IMAGINARY PEAKS: THE RIESENSTEIN HOAX AND OTHER MOUNTAIN DREAMS. Katie Ives. Mountaineers Books, 2021. Hardcover, 304 pages, $26.95. The Riesensteins were an invented mountain range, purported to be in British Columbia, that appeared in Summit ma...
MOUNTAINS AND DESIRE: CLIMBING VS. THE END OF THE WORLD. Margret Grebowicz. Repeater Books, 2021. Paperback, 113 pages, $14.95. Mountains and Desire is enigmatically subtitled Climbing vs. the End of the World. A more accurate subtitle might be R...
HIGHER LOVE: CLIMBING AND SKIING THE SEVEN SUMMITS. Kit DesLauriers. Mountaineers Books, 2021. Paperback, 288 pages, $19.95. Every once in a while, someone attempts a feat so ambitious, it seems nearly impossible. We can’t wrap our heads around i...
THE NEXT EVEREST: SURVIVING THE MOUNTAIN’S DEADLIEST DAY AND FINDING THE RESILIENCE TO CLIMB AGAIN. Jim Davidson. St. Martins’ Press, 2021. Hardcover, 409 pages, $29.99. Imagine yourself nine hours into your first acclimatization rotation on Ever...
From September 14–16, Kirill Belotserkovskiy completed the first known traverse of the rugged crest of the Tuyuk-Su cirque, 25km southeast of Kazakhstan’s ex-capital, Almaty. As a guide in the area, Belotserkovskiy has climbed all of this group’s ...
Gerber Cucurell and Jordi Esteve, who’ve made repeated visits to Lofoten from Catalonia, climbed two new routes on Moskenesøya island in May. First up, on May 25, was a new line on the west face of Helvetestinden (602m), overlooking Bunes Beach. ...
In the spring of 2020, legendary climber and conservationist George Whitmore, 89, texted a friend about November 12, 1958, the day he and partners Warren Harding (1924–2002) and Wayne Merry (1931–2019) completed the first ascent of The Nose on El ...
Former congresswoman, mountain climber, and lifelong adventurer Jolene Unsoeld began climbing with the Mazamas in 1949, her first ascent being the south side of Mt. Hood in logging boots with caulked soles. In the summer of 1950, after her first y...
On the Merzbacher Glacier, with Pik Oskal on the left and unclimbed Peak 5,061m on the right. In August and September, we (Joris Korevaar and Arjen Pieters) traveled to the lower Kayindy (Kaindy) River valley and made three probable first asc...
Ali Sadpara was first and foremost a great alpinist and not “simply” a high-altitude porter (HAP). He had the ambition to create a new generation of strong climbers in Pakistan and to replicate in his country a tourism industry similar to the one ...
I was ten when I first met the writer and mountaineer David Roberts, who was sitting at my parents’ kitchen table with Jon Krakauer and another friend. Huge wire-rimmed glasses framed David’s face, adding intensity to an already owl-like gaze, and...
In a gesture befitting how he lived his life, close to nature and its poetry, my father, Herb, chose the harvest moon, September 20, 2021, for his departure. His focus around the appreciation of nature, both in its raw elements and its lyric forms...
Rick Reese was a great friend, humble, understated, honest, and so full of life. He had the ability to inspire us and lead us forward. He carefully balanced his zest and daring with common sense in the mountains. Approaching a mountain route with ...
Cesare Maestri was born in Trento, Italy, in 1929, where as a child he began to climb the walls of buildings and electrical poles—more than a few of these ascents resulted in falls, scratches, and hospital visits. During World War II, the young Ma...
The climbing community and many friends have been saddened by the passing of Richard Leversee on January 12, 2022. Although the term Stonemaster is somewhat overused, Richard embraced the ethos, and will be sincerely remembered as one. Thankfully,...
A legendary desert climber, Dave Jones, 65, unexpectedly passed away at his home on December 27, 2021. He was much too young. Born in Connecticut, Dave graduated with a degree in geology from Dartmouth College in 1978. Moving to Tucson, he receive...
After a youth and early adulthood spent in the flatlands, Dana’s peregrinations brought her to the Sierra Nevada, where she learned to climb and met an explorer named Bill Isherwood. Dana had loved before—she even had two daughters—but Bill swept ...
Climbers often consider hypothermia and frostbite as part of their risk assessment. Yet, heat-related illnesses can be a significant and often bigger threat in many regions. Heat illness is a preventable condition ranging in severity from mild hea...
After an aborted attempt on a west-east traverse of the Picacho Kasiri summits with Juan Gabriel Estellano in 2020 (AAJ 2021), I returned on July 9, 2021, with Marcelo Gomez to attempt the traverse in the opposite direction. As the two main summ...
Julieta Ferreri (Argentina) and Marcelo Motta Delvaux (Brazil) made two visits to the southern Cordillera Apolobamba in June and July, when they explored the region around Huanacuni (5,798m, approximately 14°50'48.04"S, 69°9'20.06"W). They then ...