Officially brought onto the permitted list in 2002, Anidesh Chuli (formerly known as White Wave) had no recorded attempts until April and May. The New Zealand team comprised of Ben Dare, Andrei Dusschoten, Rob Frost, and Scott Scheele had planned ...
In early October, An Chi-young, Kim Young-mi, and I made the first known ascent of Amphu I, which lies between (and east of) the Amphu Lapcha (a.k.a. Amphu Labtse, a popular 5,780m trekkers' pass) and Baruntse North. While the official height (HMG...
During July and August, the three-member Spanish-Basque team of Txemari Andres, Vicente Castro, and Kepa Escribano added five new rock routes in the region of the Torssuqatoq Spires. Andres and Escribano flew to Narsarsuaq, where they met Castro i...
On June 24, John Dickey, Prairie Kearney, Lizzy Scully, and I arrived by small powerboat in Torssuqatoq Fjord. The surrounding scenery remained illusive, socked in, but the rain eased as we shuffled loads up the steep, tufty slope to base camp. Th...
With research indicating there had been no previous ascents of peaks immediately north and south of the Storefjord, seven members of the Eagle Ski Club visited this area, northeast of the commercial airport at Constable Pynt, in April. Hunters and...
From June into August, the Oxford West Greenland Expedition combined a major sailing voyage with adventurous climbing in the Ummannaq area, putting up five big new routes and a number of minor routes, including first ascents of two previously uncl...
In 2007, operating mostly alone and moving around in kayaks, Eliza Kubarska and I climbed a new route, Golden Lunacy, on Maujit Qaqarsuassiaq (AAJ 2008). In July 2009 we returned with a film crew to record documentary footage. During that time we ...
In August, Murat Otepbaev and I climbed a new route up the western wall of Pogrebetsky Peak’s western summit (1,870m, Russian 5B, French 6c+). In all the ascent took four days: a day of approach and reconnaissance, two days to reach the summit, an...
Tom Bell, Max Folkett, Richard “Reg” Measures, Neil Thomas, Hugh Thomas, and I arrived in Bishkek from the U.K. and New Zealand in early August. On 5th we traveled to Maida-Adyr, and the following morning we took a 25-minute helicopter flight to o...
In August, Harry Bloxham, Clay Conlon, Al Docherty, Harry Kingston, Ross Davidson, and I (all from the U.K.) spent three weeks in the Djangart Valley. We had planned to attempt three 5,000m-plus unclimbed summits. Just before traveling, however, w...
I first thought about visiting Sabakh back in the 1990s, a time when my blood started boiling just from the possibility of doing a first ascent. During that time the archives of the Russian Mountaineering Federation were not in electronic format, ...
In Sedona, Zach Harrison and Jack Snyder climbed one new route and free-climbed another. In April 2013, they free climbed the aid route Justice of the Peace (550’, A2, McDonald-Shaffer,) on Courthouse Butte. The route climbs the northwest aspect o...
After two failed attempts, Tom Ruddy and I completed a new route on the east face of Castle Rock Spire in July. The route shares part of the first pitch with the Regular Route (Bettler-Long-Siri-Steck-Wilson, AAJ 1951) before it goes left and asce...
“An alpine El Capitan,” as Galen Rowell described it, Angel Wings is neither as tall nor as steep as El Capitan, but it is impressive in its own right. Compared to El Capitan’s pristine sea of chiseled geometry, Angel Wings twists roguishly from t...
The Moonstone Buttress stands out like a shark fin, peeling away from the rest of the buttresses in Whitney Portal. It’s speckled with dikes, black knobs, and sometimes is utterly blank. After a solid attempt on the wall early in the summer with C...
One step from the sliding-glass door of the Whitney Portal Store kitchen shows it all: the looming pyramid of the south-facing Wrinkled Lady, slashed with dihedrals, rising to 10,900’; below it, a system of slabs, terraces, dikes, and tunnels that...
After talking with Doug Robinson and getting his account of the first ascent of the southwest face of Mt. Whitney via Lost (AAJ 2007), Urmas Franosch and I decided to take a look. Being a local guide has its advantages, and we sent our equipment i...
During the summer of 2008, Kyle Sox and I completed a new traverse in the Evolution region of the Sierra Nevada: the Evolution Crest Traverse (VI 5.9). This consists of a complete traverse of the Sierra Crest from Bishop Pass to Piute Pass, a dist...
I first noticed the cliffs adjacent to the Brownstone Mine while hiking to Merriam Peak some years ago, thinking there might be good routes to do on the clean, featured granite. In the summer of 2009 my wife and I hiked over Italy Pass and down in...
Just a few miles west of the world-famous Buttermilk Boulders, the Horton Lake trail leads into a valley of spectacular scenery and mining history, and to the dramatic east face of Four Gables (12,720’). On August 15, 2012, Cadence Reed and I asce...