A legend of the Colorado climbing scene, Bill Forrest died of a heart attack on December 21, while snowshoeing on Old Monarch Pass with his wife and outdoor partner of 26 years, Rosa. He was 73.For those of us who made Boulder our climbing home ...
On February 1, 2012, the climbing and caving world lost a quiet and unassuming pioneer and role model. Herb Conn passed away in the heart of the Black Hills, in the same bed he had shared with Jan, his wife of nearly 68 years. Herb and Jan...
Legendary Colorado climber Harvey T. Carter died in March at the age of 81 from prostate cancer. Harvey started climbing in the late 1940s in Colorado Springs, where his mother and father were professors at Colorado College. Over the years ...
I remember when it started, with a cryptic message from a friend in Ridgway, Colorado: “Have you talked to Helen or Bean in the past few days?” I hadn’t. But I had spoken with Bean the day after Christmas, when he fessed up and told me that he h...
On February 7, 2012, my good friend and best climbing partner, Bjørn-Eivind Årtun, was killed along with his partner, Stein-Ivar Gravdal, while attempting a new big-wall mixed climb on Kjerag, a seaside wall in southwest Norway. A large blo...
It was an idea born from years of climbing in Chaltén, of looking for adventure, of moving fast and light: Michi Lerjen-Demjen and I wanted to climb the east face of Fitz Roy. We started laying plans to attempt the first repeat of the ...
"The essence of a climb burns out in the moment of experience.” Marko Prezelj’s words smoldered in my mind as we chugged up another steep hill en route to base camp on the Choktoi Glacier. I sure wish it would burn out of my legs. Fatigue forc...
From Hans' Facebook page: Alex Honnnold and I climbed The Nose route in 2:23:46 on Sunday June 17th. I’ve written the following five sections below... ----the details of the climb ----statistics and numbers ---...
Ever since Jim Bridwell, John Long, and Billy Westbay climbed the Nose in a day in May 1975, people have been trying to do bigger and bigger linkups in Yosemite Valley. John Bachar and Peter Croft linked El Capitan and Half Dome in 1986; Timmy ...
It’s likely that more meters of new routes were opened in the 2012–13 climbing season than any other in Cochamó’s history. In addition to the reports that follow, three other difficult routes were established. Chance Traub and partner establish...
In 2012 there were heavy snowfalls in both the rainy and dry seasons, which sometimes made for difficult conditions on the Andean faces. Conversely, the good snow cover made at least one new route possible, on Huayna Potosi’s south peak. The...
Our Slovenian expedition comprised Marta Krejan, Stanko Mihev, Vinko Mocilnik, Domen Petek, Franc Pusnik, Primoz Steharnik, Sebastjan Zapusek, and I, all from the Ravne Alpine Club. On July 8 we left La Paz in two vans for Apacheta Pampa, and on...
For 20 years Argentinian mountain guide Gustavo Lisi has visited Bolivia during the dry season. We know each other, but as I live far from La Paz center, it was sheer coincidence I met him in a shop. Within minutes we'd agreed to make ...
It takes less than 20 years for a new lake to be formed by a retreating glacier. Robert Rauch and I discovered this at Jati Khollu, a rarely climbed mountain for which the only map and photo we could find dated back to 1995. At that time there ...
On July 20 Robert Rauch and I made what we believe is the first ascent of a route on the right side of the southwest face of Serkhe Khollu (the next major break to the right of La Venganza del Don Gringo). Our route, Los Alcaldes de Serkhe K...
On the lower south summit (ca 5,960m) of Huayna Potosi, the Peruvian guide Victor Hugo Rimac climbed a new line to the right of the classic Via de los Franceses (300m, AD+ 55°, Cardon-Mesili, 1974). On December 8 and 9, when the weather wa...
Kazakh climbers Ildar Gabassov, Vaso Pivtsov, and Alex Sofrygin completed a rare ascent of the ca 3,000m direct north face of Khan Tengri over nine days in August. The last ascent, by Russian climbers Pavel Shabalin and Ilias Tukhvatullin, was...
In late September, Ryan Johnson and Samuel Johnson (unrelated) attempted a huge ice and mixed route on the ca 1,400m southeast face of Kyzyl Asker, reaching 5,300m on the first day. The pair hoped to tackle the mixed headwall the following m...
Continuing the work of the 2010 Krakow expedition, Conor Gilmore, Azwan Isa, Ronan Kernan, Bradley Morrell, and Alek and Vladimir Zholobenko visited the Dzhirnagaktu Glacier basin, just west of Kyzyl Asker, where in 16 days they made first...
Our International School of Mountaineering expedition (nine members and three guides) initially set out to explore the Kokgart region of the West Kokshaal-Too, starting in late August. This lies to the west of the established climbing in t...