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Interview with Riccardo Scarian who on 27/10/2009 climbed the second half of Masada on Sass Maor (Pale di San Martino, Dolomites), and freed the crux pitch at 8b.

Interview with Jenny Lavarda after the first free ascent of "solo per vecchi guerrieri" (150m, 8c+/9a, Vette Feltrine, Dolomites), first ascended by Manolo and repeated by Mario Prinoth and Riccardo Scarian. She was accompanied by Marco Ronchi who also managed to redpoint the route that day.

Interview with British climber Steve Haston after his recent first ascent of Descente Lolitta at the Grotte de Sabart in Ariege, France.

Robert Jasper from Germany and Roger Schäli from Switzerland have made the first free ascent of the famous "Japanese Diretissima" on the North Face of Eiger. The route now goes free at 8a and is a very serious alpine undertaking indeed.

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.

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 Direct on the South Face of Mt. Asgard.

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...

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.

Climbing legend John Bachar, 52, died while soloing on Dike Wall, Mammoth Lakes, California.

At Easter Florian and Martin Riegler carried out two noteworthy ascents in the Dolomites. On 7 April the South Tyrolean brothers made the first on-sight of "Karies" on Sassolungo while on 11 April they repeated Zauberlehrling on Cima Scotoni, all free and in a single day

After failing to even reach Kangchenjunga and being forced therefore to change plans, Nives Meroi and Romano Benet are currently attempting the South Face of Annapurna in orderto climb their 12th 8000m peak. Prevailing conditions on the mountain continue to be difficult and our man in the field Manuel Lugli...

On 13 and 14 March Luca Vuerich and Massimo Laurencig carried out the first winter ascent of the difficult Fessura Lomasti (400m, VI, pass. di VIII-) on the pre-summit of Cima Grande della Scala (Val Riofreddo, Julian Alps, Italy).

On 21 March Luca Maspes, Emanuel Panizza and Christian Turk carried out the first ascent of the ESE Face of Morteratsch (3751m) in the Bernina mountain range.

Interview with Paolo Rabbia who from 29/12/2008 to 28/02/2009 carried out the first ski mountaineering traverse of the Alps in winter without the help of mechanical transport.

On 19 March Andrea Oberbacher and Francesco Tremolada carried out the first ski descent of the long and much-eyed Conturines south gully. On 15 March Tremolada had also carried the probable first repeat of the south gully on Piz Ciavazes, first skied by Tone Valeruz.