View east from the ascent of Pik Vulture to (A) White Lady, (B) Rabbit Ear, (C) Twin Towers, (D) Yellow Tower, and (E) Black Spark. Photo by Mark AitkenTHE AT BASHI RANGE is more than 100km in length and about 30km wide, a beautiful region of sno...
I GOT A MESSAGE from Hiroki Yamamoto: “I’m going to India with Yusuke Sato this fall, and I’m wondering if you wanna join us?” Five months before, I had become a father and was on parental leave, spending all my time with my wife and daughter. I d...
In September, Josie McKee, Caro North, and I traveled to the Kijai Nala (valley) with the intention of climbing the west face of Arjuna (6,230m). We spent 28 days in the mountains and encountered mostly bad weather and difficult conditions. After ...
Flat Top (6,100m) and Kishtwar Eiger (ca 6,000m) are situated above the Brammah Glacier on the southwestern side of the Kishtwar region, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Due to military conflict in recent decades, this area has not been popular ...
THE STATE of Nuevo León in Mexico is most famous among climbers for El Potrero Chico, north of Monterrey. But there are limestone walls all around Monterrey, some more adventurous then others. In November I paid a visit to the nonprofit youth deve...
The north side of El Toro showing approximate lines of (1) El Sendero Luminoso and (2) La Sombra Luminosa. Photo by Drew Marshall FOR ME, CLIMBING IS ALL ABOUT getting to the top, so when I arrived at El Potrero Ch...
In October, Aivaras Sajus and I made the first known ascent of Sharphu II (6,328m, 27°45'29.87"N, 87°55'7.92"E) via the east face—a route we named Samsāra (1,040m, ED2 AI5 M6). The route height is measured from the first belayed pitch on the glaci...
Lobuche East (6,090m) is easily overlooked as a target for serious climbs. In fact, we did exactly that. Daniel Joll and I (New Zealand), and Kim Ladiges and Matt Scholes (Australia), traveled to Nepal in November 2017 to climb the north face of C...
In August I guided Pedro Costa, Tiago Faneca, and João Lopes on an expedition to Ladakh. We spent four days on the famous Markha Valley Trek, then established base camp at 4,400m in the Langthang Chu, near the settlement marked as Male, aiming to ...
The east face of La Popa, showing (1) Super Blood Wolf (275m, 5.11) and (2) El Gavilan (9 pitches, 5.13a). Spanish Harlem (11 pitches, 5.11+ A0), the other route on the formation, ascends the left skyline. Photo by Jacob CookLOOKING NORTHWEST from...
AFTER 14 MONTHS OF PLANNING, I landed at Yushu Airport (3,800m) in Qinghai to meet my companions Ben and Jos Hoetjes (New Zealand), who had ridden bikes almost 1,000km from the provincial capital of Xining. It had taken them 10 days and provided v...
In 2017, Garrett Madison led a commercial expedition that made the first ascent of Tharke Kang (6,710m), a summit on the northwest ridge of Hungchi (7,029m), just southeast of the Nup La (5,848m). The expedition trekked from Lukla to a base camp a...
In 2017 I located an area of the Khumuche Himal that I felt worth exploring. This chain of peaks lies on the east side of the Thesebu Khola, around 10km north of Namche. Summits there are approximately 5,400–5,750m, and one stood out: Phuletate (s...
On November 5, 2017, Tore Sunde-Rasmussen (Norway),Dawa Tashi Sherpa, Tamting Sherpa, and Thundu Sherpa made the first ascent of an unnamed peak of about 5,840m (at approximately 27°56'29.93"N, 86°21'54.94"E) on the long east ridge of Dolma Kang...
The Japanese “Himalaya Camp” is a project of Yasuhiro Hanatani, the purpose being “succession and progress in mountaineering culture.” This camp for young alpinists has been held three times: 2015, 2016, and 2018. In the spring of 2018 we reached ...
Austrians Vitus Auer, Sebastian Fuchs, and Stefan Larcher, on their first Himalayan expedition, planned to make the second ascent of Himjung (7,092m) via the unclimbed southeast ridge, approaching from the east. The first ascent of this mountain, ...
Between the 15th of June and the 15th of September, Enzo Oddo and I established three new routes on the granite walls of the Weasel and Owl valleys. During the ten days we spent climbing Midgard Serpent (1,100m, VI 5.9 A5, Jarrett- Rzeczycki, ...
DURING 28 DAYS in the month of May, Grant Dixon, Louise Jarry, Marek Vokac, and I skied a “horseshoe” loop through the Byam Martin Mountains, starting and finishing on the south coast of Bylot Island. (Bylot is just north of Baffin Island.) I ha...
The Milkwater (1,250m, V WI4 M4) on the east side of Mt. Temple. Striving for the Moon takes the obvious ice line to the left. Photo by Alik Berg SOLO CLIMBING SEEMS to be making a resurgence in the Canadian Rockies, including a pair of impressiv...
I VISITED the East Creek Basin on two separate occasions in 2018. On the first trip, I guided a nice fellow I call a darn good friend, Marley Hodgson, on the Beckey-Chouinard and we did some new routing on the Pigeon Feathers. Mainly, we climbed t...