Andrew Hewitt

Tick off another 2013 FFA on one of Yosemite’s last free-climbed faces: Liberty Cap. Luke Stefurak and Ben made the second FFA of Liberty Cap last month.

Daniel Woods was back at it again in Colorado this week and made the first ascent of yet another V15, Defying Gravity, in South Platte, Colorado.

October is generally not the season for first ascents in the Everest region of Nepal, but climber Anna Pfaff and her longtime climbing and life partner Camilo Lopez travelled to the famous Khumbu region and made mountaineering history, anyway.

On November 6, 2013, Cheyne Lempe set the new solo speed record on El Cap's Salathe Wall (5.9 C2 35 pitches) in twenty hours and six minutes.

Reports of first ascents on ice just keep coming in, making this one of the most exciting autumns for alpine ice climbing in a long time. This just in,three new routes went up on Mt. Evans during October: Black and White (WI4/5, M5/6), Monochrome (WI4, M5), and Silhouette (WI 6+, M9). Update: three more FAs went down at Mt. Evans and Quandary Peak!

Temperatures may be dropping and the snow may be accumulating in the Rocky Mountains, but that hasn’t stopped Daniel Woods, who last weekend made the first sit-start ascent of The Ice Knife (V15) in Guanella Pass, Colorado. Rock and Ice got the chance to catch up with Woods via e-mail about his hardest boulder problem yet.

Things just keep getting better for Jimmy Webb at Leavenworth. This past weekend, Webb made the second ascent of a long-standing project, The Penrose Step (V14), first climbed by Carlo Traversi two weeks ago. Webb's ascent came on the heels of multiple V11 and V12 flashes, as well as flash of The Tea Cup (V13).

Ice climbing season has arrived in the high country of the Front Range, Colorado, and one pair of climbers has already established a new route high in Rocky Mountain National Park. Last Friday, Kevin Cooper and Topher Donahue made the first ascent of Window Pain (WI 6+) on the Diamond, the classic east face of Longs Peak, according to Donahue’s blog.

Clearly, ascents of The Wheel of Wolvo and Delirium (both V15s) were not enough for Jimmy Webb, who last weekend flashed two V12s in what is turning out to be a ground-breaking year for the boulderer from Chattanooga. While on a trip to Leavenworth, Washington, Jimmy managed to flash Turbulence (V12) and do a sit start to Cotton Pony, which he downgraded from V12 to V11. Update: today Webb flashed The Tea Cup (V13).

Meet Andrew Palmer: America's newest 5.15 climber. A Rumney local, Palmer made the fourth ascent of the New Hampshire sport crag's hardest route, Jaws II (5.15a), last weekend. He joins only a handful of American climbers to have ticked the grade.

Dorothea Karalus of Germany made what might be the hardest female first ascent of a boulder problem earlier this month when she successfully climbed In the Cloud (V12) in the Grampians, Australia. Better yet, she did it with a headlamp at night.

Alexander Megos won the Kalymnos Climbing Festival this year after he completed all the men's project routes in under four hours. Caroline Ciavaldini took second place in the women's division.