike Wall is a beautiful cliff of pristine granite situated at 9,000ft above Mammoth Lakes where John lived with his son. John was climbing by himself and was found at the base of the 80ft North Wall.

SuperTopo has a thread up as a memorial to John.

(via Climbing Magazine and UKClimbing)

Nalle Hukkataival is in Colorado sending Jade (V15) and establishing a new V13 called Sunseeker.

Adam Ondra repeats Alex Huber’s Om (5.14d) at Endstal, Germany. Om sat unrepeated for 17 years after Huber’s first ascent.

Will Stanhope gets 5th ascent of Sonnie Trotter’s Cobra Crack (5.14) in Squamish.

Alex Honnold and Sean Leary climb the Salathé Wall in a record time of 4:55.

Stephan Siegrist made the first successful redpoint ascent of “Magic Mushroom” on the North Face of the Eiger.

The dyno world record was broken at the Eindhoven World Cup event.

Collection of video tributes to Jonny Copp, Micah Dash, and Wade Johnson and the link to donate to the search fund.

The Spot Gym is holding a fundraiser for the The Search Fund on Tuesday, June 16th in Boulder.

More details on the expedition to Gongga Shan by Micah Dash, Wade Johnson and Jonny Copp.

Results from the Teva Mountain Games Bouldering World Cup in Vail from BoulderDiaries, B3bouldering, Carlo Traversi, and ClimbingNarc.

The route Mecca (F8b+) at Raven Tor in the UK is falling apart.

Alex Honold does record speed ascent of Salathé Wall in Yosemite in 8.5 hours.

The 16th annual International Climbers’ Festival to be held July 8-12 in Lander, Wyoming (via OnTheSharpEnd).

His description of the route:

Pachamama is a blue wall just to the right of my other route Papichulo 9a+. Its 50m long and very pumpy and psychological.

Read the full post at MVM for more details and pictures of the send.

Ueli Steck comes close to an El Cap onsight with Golden Gate (5.13b, 41 pitches).

ClimbingNarc interviews Shawn Diamond and pimpin and crimpin interviews Phil Schaal.

The CragBaby provides a trip beta guide to bouldering in Bishop, California.

Alex Johnson made the FFA of Whispers of Wisdom (V10) at Emerald Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Rocky Mountain National Park now requires bear canisters.

The Organic Climber is a new blog about climbing, raw foods, vegetarianism and healthy living. Should be an interesting combination of topics for climbers.

The Mid-Atlantic Climbers association now has a blog.

Results from 2009 Melloblocco in Italy.

Rockgrrl discusses how to marry a climber.

New hard trad and sport lines in North Carolina put up by Dave Sharratt and Pat Goodman.

The Reel Rock Tour has announced details for this years competition.

I saw last years winners during the 2008 Reel Rock Tour in Boulder where The Sharp End was premiered and they were quite well done.

From the press release:

The 2009 REEL ROCK Film Tour (www.reelrocktour.com), presented by Sender Films and Big UP Productions is now accepting submissions for the 2009 REEL ROCK FILMMAKING COMPETITION. If you have a camera, computer, and a fresh idea, one of the short REEL ROCK ‘09 films could be yours!

Building on the popularity of the 2008 filmmaking competition — in which tens of thousands of people voted for their favorite Humor/Spoof and Action/Adventure films — the 2009 competition has expanded with new rules and new prizes.

Winning filmmakers will receive $500 in cash and rake in grand prize packages from title sponsors Windstopper and The North Face, gear sponsors Petzl Equipment and Sterling Ropes, and media sponsors Climbing Magazine and Urban Climber. The winning films, one from each genre category — as chosen by voters online and REEL ROCK judges — will be featured on the 2009 REEL ROCK Film Tour in over 100 locations worldwide.

Submission deadline is July 20, 2009.

For more information and to enter visit http://www.reelrocktour.com.

Get those creative juices flowing, fire up the camcorders and laptops, and hit us with your best shot!

The New River Rendezvous is of one of the best climbing events I’ve attended and this year the seventh version of this annual event takes place this weekend from May 14-17. Unfortunately I’ll not be able to attend this year, but apparently the forecast is good and there’s an outstanding lineup of events planned.

The Rendezvous is the annual fund raising gig for the New River Alliance of Climbers. It’s a fun and friendly three-day celebration of climbers, climbing and the New River Gorge. Gather with friends, relax, compete, play, laugh and climb here in the laid back atmosphere of Southern West Virginia–America’s best kept secret!

Tickets are only $25 and it looks like they’re closing registration Wednesday.

I’m not sure exactly how recently the Access Fund updated their web site, but they now have an RSS feed for their news. This will hopefully help the spread of news, access issues, and events.

In Gardiner, New York, five pieces of land abutting the Mohonk Preserve are now closed. Accordingly, roughly 1700 feet of the Millbrook Ridge Trail has been rerouted off private land. Also, approximately 900 feet of cliff face in the Bayards and the Near Trapps is closed, including today’s closure of land south of the route Eenie Meenie in the middle of the Near Trapps.

From the article:

At the top, Boratenski found nylon cords as well as a metal carabiner. He used the nylon instead of the metal as an anchor, something he now knows was a terrible mistake.

I thought this was something all beginning climbers learned, but maybe it should be reiterated. Never run nylon against nylon as an anchor. The friction of the rope running through the sling or cord will create heat which will cause failure.

If there are no rap rings available, then just leave your own biner. For about six dollars, it’s worth your life.

(via Bishop Bouldering Blog, Kelly McBride, and TheLowDown)

Rockclimbing.com, together with its sister sites Dropzone.com and BASEjumper.com, were purchased by NameMedia last year and operated by them since then. Unfortunately, as the economy worsened over the past few months it became less desirable for NameMedia to operate these sites given their business direction, which brought them to a difficult choice: find a suitable buyer or shut the sites down. Neither option was very desirable at this stage, so after much deliberation a third alternative was chosen, namely to sub-contract the operational responsibility back to the previous owners, Willem (user sangiro) and me. We’ve run these sites on a pretty tight budget before and we believe we can do so again, thus ensuring the longevity of the user communities.

What this means is that we will immediately resume all day-to-day management and operational responsibilities of the sites, while NameMedia will handle marketing and ad sales. NameMedia will remain the overall owner but we will have a minority interest in the value of the sites as a longer-term incentive for our efforts.

From the perspective of a good writer losing a full time gig this is really sad news. But while there are obvious financial difficulties across all industries right now, I’m disappointed with companies (not just climbing-related ones) using the economy to cover for all their business decisions. The economy has been deteriorating for a long time. This didn’t happen over night.

The economy is cyclic. Yes, it is bad now, but it will improve. Unfortunately, it’s never a good idea to rely on a single, major revenue stream. Advertising budgets have been drying up for a while now and it would have been better to see a proactive move from NameMedia as opposed to this reactionary one (i.e. possibly cutting a writer back to part-time first).

At least the previous owners have passion for the business and stepped up the plate to keep it running instead of a complete shut-down. Sadly, this is what happened to Your Climbing (well, essentially – the new owners have been trying to sell again). I know one of the original founders of that site and while he was an outdoor enthusiast, he wasn’t a climber. So it was much more difficult (good or bad I guess) to keep a non-profitable site running.

My 75 minute warm up starts with 5 minutes of cardio. You can do anything, jump up and down, go for a run, jump rope, anything to get your heart going. For the first 10-15 minutes, if your feet are cold just wear your street shoes, if not put on your climbing shoes, do easy moves on big holds. I’m usually just trying to get the blood pumping through my arms so when I go and try harder moves, they feel easier. After you feel a bit warmed up, get your climbing shoes on and do 40+ moves on the climbing wall.