How? Flakes are very often not really solid rock. Even though they may not seem to yield to your banging and pulling, they usually do move a bit. If you can’t retrieve the cam because it’s retracted to its limit (i.e. over-cammed), the idea is to widen the crack behind the flake for a moment.By being smart, you can drastically increase your leverage on the flake:

• Plug in another (smaller) cam behind the same flake just next to where the stuck cam is.
• Clip the second cam to the belay loop on your harness using a quickdraw or a sling.
• Apply your body weight on the second cam. The flake will expand, even if you don’t see it.
• While still hanging on the cam, remove the stuck cam.
• Obviously, retrieve the second cam too. Because you used a smaller size, it should come out easily.

Warning! Whatever you do, do not cause the flake to break and fall. You could injure or kill people below.

The film was directed by Pepe Danquart and will become available on DVDs this month. I better start dusting off my German.

However, the Hubers still had more shots left. Four days later, on October 8th, the brothers were on The Nose again, to firm up the record and quiet all whiners. This time everything went fine until the Harding bolt ladder. Alex missed putting his foot into an aider and was left hanging on the sling by one arm only with an 80-foot slack running from his harness all the way to the belay. Yikes! When they finally touched the El Cap tree on the top, the clock showed – 2:45:45! Breaking their own record, they brought their 3-year-long efforts on the Nose to a wonderful finale. Well done.

Read more about their first and second record-breaking ascent.

Source: supertopo.com

• Alexander Huber, once called by Reinhold Messner the best of all rock climbers, redpointed a 40 meter roof on Cima Ovest, one of the famous Tre Cime di Lavaredo towers in the Dolomites, Alps. The new line Pan Aroma 8c zigzags through an original aid route climbed in 1968. Huber and his friends drilled 11 new bolts, but the route is anything but a ladder of shiny pieces of metal. A 60-meter long 8b+ pitch with only 7 (!) bolts speaks for everything.
• A young Czech phenomenon Adam Ondra was touring France and Switzerland and amazing the onlookers by on-sighting “Hot Chili beans Volcano” 8b+, and redpointing “Abysse”, 9a (in 3 attempts) on the Gorges du Loup crag. A day later he turned up in Switzerland’s Voralpsee and sent “Speed” 8c+. To top everything up, he pinkpointed a multipitch Alpine testpiece called Silbergeier, 8b+ (first ascended by Beat Kammerlander in 1993) in a recordly fast 8-hour push.
• Rich Mayfield and Mark Stevenson climbed 60 British Classics in 36 days during one of the rainiest summers in the U.K!

Source: Planetmountain.com, Climbing.com. Photo by Michael Meisl.

• Mosoraški, 5c – the classic of classics on the big wall.
• Zgrešeni, 5b – a popular piece on the Debeli Kuk.
• Domžalski, 6a – the majority of climbing pictures of Paklenica are taken from this one.
• and plenty of other shorter routes in the Klanci sector.

After 2 seasons on the Gunks’ quartzite and its straightforward climbing on horizontal holds, this limestone canyon will put a question on the longevity of the acquired technique on the terrain where creativity means the difference between falling and cruising a route up.

Pictures from this adventure will follow.

Those who had the pleasure to use the old book know that it’s a comprehensive and well composed piece with beautiful pictures and highly amusing route descriptions. There is an online guidebook too, but I think the hard copy is well worthy the money.

The Red River Gorge in eastern Kentucky is one of the best rock-climbing areas in the world. Its solid well-featured sandstone makes for steep, spectacular climbing, with an almost equal mix of sport and traditionally protected pitches. This revised and updated second edition describes over 1600 climbs, including over 300 previously undocumented pitches in Muir Valley and the Pendergrass-Murray Recreational Preserve.

I love packing my rope this way, however, there is a couple of things to point out:

• Packing the rope with both rope ends in one hand (a.k.a. double Butterfly Coil), is faster but tangles the rope easily. Flaking the rope out has to be done cleverly. Put the rope on the ground so that both ends are on the top. Best to flake it twice – first time to undo the coils, second time to separate the two strands of rope.
• The rope should be put as high on the back as possible. I usually have the coils touching the back of my neck when I wrap it by the loose ends around my body. This sets the rope firmly on my back and prevents it from flapping low around my knees behind me.
• This “rucksack” set-up is possible with a single Butterfly Coil too. Start coiling from one end of the rope and proceed to the other. It is a slower, but tangleless method.

Update: Riši has come at last. My old blog will no longer be updated.

Sure it is nice to be strong and powerful, but brawn can take you only so far. It is the climbing technique, delicate footwork and efficient body positioning, what separates talented from campus board slaves.

This is quite often the basic difference between female and male rock climbers: where guys strenuously crank up through the crux puffing and sweating, girls come up with an elegant, logical sequence, cruising the route with minimal effort and cat-like gracefulness. In the same time they complain they can’t do more than 2 chin-ups and they don’t know how to do powerful dynos.

Is Lynn going to reveal to us where to get the superior technique for which she is renowned?

Rescue mission was how we started the next day. Mike’s rope was left hanging on Strictly from Nowhere when all attempts to pull it down from the bolted anchors on the first pitch failed. As it turned out, a neat overhand-on-bight knot formed by some magic while they were pulling the rope after rappeling. We successfully retrieved the rope and enjoyed the morning sun on the rest of the route.

This day was marked also by Metod’s comeback after a long climbing vacation. Trying to impress him, we took him on No Glow, 5.9. He actually lead the first pitch, and followed the second without any problems, so at the end it was us (me and Ľuboš) who were giving a tip of the hat to his climbing prowess. On the way back, we managed to send Retribution, a short popular 5.10b pitch with a semi-reachy-semi-pumpy crux. Yupeee.