The news

From 17-20/02/2008 Fabio Valseschini carried out the first solo winter ascent of the British route on the ENE Face of Piz Badile, while from 21-23/02/2008 Rossano Libera made the first solo winter ascent of the Cassin route up the NE Face.

The winners of the first Saint Vincent Award for mountain professionals. were announced in Valle d'Aosta last Thursday. The winners for 2008 are Valery Babanov, Christophe Profit, Hervé Barmasse, the Alpine Regiment Training Centre and Pemba Doma Sherpa. The Awards will be handed out on 7 March in Saint-Vincent, Valle...

Second repeat of “Illuminati” M11 WI6+ of the super multi-pitch mixed route in Vallunga (Val Gardena, Dolomites) at the hands of Erik Svab from Italy and Klemen Premrl from Slovenia.

On 07/02/2008 Rolando Larcher, Fabio Leoni and Elio Orlandi reached the summit of the Central Tower of Paine, Patagonia, via their new route called 'El Gordo, El Flaco y l'Abuelito' (1250m 7a+, A3+).

Andreas Bindhammer, one of Germany's foremost sports climbers, takes us on a climbing journey to the incredible Terradets, one of Spain's premier sports crags.

Ueli Steck from Switzerland has set a new speed record on the Eiger North face, climbing the Heckmair Route in 2:47:33.

Ines Papert from Germany has made the first female ascent of "The Flying Circus" on the Breitwangfluh, Bernese Oberland, Switzerland

Markus Bendler (AUT) amd Woon-Seon Shin (KOR) have won the second stage of the Ice Climbing World Cup 2008 which took place in Busteni, Romania on 09-11/02/2008.

On 02/02/2008 Gabriele Moroni from Italy repeated Dreamtime (Cresciano, Switzerland), one of the most beautiful and famous boulder problems in the world.

Simone Moro, Shaheen Baig and Qudrat Ali are attempting Broad Peak, Pakistan in winter. At present they have established Camp 2 at 6200m,

Adam Ondra has climbed La Rambla 9a+ at Siurana, Spain, fifth go.

At 2.00am local time on 08/02/08 Cristian Brenna and Hervé Barmasse reached the summit ofl Cerro Piergiorgio (Patagonia) via a direct line up the NW Face.

The Italian Ragni di Lecco expedition will continue its attempt on Cerro Piergiorgio, despite teammember Giovanni Ongaro suffering severe hand injuries.

Adam Ondra (15) has made swift work of "Novena enmienda" 9a+ and "Fuck the system" 9a and on-sighted "Digital system" 8c.

Leopold Sulovsky and Josef Lukas from the Czech republic have climbed a new route up the West Face of Aconcagua (6962m), Argentina.

James Pearson from Great Britain made the most of crisp winter conditions on 02/02/2008 to carry out the first ascent of The Groove E10 7b at the gritstone Cratcliffe Tor, Peak District.