“Contrary to all the reports: I am okay,” Thomas Huber writes on Facebook. “I had 1000 guardian angels.” According to the website bgland24.de, the 49-year-old German top climber fell 20 meters deep from a rock wall on the Brendlberg in the Berchtesgaden region in Bavaria, when he was preparing for filming on Tuesday. Thomas meanwhile said it was a 12-meter-fall. He had opened a new route in the wall in late May. The climber was taken to the hospital of the town of Traunstein. Thomas is said to have suffered a fracture of the skull in the fall. Reportedly he was immediately operated for a blood clot.

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A sport climbing shoe on one foot, an ice shoe with crampons on the other – Ines Papert should patent this idiosyncratic technique. The German top climber recently created it in a difficult passage in the East Face of the 2800-meter-high Torre Central in Patagonia. “The pitch left me with no other choice”, says Ines. She really used all means to fight up the extremely difficult route “Riders on the Storm”: “I took my ice axes not only for climbing but for protection too.” Along with the 36-year-old New Zealander Mayan Smith-Gobat, the 41-year-old Papert succeeded the only fifth climb of the route on the granite tower which had been opened by the German climbing legends Wolfgang Guellich, Kurt Albert, Bernd Arnold, Norbert Baetz and Peter Dittrich in 1991.

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Tommy Caldwell is on a roll. The 36-year-old American and his compatriot Alex Honnold won this year’s Piolet d’Or, the “Oscar for climbers”, for their success in completing the so called “Fitz Traverse” in Patagonia, a more than five kilometers long climbing route over seven summits and some razor sharp ridges. And Tommy is a prime candidate for next year’s award too. Last January he and Kevin Jorgeson free-climbed for the first time the extremely difficult about 900-meter-high route Dawn Wall on El Capitan in Yosemite – a real milestone in big wall climbing. I talked to Tommy about both climbs.

Tommy, you and Alex Honnold were awarded the Piolet d’Or for succeeding the Fitz Traverse in Patagonia. How did you experience this outstanding climb?

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One of the most extreme among the extreme athletes is dead. The 43-year-old American Dean Potter died in a wingsuit accident in Yosemite National Park, his 29-year- old compatriot Graham Hunt too. Both had jumped from Taft Point, an almost 2,300-meter-high view point on Saturday. Their bodies were found near a notch in a rocky ridgeline on Sunday morning. Obviously both crashed into a rock. Basejumping and wingsuit flights are prohibited in Yosemite National Park.

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Austria is mourning another of its great climbers. On Friday – the day when in Linz Edi Koblmueller was buried, who had frozen to death on a ski tour in Georgia – Albert Precht died in a climbing accident in Crete. The 67-year-old and his 68-year-old longtime climbing partner Robert Joelli fell to death, when they were climbing the Kapsa Wall in the Pervolakia Gorge. The cause of the accident is still unclear. Precht had traveled with his wife and friends from his hometown Bischofshofen to the Greek island where he regularly spent climbing holidays for years.

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A milestone in the granite of El Capitan in Yosemite! After 19 days the US climbers Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson reached the top of the extremely difficult, about 900-meter-high Dawn Wall after having climbed it free for the first time. They made climbing history. “I hope it inspires people to find their own Dawn Wall, if you will. We’ve been working on this thing a long time, slowly and surely”, 30-year-old Jorgesan said according to the New York Times. “I think everyone has their own secret Dawn Wall to complete one day, and maybe they can put this project in their own context.” As reported, it had taken Kevin seven days alone to master the extremely difficult 15th of 32 pitches of the route. “I think the larger audience’s conception is that we’re thrill seekers out there for an adrenaline rush. We really aren’t at all. It’s about spending our lives in these beautiful places and forming these incredible bonds”, 36-year-old Caldwell said. “For me, I love to dream big, and I love to find ways to be a bit of an explorer.” Tommy is climbing with only nine full fingers.

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It’s easy to jump on a train that is already standing in the station. However, the climbing train of Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson is still rolling. Pull by pull by pull towards the summit of the legendary granite rock El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. Since 27 December, for two weeks and a half now, the two Americans climb and hang in the 900-meter-high, mostly vertical, partly overhanging “Dawn Wall” – so named, because the South-East face of El Cap catches the first sunrays in the morning. Caldwell and Jorgeson are well on the way to free climbing the extremely challenging big wall for the first time. Means: They only use ropes, bolts, nuts or friends to avoid falling, not for climbing. Actually, don’t count your chickens before they hatch. But in this special case I do it and and take my hat off to Tommy and Kevin by now.

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One of the best German female climbers has passed away. Marietta Uhden died of cancer at the age of 46 years during the night from Sunday to Monday. She had fought against the dreadful disease for years. Born in Munich, Marietta did gymnastics during her childhood. She was already 20 years old when she began sport climbing. The successes came quickly. In 1993, Uhden won her first of twelve German championships (ten in lead, two in bouldering). She became bronze medalist (lead) at the World Championships 1997 and, in 2000, the first German female sports climber who won the Boulder World Cup. In 2005, the “Steffi Graf of German sport climbing”, as Marietta was once called, ended her competitive career and turned to rock climbing again. “I love to go climbing out in nature,  to get along with a few things and to spend the night in the open”, Uhden then said in an interview. She set standards in rock climbing too: for instance in 2001, when she was the first woman worldwide to open a new route in the eleventh degree of difficulty (US 5.14b): “Sun in the Heart” in the Bavarian Alps. Marietta leaves behind her husband and a nearly five year old daughter. R.I.P.

A little danger is good for business, but not too much. So the decision of the US company Clif Bar can be summarized to stop the sponsoring of the top climbers Alex Honnold, Dean Potter, Steph Davis, Cedar Wright and Timmy O’Neill. “Over a year ago, we started having conversations internally about our concerns with B.A.S.E. jumping, highlining and free-soloing”, Clif bar said. “We concluded that these forms of the sport are pushing boundaries and taking the element of risk to a place where we as a company are no longer willing to go.” In the climbing scene, the decision of the energy bar manufacturer has triggered an intense debate about how much influence sponsors may have.

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