General news

First up is the bad news. It looks like Scott's Extreme Dream wall in Aviemore is downsizing it's climbing facilities. This is big shame for all those that live locally and use the wall regularly. This used to be me not so long ago, so I'm as gutted as anyone. The wall will still be open though, and hopefully the move will allow Extreme Dream the enterprise to thrive in the future.

On the flip side I heard from Pete Hill that the enthusiasm for drytooling is slowly building around the UK. Pete has been organising a number of events recently to raise awareness of the discipline. It seems like he's having some success, so hopefully the drytooling scene will expand in the future. It would be great to see more folks and more venues involved in the drytooling series next winter.

On the continent all the reports hint at this winter being much better than last. Ice conditions have been good in a lot of major areas over the last month or so. Will Gadd and Tim Emmett climbed a line on the back wall of Helmcken falls in Canada. Making full use of the sprayed on blobs of soft ice that litter the cave. Only 2 people as mad as them would come up with such an idea, but fair play it does look like a lot of fun. And in Austria, Albert Leichtfried's WI 7-8 testpiece 'Centercourt' that he climbed several weeks ago has been repeated by 2 other Austrian's. And they have confirmed the grade. Meaning... ice climbing is far from dead (as some people like to speculate) and is still being pushed forward by climbers at the top level.