From July 12 to August 10, our team of five British climbers explored Kyrgyzstan’s relatively unknown Fergana Range, summiting four unclimbed peaks. We had planned to visit the Torugart-Too, but after discussions with ITMC (a Kyrgyz logistics comp...
Many new routes have gone up in the mountains of Ala Archa National Park, south of Bishkek, as local climbers and foreign visitors take advantage of easy access to these superb mid-elevation peaks. Much of the activity was centered on the towers o...
In September 2012, Luis Crispínand I decided to explore a peak labeled Cerro Soray (5,428m) on the Peruvian IGN 2344 map, four kilometers west of Soray Pampa, hoping to find a climb similar to that of Vallunaraju in the Cordillera Blanca.On Septem...
I first explored a route on Nevado Salcantay (6,279m GPS, also spelled Salkantay) in May and June 2011. In May I traveled to the west side with a friend, Josee Galipeau, looking for a good route to climb and also exploring an alternative trekking ...
On July 6-8, Edwin Espinoza Sotelo, Luis Crispín, and I climbed the northwest face of Nevado Ausangate by a variation to the Dueber-Nave-Zebrowski [AAJ 1984]. We took two days to approach—first camping at Laguna Azulcocha in the valley formed by t...
Puca Punta (5,740m) is an intimidating, steep pyramid of ice and rock. It stands like a sentinel over Jampa Pass, guarding entrance to the inner Cordillera Vilcanota. With other partners, I had already tried climbing it twice, via a chute on the l...
Peruvian climbers Jorge “Coqui” Gálvez, Dominique Riva Roveda, and Manolo Urquizo made the first ascent of the east face of Nevado Capacsaya (5,044m). They entered the range from the southwest, from Capacsaya, traveling past the Pumahuanca Valley...
Masarau Noda and I (both from Japan) climbed two routes in the Cordillera Huayhuash in June, achieving a first and second ascent.We first acclimatized in the Cordillera Blanca, climbing Pirámide de Garcilaso (5,885m) by the southwest face (Renshaw...
In early August, Mexican climbers Franco Gualdi and Daniel Navarro climbed a possible new route on east face of Vallunaraju (5,686m). They began climbing on August 5, at 2 a.m, from a camp on the moraine between Ocshapalca and Vallunaraju. Gualdi ...
After climbing Karma de Los Cóndores (300m, 5.11+, AAJ 2005) in the Ishinca Valley, Swiss climbers David Hefti, Marcel Probst, Mathias Schick, and Florian Zwahlen, set up their tents at the foot of Nevado Shaqsha (5,703m).After a day of reconnaiss...
Carlos Solé and I met in Huaraz in late May. On our way up to a bivouac at the Ishinca-Ranrapalca col, a possible new route caught my eye on the northwest face of Ishinca (5,529m), leading directly to its summit. I suggested to Carlos we climb i...
Most of the following climbs appeared on the “Super Big List” of ascents prepared for the 2014 Piolets d’Or jury by Claude Gardien (Vertical magazine) and Lindsay Griffin (AAJ/Mountain INFO). PYRENEES Pyrenees traverse. Eloi Callado made a complet...
Spanish climbers Murcia Fe?lix Go?mez de Leo?n and Jose? Antonio Pastor completed the possible first ascent of a 4,929m peak above the Dikiy Glacier, a branch of the South Inylchek Glacier extending southward to the Pobeda massif. Starting from a ...
The majestic, 14,410-foot volcano of Mt. Rainier, just 55 miles from Seattle, is one of the most popular mountaineering destinations in North America. Lined by massive glaciers on all sides, the mountain is attempted by about 10,000 people a y...
In 2010, after a ski ascent and descent from Mt. Ararat, my friend Konstantin Babkin proposed that we look for virgin peaks for climbs and possible descents on skis, and in June of that year, along with Aleksey Bukinich, we departed for the easter...
In July, Sergey Maksimenko, Maxim Perevalov, and I headed to Kyrgyzstan to attempt a new route on the north face of Blok Peak (5,239m), named for the famous Russian poet Alexander Blok. July was unusually cold, with lots of precipitation. We had t...
In mid-July, Doug Chabot, Steve Swenson, and I traveled to the central Asian country of Tajikistan. Our original plan for the summer was to climb in Pakistan. However, a few weeks before our planned departure, we still had not received our climbin...
In August, Peter Anderson, Jim Donini, Bo White, and I traveled to the Pamir Mountains in southeastern Tajikistan to teach wilderness medicine, climbing, and guiding basics to a group of local students from the Pamir Alpine Club, and to attempt ne...
I rolled into Yosemite Valley in customary fashion—no plan and no partner. I soon repeated a few neoclassic routes, including Border Country (Collins-Drummond-Schaefer, AAJ 2010) and the Final Frontier (Berry-Lucas, AAJ 2014), but then became rest...
In April the international team of Stephanie Bodet and Arnaud Petit (France), Yong Liu (China), and I, with help from local Tam Khairudin Haja, climbed a new route on the south tower of Nenek Semukut (a.k.a., the Dragon Horns or Nekek Semukut). Ou...