Round up....

Well, quite a bit appears to have happened recently, both in the UK and overseas.
Here is a brief round up of the some of the latest goings on.

1. Dave Macleod & Tim Emmett find success on their, 'Great Climb' project which was broadcast live on BBC2 Scotland last Saturday.
The duo named the super hard route, 'Unusual suspects' which tackles the huge overhang of Sron Uladail on the Isle of Harris, the overhang apparently is the largest in the UK!
The edited version of the, 'Great Climb' can be seen here on the BBC iplayer until Sept 4th.
Also visit Dave Macleods blog for his thoughts and photos.

2. Dani Andrada's 5.15b sit-start extension to Alí Hulk in the Alí Baba cave in Rodellar, Spain, has been repeated by  Norwegian climber Magnus Midtbö.

The route gets a grade of 9b and with only a handful of sport routes grade, its a huge achievement and a big tick in the sport climbing world.

More here: http://www.climbing.com/news/hotflashes/midtboe_repeats_515b_in_spain/

Here is an awesome video of Dani Andrada climbing Ali-Hulk 9b

3. Oh Eun-Sun, the first women to climb all 14, 8000m peaks has been stripped of her title due to unreliable evidence. The title will now be handed to Spanish climber Edurne Pasaban, 37, who scaled the last of the 14 peaks over 8,000 meters barely three weeks after Miss Oh claimed to have completed the list.

The pair received a substantial amount of media attention during the, 'race' to claim the title, I imagine these latest findings will certainly add to that!

Read more here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/southkorea/7967960/First-woman-to-climb-worlds-highest-peaks-stripped-of-title.html

4. A new Gouter Refuge on Mont Blanc is in planning and due to be built by 2012.
The new structure is to be built 200m further south than the existing building, and is set to have a 3 times larger surface area. Also 'guests' will be treated to a single mattress, rather than sharing, which is the norm in the majority of alpine refuges.
The Gouter hut is perched high on the Gouter ridge, the most popular way up Mont Blanc, and is obviously vastly popular, if the new hut will change the, 'general' feeling to a night's stay at the Gouter hut is another question!

                                                   Artists impression of the new Gouter hut

5. It looks like the weather over in the Alps, or more precisely, Chamonix, continues to be very unstable this year. It seems that huge amounts of snow continue to be deposited, and the weather in general is pretty hard to predict.
Here is a round-up of the latest going's on from the Chamonix valley:
http://www.alpinerob.com/alpine-blog.php

Ponderland...

Well, its still only a fortnight since I broke my foot, (calcaneus) and the improvement is huge.
The first few days after it happened I was pretty immobile, and my foot resembled something seen on the end of an elephants leg. Now is a different story, the swelling has almost gone and I have progressed to just using a single crutch.  I would have thought it will be a few weeks yet until I can walk, and a few more again until i am back climbing.
Just hope its in time for the start of the winter season! I am sure I will soon get my fitness back with them walk in's!
Given the period of time I have had of work injured, and being sat on my arse, I have kept my sanity & avoided day time TV in the only way possible....
Digging out the winter guidebooks!
Yep, a few pages have been folded over and certain routes bookmarked, all in anticipation.
After visiting the brilliant Church Door Buttress on Bidean nam Bian earlier in the year with James Thacker, I am kean to get on the interesting West Chimney  & also Deep Cut Chimney on Coire nam Beith.

With myself aiming towards goals for the winter, (hopefuly!) here's a video showing some climbing at the highest level that the highlands have right now...

Azazel

Azazel is the story of 4 friends who go to Pakistan to put up a new route on the Trango Pulpit, a 6000m peak. They spent 20 days on the wall and it’s a great story of friendship. Featuring, Yann Mimet, Martial Dumas, Sam Beaugey and Jean-Yves Fredriksen.
Make time to give this a watch, pretty inspiring stuff!!