News & Notes - 10/12/2011

News...

Lynn Hill turns 50 and send Rifle's Living In Fear (5.13d)
Also in Rifle was Joe Kinder who added a direct start to Lungfish which should be somewhere in the mid-5.14 range.
Before returning to the U.S. to compete in the Lead World Cup in Boulder, Sasha DiGiulian finished her stint in Spain by onsighting a few more 5.13ds, redpointing a few more 5.14s and doing this interview with PlanetMountain.
According to her 8a scorecard Andrea Szekely climbed three 5.14a's and fourteen 5.13's during a recent trip to Rodellar, Spain.
Micky Page had a strong visit to Rocklands, South Africa, repeating two V14s and doing the FA of a problem in the V14/15 range.
Anthony Gullsten has done the first repeat of Nalle Hukkataival's The Globalist (V14) near Helsinki, Finland.
Not long after Daniel Woods repeated this problem, Guntram Jörg ticked off Anam Cara in Silvretta, Austria.
According to his 8a scorecard Danilo Pereyra has done the likley 3rd ascent of Ali Hulk extenstion, a hybrid boulder problem/route that weighs in around the 5.15a range.
A nice update from Katie Lambert about a few climbs she did in Tuolumne and The Needles, including a first female ascent of Golden Rose (5.13c) on Medlicott Dome.

The world's tallest climbing wall opened on October 1 at Reno, Nevada's CommRow development. In addition to the 164 ft. wall, the facility also features a couple of free-standing boulders and a speed climbing wall. Several professional climbers were on hand for the unveiling including Dave Graham, Jon Cardwell, Josh Levin, Emily Harrington and Alex Johnson. Levin blogged about it here while Johnson blogged about it here.
It's been 50 years since John Gill first climbed The Thimble in the Needles of South Dakota
It's also been 50 years since the first ascent of the Salathé Wall on El Capitan
More pictures from last month's UBC Pro Tour event in Burlington, VT
Via The Spot's blog comes this gallery of images from the recent Lead World Cup in Boulder
I can never get enough of pictures from the Eastern Sierra