The news

Last weekend Dave Birkett climbed what is being hailed as one of the most important new winter routes in Britain's Lake District for the last quarter of a century, Never Ever Say Never VIII 8 or E7 5c on Scafell's East Buttress.

Will Gadd from Canada teamed up with Tim Emmett from Britain to carry out the first ascent of Spray On, a 30m ice climb at the Helmcken Falls they tentatively graded WI10.

Centercourt, the new extreme testpiece first climbed by Albert Leichtfried and Benedikt Purner at the start of Janauary, has been repeated twice, by the Slovenians Aljaz Anderle and Klemen Premrl and the Austrians Rudolf Hauser and Helmut Holleis.

In mid-January Renan Ozturk (USA) and Cory Richards (CAN) carried out the first ascent of the Central South Buttress of Tawoche (Khumbu Valley, Nepal) in alpine style (1200m ED2 VI 5.10 M4/5).

A selection of ice climbs in Valle di Tures, South Tyrol, Italy

Hansjörg Auer and Much Mayr have recently returned from their trip to Patagonia where despite terrible weather conditions they managed to forge "Waiting for Godot" (750m, 7b) along the East Face of Central Tower to the Col which separates the Central and North Tower.

Last December the South Tyroleans Florian Riegler, Hannes Lehmyer and Tamara Lunger carried out the first ascent of Gratta e vinci (120m, M10, WI 5) at the Passo delle Pedale/Mendola. On 21/12/09 Florian and his brother Martin made the first redpoint ascent.

The third stage of the Ice Climbing World Cup took place in Saas Fee last weekend and was won by Markus Bendler from Austria and Stéphanie Maureau from France.

On 15 January 2010 Giampiero Bertotti, Stefano dalla Gasperina, Enrico Bonino and Sofia Palmisano carried out the first ascent of Zero 70 (100m, 5/5+ II) in Valle di Champorcher (Valle d'Aosta).

On 4 Janaury 2010 the Austrian climbers Rudolf Hauser, Alexander Holleis and Rupert Huber carried out the first integral ascen of Gamsstubenfall (800m, WI7), one of the last great icefalls in the Gasteinertal, Austria. On 12 January Hauser climbed the classic icefall Supervisor (270m, WI6) without a rope.

On 17/01/2010 Markus Bendler from Austria and Chloe Graftiaux from Belgium won the ninth Ice Master di Daone, valid as the second stage of the Ice Climbing World Cup 2010.

The best ice climbers in the world will gather in Valle di Daone (Trentino) this weekend for the second stage of the Ice Climbing World Cup 2010. The athletes to beat are Angelika Rainer from Italy and Markus Bendler from Austria, winner of the first stage last weekend in Kirov,...

The video of American alpinist Colin Haley's 20/12/2009 solo ascent of Aguja Guillaumet in Patagonia, via the Amy route. The film was made by Haley with a video camera mounted on his helmet.

On 07/01/2010 Albert Leichtfried and Benedikt Purner made the first ascent of the 300m "Centercourt" in the Gasteinertal. Graded WI7+, this is the hardest pure iceline in Austria and one of the hardest in the world.

Dave MacLeod is making the most of great British winter conditions by climbing two new routes at Glen Coe, Liquidation and Frozen Assets at Aonach Eagach.

Via Simone Moro and his agency in Pakistan comes the terrible news of a landslide which struck the area close to the village Attabad in the Hunza Valley, causing deaths, destroying land communications and isolating circa 22000 people. Published below is the email by Sultan Khan of the agency Nazir...