Mallorca DWS season is here!!!

For many of you, September is the time to start heading out to Mallorca for some ‘deep water soloing’.

This year is extra special, due to the fact that the guide ‘Mallorca - Deep Water Soloing - Second edition’ will be hitting the digital download store at RockFax, in the next couple of weeks. Unfortunately, due to publication time frames at RockFax, the guide will not be available for September 1^st . (UPDATE: Now Spring 2008....)

If you happen to be in Mallorca for the first two weeks in September, then there is an opportunity to obtain a beta copy of the new guide! If you want to try your luck at getting a free guide then please pop along to:

Cala Marcal on Monday 3^rd September at 14:00.

The second date is:

Cala Barques on Sunday 9^th September at 13:00 (around the ‘Cova Area’)

Just ask for Daimon.

Mike Robertson’s ‘Deep Water’ Guide also covers ‘Cala Barques’, ‘Cala Marcal’ and ‘Porto Cristo’.

PHOTOS: (C) Daimon Beail, Adam Lincoln, Andrew Chapman and RockFax.

New 8a+ 'Cutlass' at Berry Head, Devon

Last week Neil Gresham pushed the UK's hardest DWS grade up to 8a+.

'Cutlass' (which Neil has named the route) was originally climbed on top rope by Ken Palmer, but never soloed. Some time after, Mike Robertson pointed out the line to Neil and explained its history. Neil returned to Berry Head in August this year to begin working the route in a traditional manner. No top roping, just ground up attempts. On Monday 13^th August, after four days of effort and 13 tries, Neil finally put the whole thing together to deliver a cutting edge 8a+.

This is what Neil had to say about the route:
“ ‘Cutlass' lies above the start of 'Rainbow Bridge' at Berry Head in Devon. It can be reached easily by a short traverse and is not too high (40 feet in total). The climbing is very steep, bouldery and the moves become increasingly difficult the higher you go, with the crux being the second to last move. Grading this line is tricky because it's quite short. It certainly felt harder than the 'Wizard', 'Jaws' or even 'Adrenachrome' (other semi-established 8a Deep Water Solos), as well as classic 8a sport routes like 'Cider Soak' and 'Rain Dogs'. If V9 bouldering equates to 8a+ then I guess that is what the route should be graded."

Luckily for us, the whole thing was captured on film by award winning film maker Richard Heap, who was there filming the final stages of ‘Hard XS’, which is due out later this year!

Photo: Neil Gresham on 'Cutless' F8a+, Devon
(c) Richard Heap.

DWS in Western Australia: by Peter Church

Our representative, Peter Church from ‘down under’ has sent us some information regarding his local DWS venue in Perth, 'Blackwall Reach'

‘This is the only DWS area in Perth, Western Australia. This is a small limestone crag by the river Swan and most problems involve traversing, with some opportunity for climbing up to 7m height on steep and sometimes overhanging walls. One of the challenges of the area however is the 3m roof, which starts in the cave. The easiest line through the roof is about grade 18 and is called Splashdown. The whole crag is about 200 m long and broken into many sections. It is possible to traverse the whole area at medium to low tide.’

Peter has also mentioned that a small scene is developing down there. Check out this cool little video on youtube.

DWS festival 2007 after party video

Here is a short video of the after party that was made a few weeks back. Also check out the article at DWSWORLD. 

 

Is Tombstoning threatening the future of DWS?

Tombstoning, or jumping off cliffs, has been in the news a lot recently, and the issue has been causing some major friction in the climbing community.

Tombstoning is a separate entity entirely to Deep Water Soloing. But this is not to say that the two are not considered related -- at least by some government officials in the U.S. and the U.K.

Recently there has been a major incident in the U.K. at Durdle Door in Dorset (See the BBC report), and in the U.S, Tombstoning has been banned from Summersville Lake in West Virginia. This has had a knock-on effect on DWS activates in the U.S as it appears to some that DWS `splashdowns' are an act of Tombstoning.

If the U.K. were to follow the officials at Summersville Lake then activities such as DWS and coastaleering could possibly see a ban in the not-too-distant future.

Fresh!! Deep Water Soloing in the South of France

It’s not the first time we have heard of the possibilities of DWS in the south of France, and it won’t be the last. For example: German filmmaker and climber Udo Neumann emailed me recently to say that he’s been out in Verdon filming and photographing DWS for his new film ‘Verdon Vertigo’. Udo, (whose work includes the fantastic ‘Psicobloc 101’ DVD) captured Anna Brenk, Frederike Förster, Markus and Daniel Jung ‘enjoying the Verdon limestone and refreshing water, where the Verdon river enters the Lac de St. Croix.

SEE THE PHOTOS HERE!!!

Image © Udo Neumann 2007

KING LINES

Those of you who are lucky enough to live in Canada and the U.S. are going to get the opportunity to attend the Reel Rock Film Tour in September. The main film this year is King Lines by Josh Lowell of Big UP Productions and Peter Mortimer of Sender Films. King Lines will feature Chris Sharma’s first ascent of Es Pontas 9a+/ 9b in Mallorca as well as Chris’s quest to find new DWS venues in Greece.

DWS in South East Asia and Christian Core visits Sardinia!!!

Two new articles to check out!!

1. First one is on Planet Fear entitled ‘Climbing in South East Asia’ by James Pearson. Lots of DWS info for you to check out!

2. Also in this month’s ‘Friction Climbing Magazine’ (Issue 16) is an article entitled ‘Between the Sea and the Earth - Christian Core visits Sardinia DWS’.