In November, Chilean climbers Alvaro Vivanco, Juanita Guerra, and I, along with the German climber Max Beckmann, traveled to the Cajón de Navarro, in the V region of Chile, an area north of the Cordillera Central. Our objective was the uncli...
In April, the Perros Alpinos mountain group traveled to the Nieves Negras, located near the border of Chile and Argentina on the south side of San José Volcano. Our objective was Cerro Panamericano (4,501m), which we had tried in 2005 and 20...
In December I traveled to the Cajon del Estero Aucayes, using horse support to reach a base camp at ca 2,500m. The next day I left for a group of mountains that run from north to south and close this valley from the east. Cinco Mil (3,658m) ...
The first weekend of November, Ulises Espinosa and I, members of the Perros Alpinos Mountain Group, went to Cajon de lo Valdés, a valley containing many classic peaks. Our objective was the unclimbed Colmillos del Diablo: three rocky towers ...
In mid-January 2013, I arrived in Cochamó without sleep (lost on a bus), a partner (summiting Fitz Roy), or a plan (plan?). All I had was an awesome weather forecast. On the bus ride in, I met a large group of climbers and posed, somewhat mania...
In February 2013, after six sunny weeks of climbing in Cochamó, May Martin, Tyler Gagne, and I finished our trip by opening two new routes on Cerro Espejo in the Anfiteatro. The first, Antes de la Lluvia (475m, 5.8), wanders up a natural weaknes...
The initial project for Cyril Mokobodzki, Polo Barneoud, Nicolas Rotureau, and I (all from France) was to open a new 1,000m route in Cochamó, on the Central Cerro Trinidad. But after 10 days of nonstop rain, we downsized our goals. After days of...
I felt an instant attraction to El Monstruo when I saw one of the few existing pictures of the biggest, most remote wall in the Cochamó region. The details merely confirmed the aptitude of the name: There were no trails to its base, nor to...
The sensation of being a climber and walking into Cochamó Valley for the first time—especially after six months of planning and working, 8,000 miles of travel, and not one day of climbing for a month and a half, is tremendous. Right away, I foun...
Summary, various routes. 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. Chan...
I had been eyeing a line on the southwest face of Cerro Meliquina (2,602m) since my 2011 trip to the peak and successful ascent of the northeast face [AAJ 2012]. In 2012, I was fortunate enough to revisit the mountain, which is located i...
With the political situation sensitive and uncertain in East Tibet, my preferred field of research, I organized a survey team from the Hengduan Mountain Club to visit the West Sichuan Highlands from late September to late October. While ther...
In September, Garrett Bradley, Andrew Hedesh, Aleksandra (Ola) Przybysz, Torsten Treufeld, Li Yuanliang, and I traveled to Keketuohai (local name Koktokay), where we established 30 new routes, most between two and five pitches, but some as long as...
Yan Dongdong, one of China’s leading alpinists, died in July in a crevasse fall while descending from a peak in the Tien Shan. Dongdong’s accident occurred while doing what he loved the most, namely putting up a technical route on a complete...
On July 9 the internationally recognized Chinese alpinist Yan Dongdong was killed in a crevasse fall in the Central Tien Shan. Yan planned to make the first ascent of Chulebos (6,769m), the highest point of a 25-kilometer unbroken crest immedia...
Young Slovenians Nejc Marcic and Luka Strazar, who received a 2012 Piolet d’Or for their fast and minimalist first ascent of the west face of K7 West, made the second ascent of Janak via a new route up the 1,400m west face. It took them only...
From May 5-7, 2011, during an acclimatization phase as members of a mostly Slovenian expedition attempting Makalu, Steve House and Marko Prezelj traversed the entire Chago ridge from Peak 6,170m to the col before Makalu II’s northwest ridge....
Post-monsoon in Nepal was frustrating, to say the least, with five weeks of the most stable weather that Nick Bullock and I have ever experienced. However, we got completely shut down on a direct line up the unclimbed north face of Chamlan...
In October Jack Geldard and I made an unsuccessful attempt on the north face of Peak 41, a steep snow, ice, and mixed wall that had never been tried before. We shared base camp (4,800m) in the Hongu Valley with Nick Bullock and Andy Houseman...
While there is no suggestion that the following routes are new, they are previously unrecorded, and took place during the past decade. Bare details are published here to assist future climbers: On Chumbi (6,859m, just south of the Tibet...