One Day as a Tiger: Alex MacIntyre and the Birth of Light and Fast Alpinism. By John Porter. Vertebrate Publishing (U.K.), 2014. 230 pages. Hardcover, £20. Late at night on an expedition to Afghanistan in 1977, John Porter gazed through a hole in ...
The Calling: A Life Rocked by Mountains. By Barry Blanchard. Patagonia Books, 2014. 440 pages. Hardcover, $27.95. The Calling: A Life Rocked by Mountains is Barry Blanchard’s story of rising out of what would have been a soon-to-be- forgott...
High Summits: 370 Famous Peak First Ascents and Other Significant Events in Mountaineering History. By Frederick L. Wolfe. Hugo House Publishers, 2013. 703 pages. Hardcover, $49.95. This massive history is organized by continent and chronology. Th...
The Tower: A Chronicle of Climbing and Controversy on Cerro Torre. By Kelly Cordes. Patagonia Books, 2014. 400 pages. Hardcover, $27.95.The Tower is not only the definitive book about Cerro Torre—it’s also one of the finest examples of a subgenre ...
In 1953, when Bob Craig joined the famed Anglo-American expedition to K2, most mountaineers in the United States were amateurs. Climbing mountains was a seasoning that complemented another life, in which they pursued their big dreams and goals. Bo...
Click here to open a spreadsheet of all accidents on the Nose of El Capitan reported in Accidents from 1973 through 2013, with links to the relevant articles.
On September 26 I fell about 55 feet while lowering from a session on the Madness (5.13c), which I was hoping might be my 1,500th route in the Red River Gorge. Once I realized I was falling, I cursed, straightened up, got my feet underneath me, an...
Scott Sederstrom (44) fell to his death on March 13 when a bolt failed on Life in Electric Larvae Land (5.10b) at Silent Pillar Wall in Owens River Gorge. When Sederstrom did not return that evening, his fiancée drove to the Lower Gorge parking lo...
“We were born too late. Roper’s already been here. We’re just picking up his scraps,” Tim Halder mused as we gazed up at the unclimbed south face of the Himmelhorn (7,880’). Maybe so, but neither he nor anyone else had ventured onto the big face i...
In the AAJ 1947, Fred Beckey wrote, “Although they do not rise so high as the great mountains farther to the N.W., these peaks of the Alaska-Canada Boundary are magnificent in their alpine grandeur and challenging in their technical difficulties...
Over the weekend of April 25–26, Craig Pope and I teamed up to attempt a new route on Dragontail Peak in the Enchantments—Craig’s idea. He had started up a variation of what we would end up climbing the weekend prior and was eager to see it throug...
On June 7 a woman (29) suffered a serious head injury while leading a 5.9 sport route. After clipping the first quickdraw (previously placed by her belayer, age 26), the climber slipped before clipping the second draw, causing her to fall. The bel...
On June 25, a Boy Scout group was climbing and rappelling at Sycamore Falls (a.k.a. Paradise Forks). At approximately 11:30 in the morning, the first rappeller (age 56) was struck in the left knee and foot by a falling rock when he was approximate...
After 29 years of accident-free climbing, I thought I was a pretty competent belayer. Turns out I still had plenty to learn. Luckily I’m still accident-free, but things easily could have ended very badly.This happened when I was lowering my friend...
On Sunday, January 18, 24-year-old Dasan Marshall fell to his death on the north face of 7,535-foot Mt. Yukla in Chugach State Park. He was attempting a variation of the route No Call, No Show with his climbing partner, 23-year-old Nikolai Windahl...
In April, Larry DeAngelo, Chad Mueler, Bill Thiry, and I climbed a new route on the north face of Windy Peak. Windy Peak is located about two and half hours from the Black Velvet Canyon trailhead. Our route followed a very obvious wide crack in th...
In December 2014, Gary Newmeyer and I made two attempts on the major chimney system right of the Ames Ice Hose on the Ames Wall. We were shut down both times on the third pitch due to smooth rock, little protection, and a large chockstone. We made...
Willis Brown, Sam Hennessey, and I climbed two sustained ice and mixed routes in the West Fork of the Ruth Glacier between May 11 and 21. From May 13–14 we tried to climb the longest and most direct line available on the west face of Peak 11,300’...
This year we organized regular social events, including the Reel Rock Film Tour, Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour, and Send & Socials. Our joint section events—the Delaware Water Gap Multi-Pitch Summer Sufferfest, the New River Gorge Cr...
Despite the heavy involvement of the Metro NY Section in preparations for the AAC’s Annual Benefit Dinner in Manhattan in January 2015, the section maintained an active series of outdoor and indoor events throughout the year. Once again we journey...