Monday, 21 November 2011

The Source 8c+!

When I first moved to Innsbruck, The Source was known as “the Sprung project”, due to its crazy all points off dyno in the middle of the route. I tried the project during my first visit to Schwarze Wand, pulling through the quickdraws to arrive in the jump, then failing miserably on the move, again and again and again, finally lowering off thinking it would be a damn hard route.

The infamous dyno! - Photo Riky Felderer

Two years later, and a lot has changed. The project has become The Source, 8c+, and I find myself back at the black wall (Schwarze Wand) a little fitter than before. After climbing up to, and sticking the dyno on my first red-point try, I fall in the next boulder just 2 moves above. It turns out that the dyno is only the beginning of the troubles, and that from here to the top, the route is a series of continuous and varied boulder problems.

See the rest of the post with more pictures over at JPClimbing

Monday, 14 November 2011

Transmission.. Joy Division

I can finally (so happily) say, that last month I made the first "1 push" ascent of Joy Division - The big wall in Val di Mello I have been working on all summer. The story of the ascent is long, too long for right now as I am rushing out to go training, but thankfully, The North Face has just released an incredible video along with a small write-up and some pretty pictures.

You can find it all over at TheNorthFaceJournal

Thanks to all the people that made this possible, it was a journey I will never forget.