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On May 21-22, three Italians and a Frenchman interrupted the solitary ruminations of the Grandes Jorasses’s south face. Sergio De Leo, Marcello Sanguineti, Michel Coranotte and Marco Appino established Plein Sud (VI WI4+/5R M6+, 900m) on the highly regarded but infrequently traveled face. The route reaches almost to the Tronchey ridge, and passes straight through a “monster” cleft that has tempted alpinists for more than 25 years. The team is considering their new ground the fifth ascent of the face…

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.

Peter Croft and Matt Ciancio linked four full-length routes on the Incredible Hulk, a steep, 1,200-foot granite wall in the northern Sierra Nevada, in a long day of climbing in late July. The Incredible Hulk is a half day’s hike from the road and tops out at over 11,000 feet…

Taken from: Climbing Magazine.

On May 17, Renan Ozturk, Zack Smith and Freddie Wilkinson arrived in Alaska’s Ruth Gorge with ambitions to traverse the full five-mile ridgeline of the Mooses Tooth massif, from Espresso Gap to Ruth Gap. Though they arrived to find ideal conditions—hard freezes every night and relatively warm weather during the day—their luck did not last, and warm conditions forced them to cut the trip short…

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.

Mikey Schaefer and I have just come back to Seattle from a quick, fantastic trip to the Stikine Icecap region, on the BC-Alaska border, near Petersburg, Alaska. I had been planning to visit Devil’s Thumb for years, but until now never made it to this beautiful mountain range. Our objective was a complete traverse of the Devil’s Thumb massif, climbing over the summits of the Witches Tits, Cat’s Ears Spires, and finally Devil’s Thumb itself. Like the Torres Traverse to Ermanno Salvaterra, this traverse originally was dreamt by Dieter Klose, the Stikine’s most dedicated disciple…

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.

On August 11, Americans Chad Kellogg and Dylan Johnson abandoned plans to climb All Along the Watchtower, the revered Grade VI on the west face of North Howser Tower in the Bugaboos of British Columbia. Inspired by Alpinist 14′s Mountain Profile on the Howser Towers, they instead picked out an unclimbed line on the same face, just right of Young Men on Fire (VI 5.11- A4). In less than 42 hours, car to car, they climbed The Simulator (5.11 C2, 19 pitches, 3,000′), which ascends 12 new pitches (1,500′) of high-quality granite into the Southwest Face (V 5.7 A2)…

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.

Stephan Siegrist and Dani Arnold of Switzerland and Thomas Senf of Germany have made the first calendar-winter ascent of Torre Egger (2685m) in the Cerro Torre Group of Argentine Patagonia. After three days and nights of climbing in alpine style, they summited on August 3 via the Dona-Giongo and Titanic routes…

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.

The north ridge of Latok I (7145m) has defeated yet another impressive team of climbers, this time three of the Giri-Giri Boys from Japan. Facing perilous snow conditions, Fumitaka Ichimura, Yusuke Sato and Katsutaka “Jumbo” Yokoyama turned around about halfway into the 2500-meter ridge.

Their effort on the north ridge came after a failed attempt on the north face. The team turned back at roughly the same high point, ca. 5900 meters, on both efforts. Hiroshi Hagawari of Rock and Snow reported that Yokoyama considered the expedition to be a “complete defeat,” but added that their safe return home was “most important.”…

Taken from: Alpinist Magazine.

The Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc is barely 3 weeks away from now. Yesterday I had my last long training session before starting the pre-race taper. I went back to Iztaccíhuatl and basically did the same workout as last weekend, with the addition of running from Paso de Cortés to La Joya and back. Totals were: 40 km of distance, 3,050 meters of ascent and the same for descent, everything in between 3,700 to 4,900 meters of altitude, in a time of 11:28:43. Despite of feeling a little tired at the beginning of the workout, somehow I managed to get through and ended up feeling very well. I have to thank Sergio who crewed me all day long as well as Toche and Gil who made a short visit to the mountain to cheer me up while I did my laps.

So it seems like the recovery from my broken toe has been a little strenuous but somehow I managed to do it relatively quickly. 3 months after the little accident and exactly 2 months after removing the cast from my left foot, I can say I’m back on track and feeling ready for my upcoming adventure in the Alps. Now it’s time to do a good taper, eat healthy food, lose a little more weight, get enough rest and prepare my gear for the race. Exciting times ahead!

Rest of the photos are here.

In mid-July, brothers Nicolas and Olivier Favresse, Sean Villanueva, and Ben Ditto established The Devil’s Brew, an 850-meter route on the Seagull Wall, a steep rock face on the west coast of Greenland. The expedition team completed the ascent with the help of Bob Shepton, a sailor who saw the potential on the wall and helped the team with transport.

Previously on the expedition, the team put up two 400-meter routes on the fjords of Greenland called Seagull’s Garden and Red Chili Cracker…

Taken from: Climbing Magazine.

This was a training-intensive weekend. Saturday was about climbing Iztaccíhuatl 3 times from the parking lot at La Joya up to where Esperanza hut used to be (around 4,900 meters of altitude). The workout took 9 hours and 40 minutes and I logged 2,700 meters of climbing and the same amount of descent along 26 km of steep mountain trails. Really good training for the upcoming UTMB

My original plan for Sunday was to spend the night at the mountain and repeat more or less the same workout from Saturday but, I changed my mind and opted to return to the city and bandit a 10K race with my friends. To add up some more fun Sergio and I decided to run from our homes to the start of the race. Total running time was 1 hour and 49 minutes for 18 km along the streets of Ciudad Satélite.

After the run we headed to Gil’s place to enjoy a giant breakfast and have more fun time with the good friends.

Rest of the photos are here.