Over a period of three weeks in December 2012 and January 2013, Anton Karnoup (Michigan,AAC) and I climbed a number of routes in Vallé Colorado, beneath the slopes of Mercedario (6,720m) in the Cordillera de la Ramada, approximately 100km nort...
In the 2012 season, 6,989 people traveled to Aconcagua—3,688 planned to reach the summit, and 3,301 visited the area for trekking. (The preceding season’s figures were 3,497 and 2,630.) The climbers were 18 percent Argentinian and 82 percent f...
The volcano Cerro Bonete (6,759m), located outside of La Rioja, is the continent’s fourth highest summit, the world’s third highest volcano, and until now was the highest summit in South America lacking a winter ascent. On June 9, Basques Javi...
Nevado Tres Cruces (6,749m) was the last peak over 6,500m on the continent without a winter ascent. Basques Jabi Txikon and Arkaitz Ibarra climbed the peak by a new route, a very steep glacier on the east face. On August 30 they began to accli...
During the second half of January 2012, Argentineans Sandra Odriozola, Christián Chávez, Matías Barberis, Pablo Barberis, Federico Barberis, and I explored the high-mountain desert Puna, in the northern province of Catamarca. Some early ascent...
Argentines Glauco Muratti and Guillermo Bianchi made the first ascent of this volcanic summit on December 10. A subsidiary summit 2km southwest of Cazadero (6,658m), Cerro Huayco is one of the tallest volcanoes on Earth. Muratti and Bianchi ...
Ojos del Salado (6,893m) is the highest volcano on Earth and the second highest summit in South America. Pissis (6,800m, unofficially) is the second highest volcano on Earth, and the third highest summit on the continent. Basques Jabi Txikon a...
In February 2012, Jabi Txikon, Juan Nogueras, and Arkaitz Ibarra set out to for a 200km traverse of some the highest volcanoes on Earth. They acclimatized on Las Grutas (ca 4,000m) from February 1–5, and then they were taken by car to Puertas ...
Volcán Tres Picos (6,037m) lies northwest of the Pissis massif, outside Catamarca, and until recently was one of the last virgin 6,000m peaks in the Andes. In 2010, Pablo Lukach and party attempted it without success. Lukach returned in Januar...
In September veteran climbers from Pune organized a trip with climbers from the “new generation” to stimulate interest in big-wall climbing. The Sahyadri Range, east of Mumbai, is composed of black basalt, and offers innumerable opportunities ...
On September 28 Simon Gietl and I stood on the summit of the Arwa Spire. Only 10 days previously I had been walking the long exhausting path from the last villages to the foot of this mountain. It was my third time. In 2002, as a young alpine g...
On October 1, Szu-ting Yi (Taiwan) and I climbed the ca 1,050m south ridge of Kemailong to make the first ascent of this striking granite tower in western Sichuan. [A photo of this mountain, labeled Peak 5,873m, was first published in AAJ 20...
On September 3, 2011, Szu- ting Yi (Taiwan), Eric Salazar, and I (both U.S.) made the first ascent of Crown Mountain in the northern Shaluli Shan of West Sichuan. We approached the peak, which is 10km southeast of Xiashe (5,883m), by je...
In August, Aditi and Rajesh Gadjil, Vineeta Muni, Lt. Col. Shamsher Singh, and I visited the Ang Tung Range, northwest of Pangong Lake. The Ang Tung is a small group of peaks west of the Koh Lungpa Valley. This valley had never been visited by...
Cerro Cota 2000, east face, first free ascent. Stephane Hanssens, Merlin Didier, and I spent January 14 to February 12, 2013, in the French Valley, living in a cave and climbing big walls. We did not see anybody except for the one day we wen...
Amy Ness and I began climbing the east face of the North Tower on January 9, 2013. We planned for 12 days on the wall for an all-free, capsule-style ascent. During 15 days on the wall, we had 10 days of fantastic weather. However, with good ...
In December 2012, I flew to Patagonia with Andrej Grmovsek, another Slovenian. We arrived in El Calafate, but one of our bags wasn´t that lucky, and we spent four days there, hearing exotic new stories about our missing bag every day. We ...
In January 2013, Steve Schneider climbed the South Tower with Ivo Kusanovic and Schneider’s wife, Heather Baer. Kusanovic was the first regional climber (Punta Arenas) to climb all three Torres del Paine, and Baer was the first woman to summ...
Cerro Castillo is a rocky massif located outside of Aysén, Chile. It contains a central tower surrounded by various other needles and black rock, which is where it derives its name. When viewed from the Carretera Austral, the interesting topog...
In April 2012, Jorg Heller, Robert Jasper, and I climbed the west ridge of Monte Giordano in Tierra del Fuego’s Cordillera Darwin. The peak lies east-southeast of Monte Buckland (1,746m) in the western Cordillera Darwin, southeast of Isla Da...