Expeditions to India can be a disaster for morale, if they experience a combination of bad conditions, bad weather, bad local services, and too spicy food. This was the case for the 2009 Groupe Militaire de Haute Montagne (GMHM) expedition t...

Cas van den Gevel (The Netherlands) and William van Meegdenburg (Switzerland) climbed to 5,985m on an unnamed peak about 1km east-northeast of their Bagini Glacier base camp (4,510m) while acclimatizing for an attempt on the north face of Ka...

According to various estimates, more than 150 people climbed the Ragni Route (600m, 90° M4) on the west face of Cerro Torre during the 2012-2013 summer season. This is more than twice as many people as climbed it in the previous 40 years, sin...

Undoubtedly the most significant Himalayan expedition by Indian mountaineers during 2012 resulted in the second ascents of two 7,000m summits, by new routes, in just 12 days climbing above base camp. The venue was the remote Jongsang, a long p...

Mirko Breckner, Max Dünsser, Dario Haselwarter, Reinhard Hones, Felix Sattleberger, and Uli Steiner, young climbers from the Deutscher Alpinverein (German Alpine Club), and David Göttler as leader, spent October in the Tshiburongi Valley o...

One of the advantages of living in China is that it gives access to a number of unclimbed, indeed unattempted, peaks. Perusal of Tom Nakamura’s Sichuan’s Most Outstanding Unclimbed Peaks led Simon Moore, Rimon Than, Alex Tomaczynski, and I t...

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...