DUBLIN, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) - I’ve woken up to a set of camera phone photos, one from each summit in the first 7.5hrs of the first Wicklow round attempt. Aisling also sent me her proposed summit times for the route - and very cleverly turned on timestamps on the photos, so I’ll now attempt to analyse their progress for you…

Times are in +/- minutes ahead/behind schedule.

Start 2.00am +0
Kippure +2
Carrigvore +2
Gravale +40
Duff Hill +41
East Top +37
Mullaghcleevaun +38
Moanbane +43
Silsean +45

Lets hope they can claw back time over the route. I understand they have some contingency at the end, but it’ll be tough not slipping more time. I reckon with daylight now, we may get some reductions coming in.

View the first 10 summit photos. Currently no word since 0705hrs, I would expect them to have reached table mountain. Possibly no MMS signal.

-Robin-

Image credit: Aisling & Tony on Summit of East Top 0543hrs this morning.

DUBLIN, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) - Our fellow TGU blogger Aisling has just sent the first live moblog photo from the start line of their Wicklow Round attempt. This is the very first attempt to complete this route in under 24hrs. TGU Eoin will be marshaling one of the night-time summits so hopefully we’ll get some further updates from the event.

What is the Wicklow Round? See Route Map.

The Wickow Round is a long distance run covering 27 peaks in Wicklow. It totals over 100K and over 6,000M climb. It is governed and ratified by the Irish Mountain Running Association.

Visit Aisling’s Moblog for live updates.

-Robin-

Open A
Name 10s 7s 4s Bonus Total
—- —————— — — — —– —–
1 Harry Fogg 14 1 0 4 151
1 Lukas Depta 14 1 0 4 151
3 Pierre Fuentes 13 2 1 1 149
4 Rikky Young 12 2 1 4 142
5 John Harrison 12 1 1 6 137

Female
Name 10s 7s 4s Bonus Total
—- —————— — — — —– —–
1 Hannah Fogg 12 0 0 5 125
2 Anna Cronin 11 1 0 6 123
3 Claire Doran 9 1 0 8 105
4 Sonia Fuhrmann 2 1 0 15 42
5 Tanja Gerber 3 0 0 7 37

Junior
Name 10s 7s 4s Bonus Total
—- —————— — — — —– —–
1 Daniel Casey 9 2 3 3 119
2 Thomas Magiure 7 4 0 9 107
3 Brendan Williamson 6 2 0 17 91
4 Stephen Rogers 6 0 1 11 75
5 Paul Gartland 4 1 0 15 62

Male B
Name 10s 7s 4s Bonus Total
—- —————— — — — —– —–
1 Derek Keegan B 13 0 0 5 135
2 Stefan Andexer B 11 2 0 7 131
3 Philip Harnett B 11 2 0 5 129
4 Juan O Raw B 11 1 0 4 121
5 Robert Tierney B 9 2 1 6 114

Full results

Come on readers! This is a reminder: We need all the votes you can muster!

That’s right. 3 days of voting left and we’ve logged 1100 votes so far. If the voting patterns do not change as the week goes on then I think we’re in for some major shocks. Phone a friend, talk to the local media, leaflet your neighbourhood, guerilla market, but get the public out to vote for you. But remember one vote per person!

LONDON, DUBLIN, NEW YORK & WHISTLER (Geared Up Blog) - We were a nominee last year but came away with nothing. This year we need to rally the troops to vote us through.

We’ve been short listed for both “Best Group Blog”, “Best Sports & Recreation Blog” & “Best Designed Blog” at the Irish Blog Awards. If you’d like to help us - please vote for us by following these instructions. It takes 20 seconds - please do it!

1. Go to http://www.awards.ie/vote/
2. Enter your name etc.
3. Scroll Down for ‘Best Group Blog‘ select “Team Geared Up”.
4. Scroll Down for ‘Best Designed Blog‘ select “Team Geared Up”.
5. Scroll Down for ‘Best Sports & Recreation Blog‘ select “Team Geared Up”.
6. Check the ‘I have checked my nominations’ tickbox
7. Click Submit
8. Pat yourself on your back knowing you were part of our winning campaign! Cheers!

Voting closes this week - so please, don’t wait!

Thanks from all of us.

DUBLIN (Geared Up Blog) - Marko Prezelj and Boris Lorencic have won the Piolet d’Or this year for the first ascent of the Northwest Pillar of Chomo Lhari (c. 7,314m) in the Himalayas, Tibet. Read a full report of the climb here. Marko Prezelj is the only man to have won the award twice, as he picked up the ‘Golden Axe’ back in 1991 which was the inaugral year of the award. He won it back then for a 3000m ascent of the South Pillar of Kanchenjunga south summit, 8476m (Himalaya) with Andrej Stremfelj.

The Piolet d’Or award is an annual mountaineering award which has been given by the French magazine Montagnes and The Groupe de Haute Montagne since 1991.

The criteria for this award includes alpine climbs that involve high technical difficulty and commitment, originality in the choice of the objective, pure lightweight style and respect for the mountains. The award is chosen by a jury consisting of the editors of Montagnes magazine and officials of the The Groupe de Haute Montagne and included the recipients of last years award Americans Vince Anderson and Steve House (Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat).

Slovenian Pavle Kozjek’s solo of the Southeast Face of Cho Oyu won the “People’s Choice” award.

The 2007 Piolet d’Or was awarded on January 26, 2007 in Grenoble, France. The nominees were:

-Kazakhs Denis Urubko and Sergey Samoilov, for a new route opened in alpine style on Manaslu’s Northeast face
-Slovenian Pavle Kozjek’s solo of the Southeast Face of Cho Oyu
-Slovenians Marko Prezelj and Boris Lorencic, for the first ascent on Chomo Lhari’s Northwest pillar
-Ukrainians Igor Chaplinsky, Andrey Rodiontsev and Orest Verbitsky for a first ascent on the North ridge of Shingu Charpa
-Brits Ian Parnell and Tim Emmett for climbing the Southeast Pillar of Kedarnath Dome

DUBLIN (Geared Up Blog) - Radar & Urban Climber are holding a competition to win a bouldering mat (crash pad). All you’ve got to do is take climbing photos on your phone and upload them to Radar, a new photo sharing service.

What’s Radar?

Radar is a rapidly growing new service that is changing the way people stay in touch with their friends. Radar offers immediate sharing of cameraphone pictures and videos between friends, and it works on any PC and any phone with internet access.

Go here

We will let you know if the event is going ahead as planned below!

Hi all,

We, DCU Rock Climbing Club are trying to raise E5000 to get our wall upgraded. We were thinking of holding a competition, similar to the IBL, in order to help raise funds. All proceeds will go towards the wall upgrade. However the only date we can have before Christmass would be the 9th of December.

I have set up a poll in the forum section of climbing.ie if you would like to vote to give us some idea of interest.
And also would it be too soon after the Cork IBL for people to want to attend?
If anyone has further questions or ideas feel free to contact me.

Regards,
Nicole Quinn
DCU Rock Climbing Club

Nike Powerblast have been crowned champions once again. Only 2 teams have finished thus far with the rest of the teams having until july 4th to complete the course. IrishAR Inov-8 have moved up the leaderboard to 34th place after 89 teams began the event. The team have 2 to 3 more days of racing ahead of them and Gearedup wish them the best of luck in trying to finish this demanding course.

Moab, Utah – After more than five days battling the desert conditions of Southeastern Utah, team Nike PowerBlast was the first to cross the finish line at this year’s Primal Quest expedition adventure race. At 5:45 AM MST, team Nike’s Mike Kloser, Ian Adamson, Monique Merrill and Michael Tobin crossed the finish line after nearly 500 miles of kayaking, desert trekking, mountain biking, river swimming, horseback riding and rock climbing.

The race, commonly regarded as the most difficult in the world, began on June 25th at 6:20 a.m. in the desert south of Elmo, Utah with competitors atop horses. The 89 co-ed teams representing 20 nations then began an epic traverse of some of the most challenging and desolate terrain in North America, traveling day and night; Team Nike slept a total of 13 hours in their 143 of competition.

“It was more like adventure torture, “said Michael Tobin, as Team GoLite/Timberland dogged Nike until the finish line, arriving less than 45 minutes behind.

“We had to persevere and push like no other,” said team captain, Michael Kloser, teammate Ian Adamson noted that it was an “amazing, amazing course.”

This year’s Primal Quest took athletes through many of Utah’s majestic landmarks including, Gemini Bridges, the slickrock of Moab and the towering rock spires of Castle Rock, the Rectory, and the Priest and Nuns. Teams ascended and rappelled over eight miles of rope during the race, a massive and record-breaking undertaking by race directors. Due to the harsh climate, 15,000 gallons of water and over 1,800 cases of Gatorade (more than the inventory supplied to the major college Bowl Games & Super Bowl combined) were placed at strategic water stations throughout the course.

This afternoon in Lahinch, Co.Clare, the world surfing record was broken - i.e. the greatest number of surfers on the same wave. The previous record was 42, and as you can see from the shot above, there’s nearly fifty surfers ‘hanging ten’ on this wave (which was the one declared the record-breaker). Well, it was actually Hector O hEochogain, the garrulous MC of the event, that declared it a record - he was standing beside the nice lady from the Guiness Book of Records roaring into her ear, and I think she would have said anything to get him to stop, well, hectoring her.