The post Weekly Twitter Updates for 2009-11-15 first appeared on All Climbing.

UKClimbing has an extensive overview of Yosemite climbing.

Dead Point Magazine interviews Big Up Productions.

Tommy Caldwell and Jeremy Collins win the fourth annual 24 Hours of Horseshoe Hell in Arkansas.

Alexander and Thomas Huber became the first to redpoint Eternal Flame (5.13a) on the south face of Trango Tower in Pakistan (Climbing Magazine, Alpinist, TheLowDown)

Patagonia Terminates Relationship with SIGG Water Bottles

Statue of bare-bottom climber causes stir in western Colorado

The post Quick Sends – 10/09/10 first appeared on All Climbing.

• The Future of Technology and Climbing – Part 1
  Posted on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 in Climbing
  Late last year my wife and I bought a house in Colorado and we went through all the normal stressful steps accompanying it. At one point during the process, I received a return phone call from my real estate agent from an unusual place – he was climbing the Third Flatiron!Now my first jealous thought was “dammit, get back to work.
• Guide to Bouldering in Fontainebleau, France
  Posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 in Bouldering
  UKClimbing.com offers up a comprehensive guide to bouldering at Fontainebleau, France complete with how to train, the local rating system, when to go, and where to stay.It has been used as a bouldering area since the 1870s and has almost continuously remained at the centre of the world bouldering scene since the 1930s.
• Alternatives to Climbing When You Have an Injury
  Posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 in Injury Prevention
  As climbers, we’re always getting injures – that’s just part of the game. Hopefully your injuries are minor; but when an injury makes you stop climbing for an extended period of time, another outlet is needed for all that obsession.ClimbingNarc has an injury and recently asked on Twitter for some suggestions on non-climbing activities for climbers. I then re-tweeted this and collected the following interesting responses (after removing the jokes!
• Chuck Fryberger Discusses Fred Nicole
  Posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 in Climbing
  Chuck Fryberger offers up some insight on climbing great Fred Nicole.Should I even write about Fred? I’ve been bouldering avidly for 14 years and I still feel under-qualified to try to write any sort of authoritative article about him. I’ve slept on his floor on trips to Switzerland, I’ve shot footage and pictures of him, I’ve hosted him on a visit to Colorado, and I’ve flogged myself trying to repeat problems he opened in Hueco, Fontainebleau, Australia, Switzerland, and South Africa.
• Warming Up for Climbing Competitions
  Posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 in Competitions
  Sean McColl writes about warming up for competitions. He has some good advice that can be adapted to any climbing warm-up routine.My 75 minute warm up starts with 5 minutes of cardio. You can do anything, jump up and down, go for a run, jump rope, anything to get your heart going. For the first 10-15 minutes, if your feet are cold just wear your street shoes, if not put on your climbing shoes, do easy moves on big holds.
• The Future of Climbing and Technology – Part 2
  Posted on Monday, March 23rd, 2009 in Climbing
  In the first part of this series, I questioned whether traditional climbing magazines can still thrive or will we see a faster migration to online only publications? Peter Beal and Dougald MacDonald both have some interested perspectives on this issue and I’d like to expand further on the topic.Personally, I still enjoy reading climbing magazines. I subscribe to Climbing, Urban Climber, and Rock & Ice even though I’ve been considering letting my subscriptions lapse at times.
• Climbing Video: The Monthly Dose from Bleau
  Posted on Saturday, March 7th, 2009 in Bouldering
  Following up on the recent link to the Fontainebleau bouldering guide, VideoClimb.
• Updates on the Alpinist Relaunch
  Posted on Monday, March 16th, 2009 in Media
  Dougald MacDonald reports that Michael Kennedy is going to edit the new Alpinist.Kennedy edited and published Climbing magazine for more than two decades before selling the magazine in 1997. Along with being one of America’s top alpine climbers of the 1970s and â??80s, he created a magazine with authoritative articles and elegant design, and he was rewarded with the largest circulation climbing magazine in the world.
• Gabor Szekely on the Slump in Climbing Performance
  Posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 in Training
  Gabor Szekely discusses something we all run into at some point: an unexplained slump in climbing performance.Every year, as my climbing schedule is pretty demanding, I go through an annual slump. For those of you that don’t know, a slump is a period of time (for me usually lasting a month or two), when my climbing is just not going the way it should.
• Jon Glassberg on Climbing Videos
  Posted on Sunday, March 1st, 2009 in Media
  Jon Glassberg recently posted quite a nice rant regarding climbing videos and the state of that aspect of the climbing industry.If you are going to make any money in the industry I would expect some personal progression. I want to see a desire to be better at that defining skill and a recycling of the money earned from making these movies to buy better equipment and software and to spend the time learning the techniques needed to become a better film maker.

The post Top Posts on All Climbing from Mar 2009 first appeared on All Climbing.

Alpinist released a press release which clarified a few points:

Founded by Christian Beckwith and Marc Ewing and operated in Jackson, Wyoming, until the autumn of last year, the quarterly Alpinist features a timeless, clean design with minimal ads. Publishing only the highest quality and most authentic climbing art and writing, Alpinist portrays the essence of the climbing life, inspired by an ethos of beauty, purity and style, and a dedication to help preserve the natural world that makes all adventures possible.

“My aim is to continue to explore the heart and soul of the climbing experience,” says Kennedy, “building on the incredible foundation Alpinist has developed over the last six years.” Widely known in the climbing community for his work at Climbing Magazine from 1974 to 1998, Kennedy served as an advisor to Alpinist since its inception in 2002. In over 35 years of climbing he has ventured far and wide, from pioneering Colorado ice climbs to lightweight alpine climbs in Alaska and the Himalaya, and he remains an active rock climber and backcountry skier today.

Dougald MacDonald, who initially wrote about the possibly of Alpinist targeting a broader audience than the previous incarnation, posted part of a conversation he had with Kennedy:

“I’d say the new Alpinist is going to be more like the old Alpinist than the old Climbing magazine. The trim size may end up like that of the Surfer’s Journal (9.5 x 11.5 inches rather than the current 9 x 12 inches), since that’s the more common “journal” size for publications printed in the U.S. The cover price will remain $12.95, although Alpinist will be offering special relaunch subscription offers with the first ‘new’ issue.”

So for those of you that were hoping Alpinist would carry on in a similar form, you may still have your wish.

I still stand by my skepticism of how this will work the second time around. The biggest loser here may be a competitor like Skram Media (publishers of Climbing and Urban Climber). For a relatively low selling price (especially for an established brand), I wonder why they didn’t just buy the assets and shelve them to prevent further competition.

The post Confirmations from the Publisher on the Alpinist Relaunch first appeared on All Climbing.

Kennedy edited and published Climbing magazine for more than two decades before selling the magazine in 1997. Along with being one of America’s top alpine climbers of the 1970s and â??80s, he created a magazine with authoritative articles and elegant design, and he was rewarded with the largest circulation climbing magazine in the world.

MacDonald also states that the new Alpinist will relaunch in April, speculating that it will be more like Climbing magazine and appeal to a broader audience than the former Alpinist.

If this is true, there will be four print climbing magazines all targeting essentially the same audience.

I’m almost at a loss for words on this news. I do like that fact that there’s another magazine that will appeal to me (I wasn’t a subscriber to the old Alpinist), but I’m still trying to understand how the market will support all four of these magazines. The MBA in me would love to see these business plans, especially the market research.

The post Updates on the Alpinist Relaunch first appeared on All Climbing.

Now my first jealous thought was “dammit, get back to work…”, but then I started thinking about technology and climbing. I know my agent carried some smartphone so he was probably checking his email and calling from the summit before rapping off.

Personally, while I’ve had the ability to do business while climbing (by using my iPhone at the crag), I’ve always hesitated for a couple reasons.

First, there are the financial issues. These devices are not cheap and I’m not interested in breaking one by throwing it into my pack while climbing. I know his can be mitigated with a nice case, but it’s still an issue.

The second factor is simply the separation of work from play. While I know many times working on a project or training for climbing feels like work, it’s still climbing. I’ve always believed that a bad day climbing is still better than good day working.

I’ve also been thinking about how mobile phones and other technology could be used for climbing, especially as guidebooks. Flashed is selling guides to some areas for the iPod. Mountain Project has a nicely optimized site for the iPhone. There’s also a couple climbing related iPhone apps now.

Each is a great idea, but relies on the premise that you’re willing to take your device out with you climbing.

When I look at my large collection of tattered and dirty climbing guide books, I can see that I’m perfectly happy to throw them on the ground and generally handle them with little care while out climbing. I’m not sure I’m willing to do that with an expensive electronic device.

With the relatively recent demise (and subsequent potential rebirth) of Alpinist and the launch of Dead Point Magazine (completely available online), where is climbing media headed?

Climbing guidebook services like SuperTopo and Dr Topo appear to have had some success with the PDF ebook model, but how many of you actually use them? And if you do, don’t you eventually just print them out to take climbing anyway?

Print media is not going to disappear anytime soon, but what will the future look like? Will print publications grow or should we begin to embrace the emerging digital formats? I’ll explore my thoughts on this question in part 2, but what are your opinions?

The post The Future of Technology and Climbing – Part 1 first appeared on All Climbing.

From the press release:

Alpinist, a premium quarterly celebrating mountaineering and the climbing life, closed its doors this fall, just prior to the release of Issue 26. The new owners, HOL, plan to release Issue 26 on March 1, and will honor all current subscriptions.

“Alpinist fits perfectly into our family,” says HOL president and publisher Jon Howard. “We feel climbers, mountaineers, and backcountry and freeheel skiers all share the same DNA. It’s, at times, about being bold; at times about being cautious. Kind of like how we do business.”

I have to agree with ClimbingNarc on that fact that it is a bit surprising to see Alpinist return without much modification to their model. Apparently, Height of Land Publications feels that they can achieve some publishing synergies with their other magazines. Only time will tell, but I wish them the best of luck.

The post Alpinist Magazine Returns first appeared on All Climbing.

In the end, the final bid was for $71,000. That’s the bad news for the debt holders and/or investors given the millions that were pumped in. On the positive side, the new owners evidently plan to keep the magazine. At least that’s what we were told since we only wanted the online assets anyway.

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of the sale.
(via Mountain Project)

The post Alpinist Magazine Assets Finally Sold to High Bidder first appeared on All Climbing.

The American Alpine Institute has posted a great video illustrating the prusik knot.

Alpinists keep a variety of technical tools in their back-pockets. One of the most important tools is the prusik hitch. The prusik hitch is most commonly used for crevasse rescue systems on a glacier, for rock rescue systems, and for climbing fixed lines.

In addition to their stated uses, I would add that my two most common uses have been to back up a rappel and to ascend a rope after a sketchy (and usually ill-advised) rappel.

Trust me, make sure you learn it!

The post How to make a prusik knot first appeared on All Climbing.

From Climbing Narcissist:

Jumbo Love begins with 60 ft. of 5.12d climbing followed by 100 ft of steep and bouldery 5.14c. THEN you get to the hard part which is followed by some easier 5.13+ climbing that takes you to the top of the cliff (literally!). Just think about that for a second. You have to navigate 160 ft of 5.14c climbing just to get to the hardest parts of Jumbo Love!

More details on Chris Sharma’s send of Jumbo Love can be found on the Big UP blog, Climbing Narcissist, Rock & Ice, the Petzl blog, Climbing magazine, and Alpinist.

The post Chris Sharma sends Jumbo Love (5.15b) at Clark Mountain first appeared on All Climbing.