The news

In August 2009 the Spanish brothers Eneko and Iker Pou carried out the first ascent of Orbayu 8c+/9a, 510m Naranjo de Bulnes, Picos de Europa, Spain which they describe as their most important route ever.

The XXIII Rock Master in Arco will be transmitted live online and also on Italian RAI TV.

On 24/08/2009 Maurizio Manolo Zanolla made the first ascent of "Eternit", the extension to "O ce l’hai… o ne hai bisogno" at Baule. The grade put forward is 9a but above all Manolo believes this route has taken his vertical slab climbing into a completely new dimension.

Nicolas Favresse, Sean Villanueva, Stéphane Hanssens and Olivier Favresse have recently returned from an expedition to Baffin Island where they carried out the first ascents of 3 different routes and attempted to free climb the Bavarian route on the South Face of Mt. Asgard.

On the Sella Towers Manuel Stuflesser and Norbert Weiss have carried out the first ascent of Batajan (7+, 325m), while Massimo da Pozzo added Via Zoe (300m, 7b max, 7a oblig) on the Lastoni di Formin, Dolomites.

In August Eliza Kubarska and David Kaszlikowski from Poland climbed a virgin peak and established two big new routes in remote area of Torsukattak fjord in southern Greenland.

At the start of August a strong British team travelled to Italy's Valle del Orco where they managed to carry out the third ascent of Greenspit and forge five new routes high above the valley floor.

Two of Britain's most emblematic sport routes, Hubble 8c+ at Raven Tor and Liquid Ambar 8c at Lower Pen Trwyn, have recently been repeated by Steve McClure and Pete Robins respectively. The two climbs in question were established in 1990 by none other than Ben Moon and Jerry Moffatt and...

On 14/07/2009 Manfred Stuffer soloed the routes Geo, Regenbogen, Quo Vadis, Brusin and Brugger Walde on the Sella, Dolomites, in a mere 3.5 hours.

An intense couple of months for Hansjörg Auer: together with Thomas Schreiber he recently carried out the first ascent of Silberschrei on Sass de la Crusc in the Dolomites, before a lightening fast trip to England with Much Mayr which resulted in a fast ascent of Gaia. The two then...

The final stage of the IFSC Speed Climbing World Cup took place in Daone on 02/08/2009 and was won by Libor Hroza and Edyta Ropek. The World Cup 2009 was won by Ropek from Poland and Sergey Sinitsyn from Russia.

Yesterday the South Korean mountaineer Oh Eun-Sun summited Gasherbrum I (8068m), her 13th 8000m peak.

On 23/07/2009 Geremia Vergoni and Tiziano Buccella carried out the first ascent of their Opus Pocus, on the remote south face of Piz Seràuta on the Marmolada, Dolomites.

Swiss mountaineer Jean Troillet and the Frenchmen Martial Dumas and Jean-Yves Fredriksen have made the first ascent of "Sébastien Gay" (600m ABO), a new difficult route up the North Face of the Matterhorn.

On 26/07/2009 Veikka Gustafson reached the summit of Gasherbrum I together with Japanese climber Kazuya Hiraide and four Bulgarians. For the mountaineer from Finland this seals his bid to climb all fourteen 8000m peaks without supplementary oxygen.

Carter and Geijsen out while Maurer forges ahead