The Unified Bouldering Championships Pro Tour at the 2010 Outdoor Retailer Summer Market

The UBC PRO TOUR IS BIG, BAD AND BACK! This Summer, the marquee event of the North American professional bouldering calendar, the Unified Bouldering Championships Pro tour lands in Salt Lake City August 2^nd & 3^rd 2010 for the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market (ORSM). The best pro climbers in the world will compete for a $10,000 cash purse on the biggest stage in climbing.

Presented by returning partner Eastern Mountain Sports, and a new partner in The North Face, the 2010 UBC Pro Tour at ORSM will continue to elevate the sport of bouldering as the highpoint of the biggest industry gathering of the year. Consistent with the NE2C Productions spirit of innovation, the event will continue to break new ground for professional climbing in North America, being broadcast live online on Tuesday August 3^rd With Pro Semi-Finals at 9am MST/ 11am EST and Pro Finals at 7:30pm MST/9pm EST at http://video.boulderingcomps.com! Climbers from around the world can tune in to catch the action live as it unfolds.

Since 2007, NE2C Productions has brought events to ORSM that continue to raise the bar for bouldering. “Our event at the ORSM has always been the highpoint of the competition season for us and every year the top athletes do something more ludicrous than we ever thought possible. Seeing Daniel Woods finally break through in 2009 after two straight years of Chris Sharma showing everyone why he’s the best was an amazing moment and we’re honestly just giddy at the thought of what’s going to go down in 2010,” says Pete Ward, Managing Partner of NE2C. “I’m getting stoked just thinking about it.”

For More Videos Check Out http://www.vimeo.com/prAna

We are excited to announce the newest member of the prAna family, Sasha DiGiulian!

Sasha brings her considerable talent to a world class team that already includes Chris Sharma, Steph Davis, Dean Potter, Alex Puccio and Paul Robinson among others. She will have a wealth of experience to draw from while she blazes her own path in climbing and in life. Sasha recently returned triumphant from the Pan-American Championships in Quito, Ecuador where she placed 1st in Sport-Climbing and 2nd in Bouldering. Her overall performance was impressive enough to win the women’s overall crown (sport, bouldering and speed composite)! Here is what she had to say about her latest accomplishment…

(Recently) the first ever pan-American Championships took place in Quito, Ecuador. Climbers from North America and South America vied for the Continental title in sport climbing, speed, and bouldering.

Magnus (my boyfriend/coach) and I arrived in Ecuador a few days prior to the competition in order to acclimate (at least a little). We ran and did circuits at the local climbing gym for 2 days before taking 2 days rest before the competition. Unfortunately, within the days before the comp started I caught some bad food or water sickness despite being overly cautious about the Ecuadorian water, so that was a bit of a set back, but with the help of antibiotics from my doctor, I was psyched to compete!

The games kicked off with sport climbing. Thursday morning, May 20, were qualifiers and in the afternoon semifinals. Qualifiers consisted of one route, flash-format, and me along with 2 other women flashed the route. Later on in the day were semifinals, which was onsight format. I was the only one of the women to send the route, which placed me in top spot going into finals. The next day lead finals took place in the morning. The top 8 women and men advanced from semifinals and each category (men and women) had 1 route to onsight within a 7-minute time frame. I was the only woman to send the route, which ensured my victory.

The routes were well set with the incorporation of cool features and pretty much all so-ill holds. I was psyched to see that the route setters had been working hard towards putting on a good competition and the wall was pretty fit for the setters to be creative with. The blue outside wall was about 20-23 meters with varying angles, primarily pretty overhung, so the routes were in general quite endurance-oriented. I also got pretty out of breath due to Quito’s high elevation (roughly 9,000 or 10,000 feet) because despite being there a few days prior to the competition, I live at sea level and am not used to being so high up!

Following lead finals was the speed competition in which I participated in for probably my second time ever doing speed, just for the points to qualify for the overall standing award. I don’t ever train speed and personally don’t have any interest in it, but I was especially impressed by how fast the Venezuelan team was! I placed dead last in speed but that was no surprise – I just climbed up the jug-hall vertical wall as a sort of cool down in preparation for the bouldering round that was to commence the next morning.

The bouldering competition was well run and went very quickly and efficiently. In qualifiers each category (men and women) had 5 different boulders with 5 minutes for each one, then the top 6 of this round advanced to finals the next morning. Finals consisted of 4 boulders, 5 minutes each. Fellow American Francesca Metcalf climbed very well in bouldering and took first place! I followed in second.

At the end of the championship, a nice award ceremony closed the events. I was awarded 2 golds (sport-climbing and combined) and 1 silver (bouldering). Also – team USA with only Francesca and me took bronze for the women’s team award, which was kind of surprising! I wish that more Americans could have come and competed in the Championships as well, and hopefully next time there will be better notice beforehand about the date and location.

Overall, the pan-American Championships were successfully run and a great experience. I enjoy traveling and experiencing new cultures, and along with the competition, we had time to tour around a little and experience Ecuador. Besides my mom’s camera being stolen mid-trip, my visit to Ecuador was great!

We look forward to great things from Sasha and you can find out more about her HERE.

My passion for climbing started as soon as I stepped into my first real climbing shoes, I knew that this is my sport.

I grew up in the middle of the Swiss mountains in a valley called Prattigau. After finishing high school, finding no solid direction in normal life I decided to leave the “routine” and chose to continue my life as a climber. My desire to practice this sport with all its facets was so strong, that I was able to overcome all the obstacles that I came across to pursue my lifestyle.

Besides rock climbing and mountaineering I also spent time competing. During this time, I learned a lot how I have to train and what I have to do, to become a stronger climber. This made me become an even stronger rock-climber, quickly making it possible for me to red-point
my first 8b route.

After a while, I lost the motivation for competitions and I started to concentrate more and more on what was for me pure rock climbing. I traveled all around the world and climbed on all kinds of  rocks. From big wall climbing in Patagonia and Kirgizstan to boulder trips in Argentina. From deep water soloing in Thailand to sport  climbing all around Europe and America. All these experiences and all these different styles of rock climbing gave so much practice, that it made me the well rounded climber I am now.

Through all these experiences as a rock climber, I found my big challenge: I want to climb the hardest multi-pitch routes in the world. To be able to climb a hard multi-pitch route in one day, that is my goal and what I am searching for.

Routes like Supramonte, 300m 8b, ‘Ultime démence’, 5 pitches 8a+ or ‘la Ramirole’, 5 pitches 8b, are the most beautiful successes in my climbing life.

I love my ‘non-system’ life. To be able to decide myself how I  will earn my money, where I will live, when I will get up in the morning, to do what I need to do to survive and most importantly: to enjoy every single day, with the least amount of seriousness as possible and to climb to my very best!

Welcome Nina and we are sure you will find many more beautiful lines in the years to come! For more information on Nina, check out her website here.

Dean Potter is characterized by creativity, commitment and challenge. He started climbing as a child, with a free solo fall from a stone wall as one of his earliest memories. Since that time, he has speed soloed Half Dome and El Capitan, Cerro Torre, and Fitzroy. He was the first to make a one-day free ascent of El Cap and Half Dome, and a one-day speed linkup of both of those big walls and Mount Watkins, Yosemites third Grade VI wall. He has also established testpiece crack routes in the Utah desert and highball boulder problems in Yosemite.

Dean has walked the longest highlines, often without a safety leash, though he has dedicated over a decade of engineering and testing to create the safest highline systems currently used. Most recently, he has combined BASE jumping skill with highlining and free soloing, using a specially engineered ultralight BASE rig as his backup system.

Dean currently bases out of Yosemite, where he can usually be found on a large piece of granite.

For videos, photos and more information on Dean, visit http://bit.ly/DeanPotterTags.

UPDATE: The event will be broadcast live from http://www.thespotgym.com

This May 14th and 15th The Spot Gym will be hosting Boulder‘s biggest and MOST FUN bouldering comp “Battle in the Bubble“. This comp will be unique and exciting in several ways. The finals will be held outdoors at the Boulder Reservoir on a giant new wall designed by Walltopia. Because this comp is not affiliated with any governing organizations of competitive climbing, the Spot has put together a Fresh and more Audience Friendly format that will culminate with a “First Ascent” battle between the two top climbers. Best of all this will be more than a comp with a very Festival Like atmosphere that is ABSOLUTELY FREE for all spectators!!! Some of the best competitive climbers in the U.S. live in Boulder and will be at the comp, including Alex Puccio and Daniel Woods, so you should definitely try to catch what will be the most original and fun comp of the year. The Spot has a reputation for putting on some of the coolest comps in the country, and this is their magnum opus!

Click HERE to Register!

Toni just checked in with us about his latest trip to Sintra, Portugal…

Our trip to Portugal was amazing: friendly people, nice weather, nice landscape, nice rock, nice projects and a foot that can stand hard bouldering again! After our trip to Sagrez in the south of Portugal around Christmas I got an invitation by local climber Fred da Silva to Lisboa. After he sent me some pictures I was persuaded! The rock looked like a mixture between Joshua Tree and Black Mountains. And we were not dissapointed! The first day we got introduced into the Lisboa boulder-scene, which welcomed us with open arms and minds. They all got not tired while showing us all their juveniles. Especially Fred turned out to be the perfect guide, because he totally knew, what was good for us (city, beach, climbs).

The first week we checked out a lot of places, climbed with locals and with a big group of spanish strongmen and I got back into serious bouldering after my injury and a two month rest. Soon motivated by the scene and the rock I did even a few new lines (Zagalot, Nailbiter) in the upper “7th”-range! While “Zagalot” (an old project) turned out to be a power-full-body-extension-compression boulder (check out the video), the “Nailbiter” occured to be a crazy jump that cost me a lot of skin…hahaha!

To resume the trip is easy: We’re having a very good time, being part of a still virgin bouldering community (that will grow fast), enjoying nice restdays on the beach and in the streets of Lisboa. And when we had to leave, it felt the best! But I found a good, hard line on the last day, so I’m shure that it won’t be the last time, that I’ll visit “Sintra” at it beautifull rocks.

Toni

All pictures by Margit Memminger

For more on Toni check out his blog, Antonator

Carrie keeps getting it done. v11 soon…?