On August 17, a 23-year-old male climber fell while leading the second pitch of Diagonal (5.8, seven pitches) on Wallface, a 700-foot cliff five miles from the trailhead. The leader had gotten off-route on the broken and bushy second pitch (5.5, w...
On March 7, three climbers with one to five years of experience each—Patrick Keatly (19), Travis Grimes (22), and Robert Weddell (23)—scrambled four or five miles along a frozen creekbed to attempt an unnamed peak in Poudre Canyon, north of the Cr...
STEVE: My dear friend and longtime cook and guide Ghulam Rasool sat next to me as our jeep rolled into the village of Hushe. It had been eight years since we had last seen each other, and I was happy to be reunited for another adventure. This wo...
In El Chaltén’s Hostal Del Lago, the wall of the common room is pasted with maps of the vast Southern Patagonian Ice Field, and it is quite normal to observe climbers staring at the wall and daydreaming of windless days on a rime-capped summit, wh...
On Sunday, August 30, a climber fell 40 feet near the top of Double Vee, a popular but tricky-to-protect 5.9 at the Barber Wall on Cathedral Ledge. While he had four pieces of protection in, all but one (a number three Camalot ten feet above the g...
Two climbers chose Whitehorse’s classic Standard Route (5.5) as an introduction to multi-pitch climbing. They set off the morning of August 29 equipped with a traditional rack and a single rope. At around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, the lead climber ...
I first visited the Bugaboos in 2008 with under-the-radar alpine legend Chris Brazeau. Braz, a low-key, wide-smiling local, knew all the tricks to help an alpine climbing neophyte like myself. After driving up the bumpy logging road for about an h...
At 5 a.m. on February 15, Kate Matrosova, 32, of New York City, was dropped off at the Appalachia parking lot by her husband. She planned a one-day winter traverse of the northern Presidential Range, a technically moderate mountaineering objective...
On December 26, three climbers finished the classic three-pitch route Johnny Vegas (5.7) in Red Rock’s Oak Creek Canyon. The three stopped for a brief lunch at about 11 a.m. on the terrace at the top of Johnny Vegas to consider whether they should...
The 1,200-meter east face of Cerro Kishtwar is bathed in morning sun and plastered with ice and snow. As we approach the base, the wall grows and grows. It looks steep. It looks hard. Even though we had all agreed to try an inspiring line throug...
On May 6, two teams (Mike and Keith, Chris and Jeff, all experienced climbers) did the full Dark Shadows (5.8, 10 pitches). Mike and Keith topped out about 5 p.m., with the second party trailing 15 to 30 minutes behind. We called home to report al...
In recent years we have noticed an exciting trend in the AAJ: a steady increase in the number of significant new routes by climbers native to developing countries. For generations, most cutting-edge climbs in developing countries have been complet...
On June 27, experienced mountaineers Jack Beard (60) and David Steele (27) attempted a new route to the Lithoid Cusp, a dramatic spire atop the large east- facing wall between Ipasha Peak and Mt. Merritt. Their route involved much scrambling to re...
During the early afternoon on October 17, some friends and I were climbing at Drive-By Crag. My friends didn’t have much outdoor climbing experience. Over a couple of days, I had been watching Jake belay his partner, and I felt confident that he p...
On July 7, Anna Dvorak, 28, died as a result of injuries from a long leader fall on the third pitch of the Mountaineers Route (III 5.9). Dvorak’s climbing partner had led the first pitch, linking the usual pitch one and most of pitch two into a ...
Suzanne Huffman (40) was climbing with a church group on October 10. While rappelling, she fell 30 feet to the ground and died from her injuries. One of her sons, who witnessed the accident, told reporters, “She was getting ready to go down and th...
On January 30, Mark Miller (50) took a fatal fall while guiding First Gully, a four-pitch WI3 ice climb near Eureka. Miller, a climbing guide from Ouray, and his two clients were nearing the top of the low-angle climb. Miller was free soloing alon...
It was a beautiful morning on Memorial Day weekend. We had the best spot to camp for the Lemon Reservoir crag. One party already had passed our camp, head- ing into the canyon to the routes. Our group was just finishing scarfing down our bacon and...
On October 24, Daniel Fullmer (34, over 15 years of experience) and I (32 years old, 15 years of experience) were climbing Scenic Cruise (V 5.10d). There was a party above us and at least another party within earshot on a nearby route. I was leadi...
On September 3, Dr. Matt Davis (41), a trauma director at Scott & Baylor Memorial Hospital in Temple, Texas, and his partner, Ryan Brown, attempted Crestone Needle, a 14,203-foot peak, via the Ellingwood Arête (III 5.7). Davis and Brown selec...