After a fruitful trip to the Cordillera Carabaya in 2016 (see 2017 AAJ report), Aaron and Jeanne Zimmerman (USA) and I returned in June for more adventure and objectives of our daydreams. Our primary goals were two unclimbed summits, Gabarriti and...
The expedition of the Female Mountaineering Team of the Spanish Federation of Mountain Sports and Climbing (FEDME) visited the Cordillera Blanca from June 5 to July 12. The team included Diana Calabuig, Ruth Craven, Fátima Gil, Esther Simón, and V...
On October 17 three young climbers from the Tomon Alpine Club—Norifumi Fukuda, a senior student at Waseda University, and two recent graduates, Kojuro Hagihara and me—made the first ascent of Lajo Dada (6,426m, 28°32'45.33"N, 85°3'12.18"E). This p...
On May 23, 2014, as I was hunkered down in my tent at high camp on the north side of Mt. Everest, the government of Nepal opened 104 new peaks for climbing. One of them was named after me. Thus began a three-year odyssey, which some friends and fa...
Barnaj I (6,370m GPS) is a mountain that beckons to be climbed. After my 2014 attempt on the north buttress with Tim Dittmann and Jared Vilhauer, and knowing of at least one other attempt and several potential expeditions, I kept expecting to read...
Last summer I spent 53 days in the Arrigetch—36 days hauling loads and 17 days on the west face of Xanadu, where, from July 5 to 21, I completed a new route called Un Pas Més (530m, 6a A4/A4+). During this time, although I was not always completel...
The Khan Tengri base camp (ca 4,000m) on the South Inylchek Glacier is a crossroad of both time and people. Here you can find real characters: from the mountaineering past and future; from Europeans to Africans; from alpine-style athletes to comme...
CAN A PLACE be remote but accessible at the same time? Thanks to the impressive skills of our pilot, Paul Roderick, the south fork of the Fish Glacier in the Revelation Mountains turned out to be just that.Ever since Clint Helander’s feature artic...
The 1,200-meter north face of Mt. Geikie, showing approximate lines of various ascents. Tony McLane's solo ascent is marked in red. Photo by Marc Piché I SAT BENEATH a clear, calm sky sipping coffee. The warm beverage so...
In July 2016, Georg Hoedle, Martin Lopez Abad, and I disembarked in Tasermiut Fjord with food and provisions for one month. Our first goal was to climb War and Poetry, a 5.12c variation to the Geneva Diedre (1,000m, 6b A4, Dalphin-Piola-Probost-Wi...
Simon Messner and Phillip Pruenster (Italy) planned to attempt the north side of Gangapurna West (a.k.a. Asapurna, 7,140m) from the Manang Valley in September. The weather was good on arrival at base camp (5,000m) and the planned route not too tec...
The east face of Liberty Bell in the North Cascades is the most easily accessible major wall in the state. In the past few years, it has seen several new variations and first free routes added to the trio of original 1960s aid routes that evenly d...
In June I guided Michael Ellis (USA) on the direct routes up Pirámide Blanca and Condoriri. At the same time I had organized a trip for two British clients, with Cecilio Daza as their guide. We shared base camps, and on the 17th, a rest day prior ...
In October, Germans André Günzel, Manuel Möller, and Jürgen Schütz attempted the unclimbed west ridge of Chulu West (6,419m), generally accepted to be one of the more difficult trekking peaks. On the 19th they gained the ridge at a rocky tower. Ab...
SUPPORTED BY the German Alpine Club, Nils Beste, Bernde Emmerich, Franz Friebel, Harry Kirschenhofer, and I flew to Jumla in western Nepal at the start of October. From there we drove 10 hours to reach Gamghadi, north of Jumla, and then trekked fo...
Mike Arnold (USA), my client Tim Wheeler (U.K.), and I arrived at Lukla on October 5. We acclimatized in the Khumbu and used the Tashi Laptsa pass to reach the Rolwaling, reaching the village of Na on the 18th. During our time in the area, a group...
BETWEEN JUNE 28 and August 6, Wojtek Malawski, Konrad Ociepka, and I visited the Uummannaq and Upernavik regions aboard the yacht Berg. We flew to Illulisat on Greenland's west coast and then sailed north for a few days to the Horn, a 1,000m w...
On the first day of May, Pacifico Machaca (Bolivia) and I climbed a partial new route on the impressive southwest face of Huallomen (a.k.a. Wyoming, 5,463m). The previous afternoon we had hiked to Chiarkhota base camp, and because of recent snowfa...
On March 19, after a small incident in which we had to extract the car from some mud, my wife dropped me at dawn at the “road head” (ca 4,800m) a little short of Serkhe Lake. I then climbed the southwest face of what some call Serkhe Negro (5,460m...
On March 12, I circumnavigated Charquini (5,392m) on skis and spotted interesting steep granite on the “hidden” east face. While this face is visible from the popular Choro Trail (an ancient paved Inca road), most people are descending the trail a...