In October 2011 Chamonix guides Mathieu Détrie, Pierre Labbre, and Jérôme Para made a spirited attempt on the south pillar, reaching the crest by a previously unclimbed line. The three acclimatized with a three-day ascent of Mera Peak, sleeping...
In November Tatsuya Aoki, Yasuhiro Hanatani, and Hiroyoshi Manome made the long-awaited first ascent of the south pillar of Kyashar (a.k.a. Peak 43). After establishing base camp in the village of Tangnag (ca 4,300m, and only a couple of h...
Chris Wright and I read about the Lunag Massif in a feature article by Joe Puryear in AAJ 2010. Thanks to his and David Gottlieb’s photographs, we found several exciting possibilities: Our objectives would be Little Lunag (6,492m), Lunag I...
In November, Tino Villanueva and I (USA) spent the month making seven first ascents in Rolwaling. Five of these were water ice and mixed climbs above the main Rolwaling and Yalung valleys. We also repeated several previously established ice ...
On October 23 Sergey Bublik and Mykola (Nicolay) Shymko made the first ascent of Simnang Himal via an alpine-style climb directly up the steep and difficult south-southeast face. Simnang Himal, formerly referred to as P2, lies immediately so...
Himjung (7,092m). Koreans Ahn Chi-young and Kim Chang-ho made the first ascent, via the southwest face, of one of the few remaining unclimbed 7,000ers in Nepal for which it is possible to obtain a permit. There is no known previous attempt. Aft...
` The high and remote massif of Churen Himal has three summits: Churen Himal West, Central, and East. All are given the same height. In October an Italian expedition climbed the right side of the southwest face of Churen Himal West to reach...
In September we made a four-day trip to Soming Valley in the central Gissar Range, just south of Iskanderkul Lake. According to the Tajik Federation of Mountaineering (FAT), all peaks west of the Belaya Pyramida–Hodzhalakan area are still virg...
Today there are at least 17 unique routes to the summit of Korzhenevskaya. Fourteen of them start from the Moskvin Glacier, two from the Mushketov Glacier, and only one from the Fortambek Glacier. The latter, the northwest ridge, is the rout...
Mt. Parandas (4,250m) has an 800m north wall with lots of overhangs but also decent ledges, so one can climb without using a portaledge. The sun hits the north wall for only 1 to 1.5 hours a day. I had studied a line on the right side in 2010, ...
Russian climber Sergey Nefedov, who in 2010 had freed the 335m route Machombo at 7c+, revisited Morcheka in May and free-climbed four other routes or variations on Crimea’s traditional limestone wall. This included a free ascent of Center (10 p...
Alexander Lavrinenko and Taras Tsushko (Ukraine) added a route to the ca 750m limestone wall north of Bezengi, climbing as a two-man team in the dead of winter. The new line ascends the western bastion, starting right of Land of Mist, a route t...
After eight years of research, I obtained permission to go to Franz Josef Land, a 192-island Arctic archipelago, on my never-ending search for unclimbed walls and towers. In July I got a ride there on a Russian sailboat. I found what I’d dream...
Sergey Nefedov, Alexey Romanov, and Max Sotnik explored the winter climbing potential of Khibini in the Murmansk region, just east of northern Finland. These mountains rise to 1,200m, and the area has been developed for skiing. In February the ...
In December 2011, Andrej Grmovsek, Tanja Grmovek, Matic Obid, and I were sitting in the first row of a chilled out Venezuelan bus, headed from the chaos of Caracas toward the small town of Santa Elena, the last stop before our jungle adventure. Be...
During December 2012 and January 2013, I made my fifth climbing visit to Oman’s Western Hajar mountains, this time with Dave Wynne-Jones. To make the most of the waning moon, on arrival we threw ourselves at the committing north face of Jabal K...
Pat Goodman, José Miranda, and I first attempted this line in February 2012 with a Jonny Copp Foundation Grant, completing four pitches, but Pat and José both got injured. We felt some serious voodoo from the wall, and so decided to come back ...
In January 2013, Miquel Sanchez, Alfons Valls, and I climbed a possible new route on Bisotoon. Along with Joan Sole? and Edu Sanchez, we first repeated a classic line, Gharagash (1,200m, MD), to get a feel for the rock. This took us two days, w...
. I left Huaraz on October 14 with aspirant guide Yonny Rosales to teach a guiding course. Our itinerary included Shacsha, Huruashraju, Rurec, and Cashan, in addition to some rescue training. After a couple of days in the mountains we decided t...
The second International Rock Climbing Festival, organized by the Iranian Mountain Federation and Iranian Alpine Club, took place in mid- October on the magnificent ca 2,700m Bisotoon. This mountain in western Iran, near the city of Kermanshah,...