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In an attempt to make space for the newsworthy ascents that occur with ever-increasing regularity, our weekly news roundup tries to celebrate a few outstanding climbs (or interesting events) that for one reason or another caught our attention. We hope you enjoy it. —The editors
5.13a in Pakistan’s Karakoram finally repeated
Jessey Huey, Jordan Cannon, and Matt Segal have made the second ascent of the massive Cowboy Direct (VII 5.13a) on the 20,618-foot Nameless Tower, in Pakistan’s Baltoro Region. The route was established in 1996 by an all-Wyoming team (Todd Skinner, Mike Lilygren, Jeff Bechtel, and Bobby Model) who spent 60 nights on the wall while at least one member of their team freed each pitch. Cowboy Direct has six 5.12 pitches and a 5.13a face-climbing crux.
“We gave everything we had for over 12 days on the wall,” Segal wrote on Instagram, “enduring snow storms every day, swinging leads, and all sending the crux pitch around 19,000-feet. It wasn’t a perfect ascent, but what ever is? We had one 12a pitch that was a perpetual waterfall that was never lead clean but Jordan sent it on TR.”
Segal continued: “But the truth is, not sure any of us really care about this imperfection. Making good, safe decisions and staying friends is always the most important. We did this, and I look forward to more trips to the mountains with these guys.” —Anthony Walsh
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FA of Alien Wall (5.11d M5; 3,300ft)
More good news from Pakistan: Symon Welfringer, Matteo Della Bordella, Francois Cazzanelli, and Silvan Schupbach have returned from a stormy 40 days camped on the Choktoi Glacier. Their main goal was the unclimbed Southeast Pillar of Ogre 1(Baintha Brakk, 23,901ft), which they never attempted due to avalanche hazard. Welfringer, Della Bordella, and Schupbach then pivoted to Baintha Kabata, the “Ogre’s son,” at 20,600 feet.
During a two-and-a-half-day window of marginal weather, the trio topped out the mountain’s unclimbed 3,300-foot South Face at 5.11d and M5. “Compared to our main goal, this felt like a consolation gift,” Welfringer told Climbing. “Still, this climb on Kabata felt amazing with solid rock and some amazing crack pitches especially on the higher part.” A consolation prize for some, a lifetime achievement for others. —AW
Seb Bouin Nabs His Hardest Flash
In my early years as a sport climber, in the mid 2000s, climbers spent a lot of time worrying about whether their flash and onsight level was close enough to their redpoint level, with general consensus being (back then) that you should be able to onsight or flash within three or four letter grades of your max redpoint level. This brought me a lot of angst, since I was perpetually six or seven letter grades behind. But, if he’d been climbing celebrity back then, I’d have taken solace from Seb Bouin, whose max redpoint is 5.15d but whose hardest flash (until last week) was a 5.14a called Les Rois Du Pétrole, which he sent—wait for it—eight years ago. Now, however, he’s upped the ante significantly, flashing the first ascent of Baise Moi, in Saint-Auban, France, and giving it a grade of 5.14c.
Saint-Auban is, according to Bouin, a relatively new crag near the Verdon Gorge, and Bouin visited it alongside two of the crag’s main developers, who convinced him to give Baise Moi, then still a project, a solid first-try effort. The route is 150 feet of sustained, overhanging climbing, and is “100% my climbing style,” Bouin wrote on Instagram, a “pure endurance route” with big moves and “bad rests between the cruxes.”
Concerning the grade: two local climbers who’d also been trying the route thought it fell in the 5.14c/d range, and Bouin—noting that it’s hard to grade first ascents even when you don’t do them first try—said he’s inclined to trust them. Still, he didn’t want to give a slash grade, so he got on the route again, just to clarify the difficulty, and ultimately settled on the lower number. “It would be a dream to flash [5.14d],” he writes, “but I think Baise Moi is a bit easier.” —Steven Potter
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Real Talk with Alex Megos and Dr.Volker Schöffl
In the latest episode on his perennially fun Youtube channel, Alex Megos sits down with Dr. Volker Schöffl, a climber of four decades and the official doctor of Germany’s national climbing team, to chat about a serious subject: eating disorders in climbing. Dr. Schöffl recently resigned from the IFSC’s Medical Commission (of which he was a founding member) to protest what he says is the IFSC’s unwillingness to address the high instance of RED-S (Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport) among professional competition climbers. Watch the full interview below. —SP
How James Pearson came back stronger
Having spent most of the last eight months too injured to really climb, I’ve become something of a sucker for comeback stories, which is probably why I found Wild Country’s far-too-brief film about James Pearson surprisingly moving. In the film, Pearson discusses how as a younger climber he succumbed to the all-in myth of climbing performance—the idea that if he wasn’t 100% focused on climbing, he’d never achieve his goals. Given this mindset, the prospect of parenthood seemed totally incongruous with climbing performance, so when he became a father Pearson briefly turned his back on climbing altogether—only to return to it undistracted by his youthful ambitions and climb harder than ever. I find a bit of inspiration in that. Maybe you will too. —SP