2022 Round-Up: Part 2 (July to December)

• Friday 30th December 2022

The second half of 2022 was even more epic that the first half with FAs and significant repeats coming in thick and fast. Not only did Aidan Roberts and Will Bosi hit top form on the world blocs but Toby Roberts ended a 28-year hiatus for men’s metalwork when he won bronze in an IFSC World Cup Lead event.

July

Will Bosi, switching out his bouldering pads for his rope, harness and some clips made the FA of a long-standing project at Dumbarton Rock to give Free at Last (F9a+). Anyone aspiring to repeat what is now Scotland’s hardest sport route should note Will’s summary of the route, “Although there looks like a lot of holds from the floor, almost everything is an undercut or a side pull. This makes the climbing very technical as the feet are tiny! The climbing is also very intense and powerful as you cannot relax.” Whilst the meat of the route is relatively short – only 15m in length – the crux was said to be around Font 8B+/8C.

Toby Roberts, one of the UK’s fast-emerging Lead competition climbers as well as a dab hand at outside routes, put in two crushing performances in European climbing events in July. Toby’s first win came at the European Youth Championships where he won gold in the Lead event. A week later Toby won gold again, this time at the Continental Cup in Zilina.

Leaving aside the record-breaking ascents on K2 when over a hundred mountaineers summited in a day, Eternal Flame on Trango Towers got not one free ascent but two within a week. Firstly, Edu Marin, his brother Alex and dad Franciso made a free ascent but then just days later Babsi Zangerl and Jacopo Larcher also topped out. Remarkably, Zangerl and Larcher climbed it no-falls in a continuous six-day push! That has to be one of the best ever ascents of a rock route in the high ranges ever!

Click here for more info on these two amazing ascents.

August

Getting August off to a flying start was Alex Megos with the FA of an old Chris Sharma project, Ratstaman Vibrations (F9b) at Ceüse.

Seb Bouin finished off an epic six-week trip to Hanshallaren, Flatanger with the third ascent of the Adam Ondr testpiece, Change (F9b+). Earlier in the trip, Seb did the second ascent of another Ondra route, Iron Curtain (F9b) as well as doing the FA of Nordic Marathon (F9b/+).

Will Bosi pushed up his max bloc grade when he did the FA of Honey Badger (Font 8C+) at Badger Cove in the Peak District. Only the third bloc of its grade in the UK, the 22-move monster problem took Bosi just five sessions. Will summed up his FA saying, “This is by far the hardest boulder problem I have done to date and one of the best.”

Notwithstanding, August was dominated by the European Championships in Munich. Janja Garnbret dominated the women’s events winning all three gold medals for Boulder, Lead and the Combined. “Being three-times European champion sounds good, but it feels even better,” Garnbret said afterwards. Garnbret seems to have cracked the winning formula and although she can be beaten, on the big occasions she always seems to come out on top. She remains a dominant force in women’s competition climbing and seems, all other things being equal, to be the odds-on favourite to win the next Olympics in Paris 2024.

Click through here for more on Janja’s wins.

September

Hot industry news in September was that the Chouinard Family who owned the worldwide clothing brand Patagonia signed over ownership of the company to fund environmental causes. Two new entities: Patagonia Purpose Trust and the Holdfast Collective will ‘run’ the brand going forward. Under the new arrangement Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, said that significant monies will go to help fight environmental causes: “Most significantly, every dollar that is not reinvested back into Patagonia will be distributed as dividends to protect the planet.”

Sasha DiGiulian, Matilda Söderlund and Brette Harrington became the first all-female team to ever climb a 5.14b big wall when they repeated Rayu, in Picos de Europa, Spain.

Several impressive ascents were achieved on the home front including; Hamish McArthur’s rapid ascent of Hunger (F9a) at the Anvil,  Loch Goil, Matt Wright’s FA of Eternal Fall (E9 6c) in Ogwen, Dave MacLeod’s repeat of Mission Impossible (E9 7a) and Pete Whittaker’s FA of the monster Anglesey roof to give Bar Wars (E8 6c).

However, it was Toby Roberts’ bronze medal in the IFSC Lead World Cup at Edinburgh that we think takes the top slot in September. Still climbing in his first-ever senior international year and in his second-only World Cup lead competition, 17-year-old Toby Roberts finally ended a 28-year hiatus for British men in World Cup Lead competitions. Remarkably, it was on 29^th April 1994 when a British climber last won a WC Lead medal with Ian Vickers.

Given the early success that the Brits had in Lead competitions – Simon Nadin won the WC Championship in its inaugural year in 1989 - the 28-year hiatus since Vicker’s medal can only really be considered one of the most painful periods for British Men. Toby Roberts, in ending that long drought, become only the fifth-ever Brit to finish a lead comp in the top three. Roberts joined an exalted cohort of British men standing, metaphorically, alongside Jerry Moffatt, Simon Nadin, Ben Moon and Ian Vickers.

Read more about Toby’s medal here.

October

Buster Martin made the first confirmed repeat of the classic Wolfgang Güllich’s iconic Frankenjura test-piece Action Directe (F9a). Climbed a year later than Ben Moon first climbed Hubble both routes are now considered F9a rather than the F8c+ they were first given. Buster Martin and Alex Megos are the only two climbers to have climbed both of these iconic routes.

Erin McNeice and Jim Pope won the senior titles at the British Leading Climbing Championships held at Awesome Walls, Sheffield. Whilst it was McNeice’s first win it was the third such win for Jim Pope. Having battled all year against very stiff competition on the international circuit Jim’s BLCC win – especially when climbing last – was an extremely accomplished performance.

The performance of the month however must go to Aidan Roberts for his second ascent of Alphane (Font 9A). Roberts, a renowned boulder specialist, has been inching his way – or should that be crimping his way – up some very hard blocs of late but by ticking the Shawn Raboutou testpiece Roberts became the first Brit climber to tick the grade. Not only was Roberts’ repeat truly significant in and of itself but it confirmed that British boulderers were operating at the highest level worldwide!

Click here for more on Aidan’s second ascent of Alphane.

November

September had nothing on November when it seemed that everyone’s projects were just giving themselves up in the face of the onslaught. Simply put, November was an amazing month of end-to-end sends in bouldering, sport and trad climbing.

Seb Bouin kicked off the month by adding an F9a to the beginning of Jumbo Love (F9b). In his eyes that added up to the now hardest route in North America, Supreme Jumbo Love. It was yet another F9b+ on Bouin’s CV list which has rapidly become one of the best in the climbing world.

Aidan Roberts and Will Bosi wrapped up their landmark Swiss trip with another Font 8c+ each. Days after making the second and third ascent of Alphane (Font 9A) Aidan Roberts and Will Bosi climbed Vecchio Leone Sit Start and Ephyra both Font 8C+ respectively.

We’re very familiar with Adam Ondra making the news but he busted out a bunch of routes/boulders in November which demonstrate the shear depth and breadth of his climbing once again when he made yet another FA on his home cliffs adding Zvěřinec (Menagerie) at hard F9b+ to Moravian Karst in the Czech Republic and then, just days later, making the first ascent of Pohár Nesmrtelnosti (prodloužení) (Cup of Immortality Extension) at Font 8C/8C+ and on-sighted Klemen Bečan’s route, Water World (F9a). Ondra described this on-sight as, “One of my proudest achievements☝️”

In amongst all the bouldering/sport climbing action Italian all-rounder, Jacopo Larcher, made the third ascent of Meltdown (5.14c/F8c+) in Yosemite, one of the world’s hardest trad climbs.

French climber, Nolwen Berthier, got stuck into the Red River Gorge classics as part of her trip with other Patagonia athletes coming away with an on-sight of the Motherlode classic, Omaha Beach (5.14a/F8b+).

However, surely the best-in-class in November was notched up by South Korean climber Chaehyun Seo. Anyone who has watched Chaehyun Seo climb in a lead competition can’t possibly have failed to be impressed with her super smooth, technical and yet powerful climbing style. Blending all this together Chaehyun Seo hit amazing form in Spain firstly repeating La Rambla (F9a+), Siurana and then on-sighting L’atangonista (F8c) at Monstant. Her ascent of La Rambla, only the second-ever ascent by a female climber, and her on-sight of L’atangonista puts Seo right up there with the best female climbers at the current time.

Click here for more on Seo’s Spanish trip.

December

Belgian Simon Lorenzi got the fourth ascent of the in-vogue Swiss bloc, Alphane (Font 9A). As things stand at the moment, Lorenzi becomes the second boulderer after Shawn Raboutou to climb more than a single Font 9A; previously Lorenzi made the FA of Soudain seul (Font 9A) in Fontainebleau.

Boswell and Robertson kick off the 2022/23 Scottish winter season with an incredible pair of hard new routes; The Nhilist (IX 9) and Vortex (X 10).

                                  

The Nihilist had previously repulsed the efforts of various parties but the experience of Boswell and Robertson proved overbearing and, despite it being their first outing of the 2022/23 season, the pair knocked out the first winter ascent giving thin, pumpy and technical climbing. Just days later the pair were back in action again, this time making the FWA of Vortex (X 10). A four-pitch route, Vortex climbs the main roof system which slices Cul Mor at about 1/3^rd height. The pair had to deal with some pretty poor weather conditions – high winds and spindrift – as well as the obvious difficulties of the route.  Greg Boswell with all his audacious ascents has demonstrated throughout 2022 that he is without any doubt one of the leading proponents of the winter game right up there at the very front of the pack in every aspect of the genre.

Click here to read more about what makes Greg tick when pushing it out on the hill.