Just climbed La Force Tranquille V15 in Magic Wood!! Had a devastating fall from the easy top slab because a hold broke, but managed to pull it together and climb it again next try all the way to the top! One of the best hard boulders in the world!!

This beautiful project caught my eye the very first time I saw it on my first trip to Magic Wood back in 2004 and being one of the most striking lines in Magic Wood, it’s hard to walk past it without at least giving it a thought. It’s one of the first lines ever brushed in Magic Wood and over 10 years later it still hasn’t seen an ascent. Until today!

No mention of the all important grade, but looking at Hukkataival’s 27 Crags ticklist one can see that he has done almost 50 V14s or harder so it will be interesting to see where he comes out on this problem.

All the latest videos can be found here, but here are the top 5 highest rated videos from the past week:

• This Is Yorkshire
• George Carmichael: Mecca
• Ethan Pringle Repeating Sunseeker (V13)
• Trailer: Wind & Rattlesnakes
• The Climb: Cedar Wright & Lucho Rivera

To get a more complete and detailed picture, Putnam spent six weeks doing fieldwork on El Capitan, in May and June of last year. During that time he climbed the entire face three times and rappelled all the way down twice. He also climbed numerous shorter routes, always working with an experienced climber as partner.

I had never climbed a big wall like that before, with such difficult and engaging climbing, daring and dangerous runouts, and for such a long period of time. The entire experience was utterly exhausting. The film crew seemed stressed at first at our hesitation to go back and try again, as if the story wouldn’t be complete without another try, but what if we didn’t want to try again? Well, we didn’t.

Life has some pretty crazy twists and turns in the last couple months. This time around the story starts with my epic skiing accident that crunked out my left knee, then delves into the making of The Island Volume One, and then follows my last month of country hoping out here in Europe. Life is good! I hope you all enjoy!

I’m not sure what happened, but Graham somehow fails to mention that one time I said what’s up to him at SCS Nationals. Five Ten must have edited that out I guess.

On a related note, Graham is in Switzerland where he did the 2nd ascent of The Full Circle, a V14 established by Nalle Hukkataival.  Graham comments on 8a:

Super syked to climb this rig. Crazy tension moves, resistant, and on not the best grips, shits not easy! Brushed it up with Moix and crew, then battled it out over next three rainy days, and somehow sent it! STOKED! First hard boulder post ski accident/ knee destruction. 2nd ascent, just hours after Nalle did the FA.

However, I flipped through the latest issue and enjoyed it quite a bit.  It features articles about and interviews with Kai Lightner and Nalle Hukkataival, and it also includes several “lost” videos from a trip Daniel Woods took to Switzerland back in 2011.  The videos include footage of him climbing three V14-15 boulders with repeats of Ill Trill, Practice Of The Wild and Believe In Two.

Check it out here.

The annual bouldering World Cup at the newly renamed GoPro Mountain Games in Vail, CO has come and gone.  As usual, it was an exciting show filled with an above average presence from some of America’s top boulderers.

For the men it was Russia’s day as Dmitrii Sharfutdinov and Rustam Gelmanov turned in superior performances in the finals, topping 2 more problems than their nearest competitors to take gold and silver respectively.  Jorg Verhoven took bronze which was a nice result for him after just sneaking into finals in 6th qualifying position.  America’s Paul Robinson was looking to return to the podium in Vail—something he did back in 2008—but he had to settle for finishing in 6th position.

The women’s event was quite interesting as both Angie Payne and Alex Puccio emerged from an absolutely punishing semi-final round¹ to represent the U.S. in finals.  As has often been the case with the women this year, finals came down to who could execute each problem with the fewest falls.  All three of the top finishers completed all four problems in a total of nine attempts, but Anna Stöhr had fewer tries to reach the four bonus holds so she came out victorious.  Akiyo Noguchi and Alex Puccio both also finished each problem, but it took them both 2 extra attempts to reach the bonus holds with the tie between them broken by a countback to their results in semi-finals.  Angie Payne wound up finishing in 6th position.

Not sure what scores like 0t 4b9 mean?  Check out this post where I tried my best to explain the World Cup scoring system.

If you missed any part of the comp, you can re-watch each round in their entirety here.

Women’s Qualifiers – Friday, 9 AM MDT

Men’s Qualifiers – Friday, 2 PM MDT

Semi-finals – Saturday, 10:00 AM MDT

Finals – Saturday, 4:45 PM MDT

All the latest videos can be found here, but here are the top 5 highest rated videos from the past week:

• The Journey | Three Whole Days
• Dave MacLeod Making The First Ascent Of Fight The Feeling (5.14c/d)
• Interstellar Appeal Part II
• 2013 Ring of Fire - Highlights
• Ethan Pringle Climbing Maroncita Extension (5.14c)