10 things non-climbers should know about the Dawn Wall climb

2015/01/15 Reports No comments

MainpageThe journey is over and it was a success. Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson managed to free climb a sector of the El Capitan’s south-east face known as the Dawn Wall. As their 18-day push was on the way, newspapers and news sites lacking a specialism in climbing started to take interest in what was happening and started to write about it. Very often, without really knowing what they were writing about.
Therefore, we thought of writing a little guide to narrow the knowledge gap and ensure that anybody who got interested in Tommy’s and Kevin’s achievement could understand it properly.

 

Photo: Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell on the Dawn Wall © Brett Lowell

 

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Discovering Czech sandstone with Adam Ondra!

2014/08/27 Articles, Interviews No comments

Early this August, we were part of a small group of climbing media professionals who were invited to the Adršpach and Teplice rocks, two of the most iconic areas for sandstone climbing in the Czech Republic.
Our hosts were Robin Kaleta, a renowned Czech freeride skier but also a passionate sandstone climber, and Adam Ondra, who surely needs no introductions. If you’d like to know what a nice weekend among sandstone towers and cliffs can be like, just keep on reading…

 

Photo: Adam Ondra climbing on the sandstone cliffs of Teplice © Claudia Ziegler Photography

 

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Brothers in arms: meet David and Ruben Firnenburg

2014/05/10 Interviews No comments

Main pageDavid and Ruben Firnenburg are some of the most promising young guns around, being among the five youngest people ever to redpoint 9a.
Born respectively in 1995 and 1997, they made the headlines multiple times last winter, as they sent a number of hard routes in Catalunya.
However, hard sends are not the only thing that makes them special. Despite their young age, they have very interesting opinions and a great awareness regarding important topics such as perceived grades, long-term projecting and access issues…

 

Photo: David and Ruben Firnenburg © Firnenburg Archive

 

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The Ideal Gym – pt.2 – Boulders for strength and technique

2014/05/10 Articles No comments

Sheffield's extraordinaire Shauna Coxsey bouldering © bergleben.deA bouldering wall is the basic structure on which you can train proper climbing movement and therefore elements of climbing performance such as strength, power and technique.
Yet, not many climbing walls make the best of their boulder walls, often sacrificing them under a number of aspects in favour of their taller brothers: the walls for rope climbing.
But here are a few great things that we have observed across various gyms and that we are now putting together for you.

 

Photo: Shauna Coxsey at the 2013 Boulder WC stage of Munich © bergleben.de

 

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La passion de Romain Desgranges

2013/12/18 Interviews No comments

DigitalCrack02

Climbers come in all varieties. You have those with little weight to carry up overhangs, those with fingers of steel, those with unbelievable endurance, those with megatons of explosive strength. And, of course, they are all passionate. A few of them, though, seem to have so much passion for climbing, travelling for climbing and even just training for climbing that their love really makes up for other things in which they may be lacking.
One of them is Romain Desgranges, whose drive and passion brought him to new heights during this 2013 now coming to a close.

 
Photo: Romain climbing Digital Crack, 8a, on the Mont Blanc © Moctar Walid
 
 
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The Ideal Gym – pt. 1 – Upper Body Conditioning

2013/12/03 Articles No comments

WoGü-fingerHow complete and systematic is your climbing wall? How good is it for training? As you try to answer these questions, you might realise that you are not too sure how to measure how good its structures are. A possible approach would be to see how far they are from an ideal gym, a place that has it all. Consequently, this is probably a good time to sit down and try to figure out what an ideal gym should be like.
Strong of our travelling experience and the advice of experienced coaches and sport therapists, we have decided to distill our knowledge in a series of articles that aim at creating a benchmark useful to anyone planning to build or renew a climbing wall.

 
Photo: The 9a fingers of Wolfgang Güllich at work © Thomas Ballenberger
 
 
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All about Ramón Julián Puigblanque!

2013/11/26 Interviews No comments

RamonPortrait

Thirty-two year old Ramón Julián Puigblanque is simply one of the strongest climbers around. But the interesting thing is that you could have said that 5 years ago and it still would have been true. And even 10 years ago. This is no little feat considering that he’s not only an amazing rock climber, regularly making quick work of 9a+ routes and climbing 9a in as few as two attempts. He’s also one of the most successful competition climbers ever, being a multiple World Champion, European Champion, World Cup, World Games and Rock Master winner.
Therefore, we brushed up our Spanish and we set out to meet the legenday climber in Kranj, during the last event of the 2013 Lead World Cup.

 
Photo: Ramón Julián Puigblanque © Gerard Montero
 
 
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Shared lead – Double interview with Jain Kim & Mina Markovic

2013/11/17 Interviews No comments

VS2

Since 2010, Korean Jain Kim and Slovenian Mina Markovic have dominated the female lead World Cup, repeatedly trading first and second places at the various events and in the seasonal ranking. And this year was no different. In fact, they have been closer to each other and further from the rest than ever. Because of this, we wanted to find out what makes them similar and what doesn’t, so we decided to get them together after the Kranj semifinal and to go for a double interview!

 
Photo: Jain Kim and Mina Markovic © Manfred Werner, Stanko Gruden
 
 
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Auf Wiedersehen Angy Eiter!

2013/10/16 Interviews No comments

BERCY FRANCE Foto: Stanko Gruden

This last September, Austrian champion Angela Eiter retired from lead climbing competitions after having won more than any other female athlete ever has. Naturally, we wanted to have a chat and ask her what it all meant. And we were amazed to hear how she managed to make history by focusing on the present moment as much as possible, without letting either setbacks or triumphs getting in the way of her climbing.

 
Photo: Angy at the 2012 World Championships, where she won gold in Lead © Stanko Gruden
 
 
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Blocs & Walls for Copenhagen

2013/10/12 Reports No comments

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We attended the opening of Blocs & Walls, the brand new climbing centre of Copenhagen. As undiscriminating lovers of all forms of sport climbing, we are always happy to hear about new climbing walls. In fact, we do believe that the creation of a wall is an exciting sign of a growing community looking for means to do more of what they love most.
And, strong of a well organised and eventful day, Blocs & Walls did not fail to impress us!

 
Photo: The opening day crowd from the top of the lead wall © Ulrik Hasemann
 
 
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