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...
In late February and early March, Ethan Pringle and I did three new routes and some immaculate deep water soloing. Near Mashanig tower, which I had climbed in 2009, we did a 1,000-foot 5.6 up the west ridge of Thabbit’s Tower (named af...
In March my wife, Brittany Griffith, and I traveled to Yemen’s Socotra Island, an incredibly diverse oval of isolated land in the Arabian Sea. Often called the “Galapagos of the Arabian Sea” for its 300-plus endemic species of flora and ...
In November, Steffen Krug and I spent three weeks in this very special sandstone area. After enjoying some classic big lines, we repeated a few of the modern routes, including La Guerre Sainte (7b, AAJ 2001), a 12-pitch bolted route on J...
Raul Gonzalez and Mikel Saez de Urabain climbed a new line on Bes Parmak Sivrisi (3,520m), at the head of the Cimbar Valley, in July. El Pastor Electrico (425m) ascends a shallow buttress on the northwest face, to the right of the original r...
In August, Carlo Cosi, Enrico Geremia, Nicolò Geremia, and I climbed two new routes up the impressive west face of Lower Guvercinlik (3,000m) in the Emli Valley. None of us knew the area, so our first two days were spent wandering throu...
In early March, Ben Dare and Daniel Joll made the first complete ascent of the south face of Marian Peak (1,000m, 21 A2). The two did the route in a 28-hour round trip from the Homer Hut, and they said the climbing was excellent and likely w...
In July, Jonathan Jay, an American living in Almaty, soloed the northwest face (750m, Russian 3B) of Nursultan (4,330m, formerly called Komsomol). After skiing a few turns down the normal route on the southwest ridge, he dropped onto the northw...
The Zalisky Ala-Tau has many peaks, the highest being Talgar (4,973m), with many established routes. But most climbers bypass the Tuyuk-su valley, despite its proximity to Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan. The Tuyuk-su is just abov...
After a committing eight-day climb, my friend Stéphane Benoist and I reached the summit of Annapurna via the south face. I had been to Annapurna twice before: once in 2000 with Christian Trommsdorff and Patrick Wagnon, and then in 2010 with Stépha...
In 1984, Swiss alpinists Norbert Joos and Erhard Loretan ventured with a small team up the seven-kilometer-long east ridge of Annapurna, which borders the south face in a rippling line of subpeaks and summits. For the final four days on the crest,...
We first saw the 500m walls of It-kaya, east of the village of Bezengi, while making the first ascent of Ak-kaya in January 2011. The area around It-kaya is strikingly beautiful, with many herbs, flowers, and boulders, making it a kind of ...