Southern Patagonian Icecap. Toshio Takeuchi, Takeo Tsuzuki and Takeo Yoshizawa, son of our assistant editor and vice-president of the Japanese Alpine Club, made a north-south crossing of the Southern Patagonian Icecap from Fiordo Falcón to Fiordo ...
Dhhun, First Ascent. Dhhun (6200m), which means “guardian,” was first climbed in August via the north face by a Japanese expedition led by Tsuneo Suzuki. The top was thought to have been reached on August 6 by three members and three high-altitude...
Buni Zom Group. The Swallow Club of Tokyo consisted of Masato Nakamura, leader, Hiroyuku Nakamura, Kazushi Takahashi, and Takashi Shimizu; they had proper permission. They tried the main peak of Buni Zom from the west but were stopped by a 1350-fo...
K2 Attempt. A large part of the international group led by Stefan Wömer attempted to climb K2 by the Abruzzi ridge. Four Polish women, Wanda Rutkiewicz, Krystyna Palmowska, Anna Czerwinska and Dobroslawa Miodowicz- Wolf, worked with Austrian Peter...
Cerro Cervantes. Sam Grubenhof and I arrived at Calafate on February 12. We hoped to find a way to the Glaciar Moreno and across the Brazo Rico to attempt Cerro Cervantes, which we believed was an unclimbed 7819-foot (2383-meter) peak below which ...
Mount Kinesava, West Face, First One-Day Ascent. On March 15, Drew Spaulding, Jon Allen and I climbed the King’s Corner in 13 hours, down-rating it from 5.10 A3+ to 5.11 A2.Doug Byerly, loosely affiliated
Kanjut Sar II. On July 29, we made the second ascent of Kanjut Sar II (6831 meters, 22,411 feet) by a new route, the south buttress. The peak had been climbed by Swiss in 1985 by the northwest side. We were Frank Schmidt, Franck van den Barselaer,...
Raksha Urai, first ascent and tragedy. In the remote Api-Nampa-Saipal region of Far West Nepal, there is a small north-south range of mountains named Raksha Urai, which consists of several peaks (see note below). The highest of the group is Raksha...
FALL ON SNOW, PNEUMOTHORAXAlaska, Mount McKinley, Karstens’ RidgeJonathan Giesen’s (25) accident happened July 5 at 2200. We summitted the previous day (July 4), arriving back at high camp at 1850. We slept in on the morning of the fifth, relaxed,...
Tengi Ragi Tau East, first ascent of peak via south pillar. In autumn 2004 a team of young French alpinists attempted to climb a new route on the northeast face of Tengkangpoche. They were unable to achieve this, due to high objective and avalanch...
Yerupajá. We had hoped to climb Siulá by its west face, but because there was so little snow in the last years, because of March floods and the June earthquake, the approaches were not practicable. We therefore turned to the mountain that blocked ...
The West Buttress of Lobuje EastEric BrandANEARTH-SHAKING CRACK told me I was in trouble. Giant slabs of snow swirled around me as my world fell into chaos. Slow motion became fast forward, which became slow motion again as I began to fall. With f...
Torre Central, Bonington-Whillans. After being in the park for four days, on February 10 Dave Nettle and I decided to hike to the base of the gully leading to the col between the North and Central Towers. The snow from previous days had given us c...
Dartmouth Mountaineering Club, 1947. During the first two weeks of July 1947, six members of the Dartmouth Mountaineering Club packed into the Wind River Range for an attempt on Gannett Peak. Unusually deep snow on the Dinwoody and Gannett Glacier...
Craig Luebben 1960–2009News of Craig Luebben’s death while preparing for an AMGA guides exam in the North Cascades on August 9 was a devastating blow to his vast network of friends and the climbing community. But his legacy and dedication to educa...
Mt. Hooker, Northwest Passage. In mid-September, Ryan Hokanson and I hired two horses to pack our luggage up to Hailey Pass. Our objective was the north face of Mount Hooker, a 2,000-foot vertical expanse of beautiful orange granodiorite. After es...
The Front Lines of Climate ChangeMountaineers are the world’s witnesses to glacial decline.Joe StockThirty miles into the Neacolas, clouds spread over the Blockade Glacier and reduced our visibility to zero. We groped along in the murk, making slo...
The Ledge: An Adventure Story of Friendship and Survival on Mount Rainier. Jim Davidson and Kevin Vaughan. Ballantine Books, 2011. 268 pages. Hardcover. $26.00.On June 21, 1992, Jim Davidson and his friend and climbing partner Mike Price summited ...
The Mt. Logan AdventureAllen CarpeTHE ascent of Mt. Logan in 1925 was perhaps the most arduous feat of mountaineering ever undertaken in North America. In saying this I am not unmindful of the series of efforts, spread over six years, that carried...
On the Ridge Between Life and Death: A Climbing Life Reexamined.David Roberts. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. 415 pages. Hardcover. $26.00.My introduction to the writing of David Roberts was by way of his novella, “Like Water and Like Wind,...