2022 Round-Up: Part 1 (January to June)
- Thursday 29th December 2022
With some staggering performances across the pistes, 2022 has seen British climbers standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their international counterparts. In this first part of the 2022 Round-Up we canter through the news we reported online at Climber Magazine looking at the news as it unfolded throughout the first half of the year.
January
Rock news in January was dominated by news of two young crushers - Chinese youngster Ziheng Qiu and USA star Bayes Wilder. Ziheng Qiu became the youngest ever climber – of either gender – to climb 5.14a/F8b+ when she redpointed China Climb at White Mountain. For his part 10-year-old Bayes Wilder sent Barefoot on Scared Ground at Font 8A+.
Winter climbing in the Alps often involves some remarkable stories - in this instance, the first winter solo of Rolling Stones on Grandes Jorasses by French mountain guide Charles Dubouloz. Dubouloz climbed the route over six days between January 13th and January 18th enduring temperatures as low as -30 degs before descending down to Courmayeur after having five bivouacs on the route. He reported that his hands and feet had been affected by frostbite during his ascent but he says “it could be worse.” Originally, the first winter ascent was made over a five-day period in February 1984 by French alpinists Benoît Grison and Eric Grammond; subsequently, Slovenian alpinists, Luka Krajnc and Luka Lindič made the first free winter ascent in March 2014.
Click here for more on Dubouloz’s ascent.
February
Reacting to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the IFSC suspended the proposed Boulder and Speed World Cup events due to be held in early April in Moscow.
Away from the Ukraine conflict, the big mountaineering news was that Sébastien Ratel, Leo Billon, and Benjamin Védrines, members of the elite Chamonix High Mountain Military Group (GMHM), completed their daunting project of climbing the three great Alpine Directtissima routes on the three north faces in winter; the Harlin Route – the so-called Eiger Direct – on the Eiger, the Directe de l'Amitié on the Grandes Jorasses and then finally, the Gogna-Cerruti on the Matterhorn.
Having climbed the Eiger Direct over a four-day period in mid-January, the trio then followed this with a three-day ascent of the Directe de l'Amitié. Finally, they completed their audacious project in early February climbing Gogna-Cerruti in the narrowest of weather windows prior to an incoming storm.
Click here for more on that story.
March
On home rock, Franco Cookson made headlines with the third ascent of The Meltdown (F8c+/9a) in Twll Mawr; doubly impressive given that his hardest previous sport route had been F8a! Cookson went on to make an impressive stream of ascents in the spring; more of which anon.
Whilst Adam Ondra popped up once again to make the news – in this case with the first ascent of Wonderland (F9b/+).
However, pride of place in March went to Hazel Findlay when she became the second British female climber to climb F9a with an ascent of Esclatamasters at Perles, Spain.
Click here for more on Hazel’s ascent.
April
Franco Cookson’s purple patch continued with ascents of The Sandman (E10 7a), Meltdown Extension (F9a) and Hold Fast, Hold True (E10, 7a).
However, April’s news headlines were dominated by Will Bosi who returned to the forefront of hard climbing with a remarkable series of ascents. Accepting an invitation to climb with Adam Ondra in the Czech Republic, Bosi stepped up his bouldering game with an uber impressive Font 8B+ flash on Charizard (Font 8B+), a Martin Stranik line at Brno to become the second British climber to flash a bloc of that grade after Ned Feehally who had previously flashed Trust Issues in Rocklands in 2017. As if that wasn’t enough Bosi went on to climb a number of Font 8C’s that month including making the first ascent of Bulbasaur (Font 8C).
Click here for more on Will’s time in the Czech Republic.
May
May typically will see Kenton Cool summiting Everest; his ascent this year – his 16th – gave him the most ascents of any non-Sherpa mountaineer.
With the domestic rock season well and truly underway, there was no shortage of news items making headlines. In the far-flung reaches of Orkney, Robbie Phillips and Alex Moore repeated Longhope Direct (E10) on Hoy. Also making trad news was Matt Wright who snatched the fourth ascent, the first of 2022, of Lexicon (E11) on Pavey Ark; remarkably, Wright – although an accomplished sport climber with F9a under his belt – was a relative newcomer to trad climbing.
Sport climbing news came from Malham when UK-based Basque climber, Eder Lomba, made the second ascent of Steve McClure’s Rainman (F9b). As Britain’s hardest sport route, Lomba’s success only came after considerable effort and training during which he specifically trained to rest in what McClure had considered a super marginal knee bar.
However, the news of Seb Boiun’s eventual success on DNA (F9c) at Ramirole in the Verdon was undoubtedly the main news of the month. Concentrating exclusively on the world’s hardest rock routes Bouin confirmed that his ascent of DNA had taken him some 250 redpoint attempts over 150 days. DNA joined Silence as the only other sport route worldwide currently thought to be F9c.
Click here for more on Seb’s tenacious ascent.
June
Will Bosi’s rampage continued with yet more hard blocs including the first ascent of Trance (Font 8C), the sit start to Bewilderness (Font 8B+) at Badger Cove and the second ascent of Outliers (Font 8C), Aidan Robert’s desperate addition in the South Lakes.
Over at Malham, young Josh Ibbertson got the third ascent of Rainman (F9b). Having worked Rainman with Eder Lomba, it was a thoroughly deserved conclusion to a lengthy campaign; impressively Josh was in the midst of taking his A-level exams when he made the third ascent!
James Pearson stepped into the limelight once again with an unconventional if super impressive repeat of Lexicon. Without the safety of a top-roped inspection, something which all previous ascensionists had used, James’ fifth ascent was made ground-up, albeit after abseil inspection. Given the right route, Pearson’s ascent suggests that a super-hard trad on-sight or flash is coming! Currently, Steve McClure’s on-sight of Nightmayer (E8 6c) is the hardest on-sight achieved on a UK trad route.
Our ‘pick of the month’ however goes to Max Milne, a.k.a. ‘Max The Future’ for taking the silver medal – his first ever IFSC Bouldering World Cup medal – at Brixen, Italy. Max’s thoroughly deserved podium finish was the first time a British (non-para climber) had medalled since Andy Earl podiumed in La Reunion in 2007. The 22-year-old from Aberdeen also had two eighth-place finishes in the year; his efforts throughout the year earned him a super impressive sixth-place finish overall in the World Cup bouldering rankings. With qualification for the 2024 Paris Olympics just around the corner, Max has also spent the year competing in Lead World Cup gaining more experience in that equally demanding event.
Click here for more on Max’s medal-winning performance.
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Catch our second and final sprint through the Climber news - the highlights from July to December - here