Gripped: The Climbing Magazine August - September 2015

It is easy to say that my most memorable days up high have been with close friends. Having climbed for 20 years, nearly all of my friends are climbers. During my first ice season, I would rally with my new-to-Canada friend Steve Gale from Australia. We had met in the fall and he would tell me stories while sitting at the top of the crag, as I hand-drilled bolts on future sport climbs. In winter, we would borrow his roommate’s car to go climb ice. Each way would take two hours. My student loans paid for the gas. The temperature would sometimes dip to -40 C and the ice would shatter with every swing. I’ve spent hundreds of days on ice since, but my most memorable are those early ones…

The North Face Cinder 40 $140 The slick new 32-litre Cinder is the perfect crag pack of sport climbers. This versatile, top-loading pack is constructed to stand up on its own, so you can access and organize gear quickly, which is handy. It comes with durable fabrics, a reinforced suspension system and an unbreakable metal waist buckle. Grivel Clepsydra Twin Gate Biner $21 Grivel’s new 89-gram Clepsydra Twin Gate biner is designed to prevent any accidental unclipping while belaying. The lower wire gate isolates the belay loop and keeps the biner’s orientation correct, which prevents cross-loading. The smooth, rounded surfaces make rope-handling easy. The Clepsydra is one of our favourite biners of 2015. Big Agnes Rattlesnake SL2 mtnGLO $455 If you haven’t heard of Big Agnes’s mtnGLO collection, be sure…

China’s Hardest Route Australian climber Logan Barber sent The Firewall 5.13d+ in Liming, which makes the route the most difficult in China. The crack is the third pitch of the Flying Buttress, which Canadian James Cherry aided in November 2012 and Cedar Wright projected sometime after. Gripped published a feature on Liming in May 2013 by Derek Cheng with photos by Cheng and Bradley, which talked about The Flying Buttress being the “best sandstone crack in the world.” New Squamish 5.12 In Squamish, Taran Ortlieb climbed The White Raven this spring. The new 5.12b is at the Fjord Guard wall. Paul McSorley and Ortlieb have been busy developing the new crag across the highway and 100 metres north of Murrin Park. “McSorley has an R-rated 5.12a called the Beef Eater…

New Baffin Island Bigwall Route David Allfrey and Cheyne Lempe have climbed a new route on Baffin Island on the Great Cross Pillar in the Sam Ford Fjord, and called it Deconstructing Jenga VI 5.9+ A3+. Canadians Climb New Routes in Yukon Jay Mills, Eamonn Walsh and Carl Diehl visited the Kluane Mountains in May. The highlight was the first ascent of the north ridge of Wiesshorn III. They were funded in part by the Alpine Club of Canada’s John Lauchlan Memorial Award. New Ontario 5.12 Peter Hoang sent a project that was equipped by Matthew Sapiecha in 2014 at Eagle’s Nest. Hoang named the route Van Gogh’s Ear 5.12+ because of a gear-popping injury Sapiecha had during the development. Adam Ondra Flashes V14 Adam Ondra spent his post-Vail World…

It was a happy accident when I began climbing with Giovanni (G) last summer. Years ago, I said I would never take money for climbing and contaminate my pleasure of it, and I have been true to my word for almost 35 years, but that view has changed a little since I met Giovanni. I confess that once I accepted a fresh blueberry pie as compensation for guiding a young couple up Bon Echo in Ontario, but no cash changed hands, and besides, I was flat broke and perpetually hungry then. It was my viola teacher who introduced me to her husband, G, who eagerly wanted to try climbing and we all agreed to trade climbing for music lessons, so no money changed hands and my philosophy of no cash…

Toronto has been the epicentre of Ontario’s indoor climbing scene since the opening of Canada’s first climbing gym, Joe Rockheads, in 1990. Since then, indoor climbing has continued to gain momentum and an impressive number of climbing gyms began to open across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Eventually, the climbers who began in those gyms started to make appearances in the competitive climbing circuits, climbers like Marieta Akalski, a name that made several headlines in 2014. Marieta is the daughter of Sasha Akalski, owner of the Toronto Climbing Academy (TCA). The Akalski family emigrated from Bulgaria and opened the TCA when Marieta was 11. The following year, when she was 12, she started climbing and her competitive nature led her to take the sport very seriously. She began climbing competitively…