During the second weekend in March, Daniele Assolari, Louise Aucquier, and I, from a camp near Laguna Khuna Kkota in the Negruni Range of the central Cordillera Real, climbed the glaciated southwest face and southeast ridge of Katatani. Named Cerr...
Another serac rips from the summit ice cliffs of Mt. Dickey, and the familiar roar of avalanche thunders through the valley. My calves shake on crumbling footholds, the infamous “Cracker Jack gravel” of the Ruth Gorge. I’m balanced on an arête,...
Every alpinist has one peak or a mountain feature they think about more than any other. The feature acts as a compass, providing direction and motivation for one’s climbing. For the past decade, my direction has come largely from the east face o...
From March 11 to April 7, Bas Visscher and I visited Alaska. After six days of sitting out bad weather and enjoying the true Alaskan lifestyle in Talkeetna, we finally got flown into the range. To our surprise, we stepped off the plane and onto ...
On March 29, Ryan Driscoll and I flew into the Neacola Mountains. With a sustained high-pressure system in place, we hoped to avoid the prolonged storms for which the range is known. As soon as we landed, we went on a recon ski and decided the ...
From June 4–14, our group, which included Elliot Gaddy, James Kesterson, Paul Muscat, Matt Sanborn, Glenn Wilson, and myself, climbed four peaks on the upper west lobe of the Yentna Glacier in Denali National Park. Three of them are believed to ...
Blue Crag is a serene and diminutive moniker for an otherwise sizable and rowdy piece of rock. This cliff, located on the Mammoth Crest south of Mammoth Lakes, features compact, gneiss-like stone and only one previously established climb, which ...
I’m trying to keep it together. The moves aren’t that hard, but the precariousness of the stacked blocks is terrifying. Spread your weight, Jack. Pull down, not out. No mistakes… Just then a sickening thud. It’s over, I think. A block has wiggle...
In an era of heightened climbing and skiing popularity, there are still many less-explored corners of the Alaska Range. Exploration can even come at moderate difficulties, which is exactly what Thomas Eaves and I found on the Dall Glacier during...
Four years ago, my friend David Pearson took a bad fall while climbing and spent the following month in a coma in the Fresno hospital. The doctors were losing hope, saying that he was unresponsive and might never come out of it. Luckily for David,...
Tulainyo Tower (12,800’+) first came into my consciousness a few years back while I was in a masochistic phase of my life. [Tulainyo is the first prominent tower along the ridgeline south of Mt. Carl Heller (13,211’).] I was searching out all of t...
Between July 15 and 20, Chris Natalie and I explored the seldom-visited walls of the Cirque of the Moon, south of the North Fork of the Popo Agie River, between Long Lake and Papoose Lake. As expected, the gravity exceeded that found on its celest...
Between April 26 and May 31, I visited the remote border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan with three French friends, Pierrick Fine, Antoine Rolle, and Aurélien Vaissière. We had looked on Google Earth for wild places where we could climb mi...
During one of my semi-conscious moments on the bus ride toward the Zongo Pass in July 2018, I had noticed some ice on the lower hanging cliffs below Huayna Potosí. Being an ice climber out of Bozeman, and not a rugged mountaineer like my counterpa...
When trekking from Mustang to Saribung Pass, the view to the south of the holy lakes of Damodar Kunda is dominated by the conspicuous north face of a mountain resembling Kailash in Tibet. This is probably why the local name for the peak is Sano Ka...
In 2015, Christoph Wolter and I visited the Djangart, driving from Bishkek to the western end of the range. We found that it is possible to get more or less everything in Bishkek needed for an expedition (except proper mountaineering equipment)—ev...
South of Kyzyl Art Pass and immediately west of the great Karakul Lake lie the Zulumart subranges of Karachim and Karajilga. This is a fine area for traveling, with many wild animals and no people. In August the small team of Vilnis Barons, Ronald...
SLOVENIAN ALPINISTS have a strong reputation. Straight-talking, quiet, and solid climbers, they regularly climb hard alpine routes without any fuss. When Luka Stražar attended a BMC International Winter Meet in Scotland a few years ago, I shared a...
THE ORIGINAL PLAN was for three of us to attempt Latok I: me and Glazunov brothers, Evgeny and Sergey. We had never climbed together, but we knew one another. I thought we would make a great team for a mountain like this. Although I’m already old ...
IN MAY 2018, Niall Hamill and I were on our way to the Emperor Face of Mt. Robson. We couldn’t wait to get there, but we also couldn’t help pulling the van over to the side of the Icefields Parkway to stare at Peyto Tower, a 300m shield of brigh...