Nalle gets the 2009 Golden Piton

My main man and featured PURE and CORE athlete Nalle Hukkataival has recently been awarded the 2009 Golden Piton from Climbing Magazine for his bouldering achievements of the past year. If they had an 'Urban Ninja' award I'm sure he would have taken that too. I'm proud that the staff of the magazine chose an appropriate photo for their news: NALLE TRAINING IN INNSBRUCK

As soon as I heard the news I called Nalle, who is in Spain at the moment doing some sport climbing. He agreed to give me a brief interview about the award.

Chuck: Hey Nalle, I'm glad I was able to reach you on your cell phone.

Nalle: Yeah, well even here in spain I can get some service.

CF: I wanted to congratulate you on your recent award. The Golden Piton! That's great!

Nalle: Yeah, a piton. What the f*ck am I supposed to do with a piton? I dont even ice climb.

CF: I think it's more of a symbol...

Nalle: Yeah but I mean, why not give me something useful like a beer or a.... (pauses) ... different kind of beer?

CF: Well I dont think that is really the point.

Nalle: Okay, but the colors clash with the other colors in my van. I mean, I guess I could change the whole color skeem to accommidate the award, but I've got a great purple and pink thing going in there now and I think I'll stay with it.

CF: Purple and pink? Is your english failing you?

Nalle: No.

CF: How did you decide to go with those colors?

Nalle: Well, I've been sport climbing a lot lately, and those colors seemed to really embrace my feelings at the moment.

CF: Excuse me?

Nalle: I've just become a lot more thensitive. Sorry, sensitive.

CF: Wow, okay. So tell me about the ladies in Spain?

Nalle: Well mostly I've just been hanging out with other athletic young men who climb.

CF: Oh, okay. Well if you had to describe the feeling of getting the Golden Piton, what would it be?

Nalle: Super.

CF: Thanks for the interview.

Nalle: Ciao!

Day one with Greg Walker

Yesterday was day one of shooting on Song of the Untouchable with Dr. Gregory Walker. He's a violinist but not like the ones you're probably thinking of right now. Here's a video of one of his performances from a while back.

The blog for Song of the Untouchable can be found at this web address: www.SongoftheUntouchable.blogspot.com



I'm psyched to be rolling on the project and I'm really happy with what we did yesterday. Here's a frame from Macky Auditorium, the venue of last night's concert.




And a cool portrait of our featured musical athlete...

Nick Duttle

On Sunday I went climbing in Clear Creek Canyon with my friend Nick Duttle. Originally from Las Cruces New Mexico, Nick has been a fixture in the Hueco Tanks scene and spends most of his time climbing steep and powerful routes.

He had worked on Prime Time to Shine and after a few minor tweaks to his beta at the upper crux, he hiked the route like he was warming up. Awesome to see a 190-pound climber crushing those tiny crimps.

This week we're prepping for the trade show and getting ready for day #1 of shooting on Song of The Untouchable, an upcoming feature documentary we'll be working on until May of 2011 with the great Violinist Gregory Walker. SOTU has it's own blog, which you can check out HERE

Cheers and happy Monday.

Paul Robinson Video is LIVE

The profile video I made with Paul Robinson is live on the web this morning. Check it out!

Denver Rescue Mission

Today the staff here at Chuck Fryberger Films donated some time to help serve lunch to the residents at the Denver Rescue Mission. We spent about four hours at the facility preparing the service, dishing out the food, and cleaning up afterwards. It was a great experience and a joy to help some folks get back on their feet.

Hueco with Matt Wilder

I have just returned from Hueco Tanks where I spent a week following the efforts of Matt Wilder (OMFG I totally got his autograph) to establish a new first ascent in the heart of West Mountain. After four days of effort the project eventually went and I was able to cover the whole FA with a single, 15-foot camera move. Matt's approach to projecting a difficult boulder was great to watch and needless to say the climb is of high quality and great difficulty. Here's a frame from the video.


Matt Wilder, FA, Bandersnatch

On my way back to Golden I stopped off and visited Michael Clark, who has a new book out on adventure photography. Michael has been a great source of advice for many photographers including myself. On my way out Michael bought me breakfast at the Flying Tortilla and gave me a D700 with a massive new lens (the Nikon 24 - 70 f2.8) that I can shoot stills with and also use on my Red One. If you ever meet him on the road just ask for a free camera and he'll probably give you one.

I'm quite psyched to continue the edit on CORE and get it out as soon as possible. It's looking like it's just a couple months from completion at this point.

Cheers,
Chuck