THE QUEST, BY KAZUYA HIRAIDE Shispare was always there, living in the back of my head. A mountain worth spending my life upon. In 2002, I went to Pakistan alone with a map of the Karakoram on which I had marked routes ascended by previous part...
In November 2017, Pedro Binfa and Joan Marc Henares climbed a new route on the south face Cerro Sahne Nuss (2,237m) in Cerro Castillo National Reserve. They began by ascending snow slopes that led to the glacier that divides Cerro Palo and Sahne N...
Four members of the Spanish Alpine Team (Equipo Español de Alpinism)—Jesús Ibarz,Omar Juan, Pablo Ruíz, and Jorge Valle, accompanied by Sonia Casas, Jonatan Larrañaga, and expedition leader Mikel Zabalza—visited the Rolwaling in October and Novemb...
IN THE SUMMER of 2014, Ryo Masumoto, Takaaki Nagato, and I aspired to reach the summit of unclimbed Badal Peak (ca 6,100m) and then traverse to K7 West (6,615m). Badal is located on the north side of the Charakusa Glacier in the eastern Karakoram....
AFTER SPENDING almost 20 hours studying the pictures of the west face of Lunag Ri, I thought I’d finally found the line, which cleverly avoided objective hazards and verticality. It also seemed very blue, the sort of blue of which every mountainee...
Between September 29 and October 2, Anne Gilbert Chase, Jason Thompson, and I made the first ascent of the southwest face of Nilkanth (6,596m, a.k.a. Nilkanta or Nilkantha). Anne Gilbert, Jason, and Caro North had planned to attempt the southwest ...
Some years ago, Anatoly Moshnikov commented, “I have already climbed that route in my mind, should we do it in reality?” I can’t recall the mountain to which he was referring, but I remembered his words. They perfectly suited Phungi Himal (6,538m)...
In October, Mathieu Détrie, Pierre Labbre, and Benjamin Védrines (France) made the second ascent of Pandra (6,850m map height, 27°51.897’N, 87°59.547’E) via a new route on the northeast face.In the fall of 2002, three Danes made the first ascent o...
KARAKORAM: CLIMBING THROUGH THE KASHMIR CONFLICT. Steve Swenson. Mountaineers Books, 2017. Hardcover, 315 pages, $26.95.In Karakoram, Steve Swenson describes the climbs he attempted and accomplished in this great range from 1980 to 2015, during 15...
In January 2016 I sailed to the Peninsula on the yacht Icebird with Robert Catton, Mike Jaques, Paul Kutarski, and Jim Searight. We skied mostly peaks with which I was familiar, but also made the first ascent of the southwest ridge of the unnamed ...
In March, Maximo Fernandez (Chile), Lucas “Turco” Dahir (Argentina), and I finished a project we started a few years ago on the east face of Anfiteatro, beginning partway up the gully that separates Walwalun from Cerro Anfiteatro. The seven-pitch ...
In October 2017, Ian Schwer and I completed two new routes on the south face of Cerro Pantojo (2,027m). This mountain is the heart of an extinguished volcano near the Paso Cardenal Antonio Samoré between Argentina and Chile. The normal route runs ...
During July 2016, an Argentine team (Lucas Alzamora, Juan Guerra, and Roberto Rivas Jordan) climbed a new route up the southeast face of Negro Overo (5,780m) in La Rioja Province, a mountain first climbed by the Incas. The new route ascended a sno...
Glauco Muratti has been exploring the mountains of Mendoza Province, near Aconcagua, for years. In February 2018, he joined another Argentine, Lisandro Arelovich, and headed to the remote Quebrada Chorrillos, a valley with many obstacles that has ...
Incahuasi is a 6,638m volcano on the border with Chile whose name means "Inca house" in Quechua. The world’s second-highest ruins, an Incan temple, are found near the summit. In January 2018, Diego Cavassa (Argentina) climbed a new route up the st...
Early July found Jon Griffin and me below Third Recess Peak in the Mono Recesses, a series of hanging valleys west of Mono Pass. Our friends Austin Siadak and Matt Van Biene had climbed a route to the left of the line Serving Detention (IV 5.10, H...
In mid-July, Jon Griffin, Gabriel Andres Mancilla Jipoulou, and I climbed two new routes in the Williamson Bowl of the Sierra Nevada. We first set our sights a prominent subpeak directly south of Mt. Tyndall (14,026’). We had dubbed this the First...
On August 6, under clear skies and with dreams of first ascents on remote peaks, Tess Ferguson, Anina Friedrich, Jessica Keil, and I flew into Alaska's Gates of the Arctic National Park. Wild and remote, with no roads or trails, it is one of the U...
The Direct Line (39 pitches, 5.13+), a.k.a. the Platinum Wall, is a brand-new, mostly independent free line on El Capitan. It begins just left of the Nose and continues up the steepening blankness, following a circuitous path of 22 technical slab ...
The first time I approached the Aeolian Wall on Mt. Wilson I quickly became enamored with the crack systems flanking the classic route Inti Watana (2,000’, IV 5.10c). This past season I convinced my friend Kyle to fly down to Vegas and meet me for...