If you’ve visited our site over the last three weeks, you’ll have noticed that Sender Films has been temporarily on hold as we have been struggling with the loss of our close friends and co-workers in China. This tragedy has been unimaginably devastating – to us and to so many others — and its only for the amazing community around Jonny, Micah and Wade that we have been able to get through it thus far. Our deepest condolences go out to the families and loved ones of all three of these amazing guys. We, along with others, have been posting tributes, video clips, photos, memorial updates and stories at the Adventurefilm blog, please feel free to visit www.adventurefilm.com to share with the community.

There will be a Memorial Service open to the public on July 11 in Boulder, Co. Further details will be available on the Adventurefilm blog. Jonny Copp, Micah Dash and Wade Johnson were passionate about exploring the mountains, and they were equally passionate about sharing their experiences with the community through slides, essays, video and festivals. This memorial service is in that spirit of chasing your dreams and sharing your tales, and thus it is a chance for all the people who knew and loved these guys, and those who were inspired by them through their art, to celebrate their lives, and carry on their spirit.

To donate to the search fund (which is being transformed into a reoccurring grant), please click here.

Sender Films is very pleased to announce our new National Geographic International television series, “First Ascent.” Based on our popular film, the six part series will bring viewers around the world with top climbers and crazy characters in the never-ending quests for new routes. It has been our long-held goal to present the dirt-bag heroes of the climbing world to a broader global audience, and we are very psyched to be producing what we think is the first-ever series dedicated to rock climbing culture.

Here is the press release from Nat Geo.

We are currently polishing off the first two episodes. The first documents Chris Sharma’s latest 5.15 efforts in Spain and Clark Mountain, created in close collaboration with Big Up Productions. The second follows Renan Ozturk, Cedar Wright and Sean Leary on an epic trip to South America in honor of the great Roberta Nunes). We are going to be cranking all through the summer shooting and editing these and four other shows from Alaska to The Himalayas. First Ascent will be airing on Nat Geo’s international channels later this year. For more information, please visit www.natgeotv.com.

Home from South America, we got right back on the road, this time driving west from Boulder to the great American desert to shoot more for our new TV show.

We plunged into the desert splitters with Rob Pizem, roof-crack extraordinaire. Rob brought us to some isolated, perfectly horizontal roof cracks that he climbs with natural protection.

Next up, Steph Davis at Indian Creek, where we shot her new cutting edge project, Learning to Fly. The climb is totally splitter, and kicks back to about 15 degrees of overhang at the crux. Another beautiful day in the desert!

Once things got too hot in the Creek, we had to power through an epic sandstorm to arrive in Zion National Park.

Just in time to catch Alex “no big deal” Honnold casually free soloing the 1200-foot 5.12+ Moonlight Buttress – his first repeat of this breakthrough climb.

Photo by Celin Serbo
www.serbophoto.com

The rest of the trip we climbed and shot with Sonnie Trotter, Mike Doyle, and Lauren Lee on the likes of Mast Blaster and other Zion testpieces. Covered in sand, scorched from the sun, and utterly satisfied, we decided it was time to head back to Boulder, and back to the editing room.

Photo: Tim Kemple
kemplemedia.com

Rio de Janeiro is the most crazy beautiful metropolis we have ever seen. Danger and fun lurk around every corner. Just driving around is fully sharp end. The favelas are huge and teeming, the beaches are covered in bare flesh and the big cliffs thrust right out of the coastline and through the city. The rock is incredible, the temps are brutal. Luckily, we are getting the royal treatment over at our crashpad — the luxurious HQ of surf label Bintang. Diogo Barboza and the Bintang crew, together with locals Hugo Langel and Lucas “Jah” Marques, are full-time fixers, shooting second camera, climbing for the camera, and caravaning us to every new location. If it wasn’t for them we’d probably be dead by now.

Things are much too crazy for us to blog here. So once again we refer you to Renan and Cedar’s Vertical Carnival Dispatches, where those guys continue to kill it on the video blog.

Photo: Tim Kemple

When we last blogged, our team was rousted from a two-week storm fester by a prediction of good weather – always an elusive concept down here. Our last week in Argentina, vague reports of “mini-windows” lured us across the glacier and into the rime-slathered mountains with tenuous hopes of a last ditch effort to climb – and film – in Patagonia.

As predicted, the windows were short, and when they closed, they slammed. We battled through howling, sleepless nights and drenching rappels in a manic effort to exploit this one last chance. The clock was ticking. There were moments when we wondered if it would be a total shut down.

But then the weather and the climbers pulled through. As the clouds held back and the sun shone bright over two days, Cedar and Renan sent a killer first ascent on Mochito. Then Stanley wingsuited from the summit of El Mocho, one of the few BASE jumps anyone has done in the range. As the chute opened, Roberta’s ashes were released into the mountains. The thermals almost blew Stanley back to Chalten, but the Andean condors guided him to safety. He stuck it. We stuck it. Tim Kemple (kemplemedia.com) killed it with the pics. Check out a few in the slideshow below. And don’t miss Renan and Cedar’s video blog, Vertical Carnival. Off to Brazil!

Tim Kemple slide show:

Two weeks in Chalten and the storm up in the mountains rages on. Every climber in town is overfed and charged on coffee mate, waiting for the weather gods to smile and chattering endlessly about a potential dry window this weekend. In the meantime, we continue to fester in style – bouldering, noshing, and dancing the night away. It’s a great opportunity to get to know the cool local people (with their wonderful doggies) and meet up with friends from around the world who have converged on this little town for a shot at summit glory. It’s a who’s who of badass alpine climbers: Mikey Schaeffer and Kate Rutherford are here, as well as Chad Shepard, John Gleason, artist Jeremy Collins (who has been teaming up with Renan on a big simul-painting) and we hear that Nicolas Favresse, Sean Villanueva, Ben Ditto and friends just pulled into town following their send of the Central Tower of Paine and ready to crush something over here. We’ve been hanging at the boulders with Tommy Caldwell and Josh Wharton a bunch. And of course the regulars are here: Rolando Garibotti, Kevin Thaw, and Bean Bowers are generously sharing their sage wisdom with the newbies. Last but not least, shooter Tim Kemple rolled in on the scene and has joined our crew. We go up into the mountains tomorrow. Wish us luck.

Fitzroy veiled…for now

Renan and Jeremy Collins work their simul-painting

Our neighbor, Rolando Garibotti

Keep up with Vertical Carnival Dispatch:
http://verticalcarnival.blogspot.com

When Bean Bowers looked at the computer models his jaw dropped. Years ago he built a house down here and tacked a sign on the front that boasted “World’s Worst Weather.” But in all his days of storm watching, the veteran Patagonia climber swore he had never seen a prediction this bad.

Alas, that forecast was heartbreakingly spot-on. We’ve been down here a week, and each day raises the bar for rainy, windy crapola. Even the town El Chalten, usually basking in the cozy rain shadow of the Fitzroy Range, is now drenched to the last moldy sheepdog. Yesterday, moved by desperation more than logic, we hiked up into the park to stash our gear at the glacier. Bad idea jeans. We got the big soak (the cameras survived, gracias a dios) with nary a glimpse of the rock, and hiked down with rainwater sponging from our toes.

It was a slightly heartbreaking day, but this morning we awoke to El Dia del Los Amadores, and the jangly internet connection eventually spat out a truly wonderful e-Valentine from Cedar’s friend in China.

And the love continued that evening as Bean and Helen tied the knot in a blaze of cumbia at the Chocolateria. Even in the cold embrace of the world’s worst weather, el amor vence.

Keep up with the Vertical Carnival Video Blog at:
http://verticalcarnival.blogspot.com

We arrive in Patagonia to clear skies, and the hope that we will catch a window of good weather for climbing down here. But the wind soon picks up and that fleeting sense of optimism is blown away as big clouds invade the Fitzroy massif. We meet up with local hardman Bean Bowers, who informs us that the forecast is an epic storm. Fortunately, the funky town of El Chalten is protected in a rain shadow, and has some of the best bouldering this side of the Equator.

The lovely woman in the photo above is Roberta Nunes. She was a legendary and beloved climber who tragically died in 2006. In her honor, we have formed an expedition to South America with climbing trio Cedar Wright, Renan Ozturk and Sean “Stanley” Leary — who was Roberta’s friend, lover and soulmate in the last years of her brilliant life.

The objective of our trip is to fulfill a timely promise Stanley made to Roberta only days before she passed away: That if she were to die one day, Sean would cast her ashes in two places: her homeland of Brazil, and amongst the granite peaks of Patagonia, which inspired Roberta like no other region. Along the way, we will attempt new routes in her honor, film the journey, and wrap the whole thing into a cool TV episode for National Geographic International that will share Roberta’s spirit with millions of people around the world.

So we are off, first on a hectic beeline to the southern reaches of Argentina, which looks and feels and pretty much is the end of the Earth. God damn it’s beautiful. We can see why she liked it here.

You can also follow the action on Renan’s stellar video dispatch blog at: http://verticalcarnival.blogspot.com