“The Fox Jaw,” Molar Tooth, Lovin’All the Right Places. In mid to late summer, Mike Libecki and I flew via Iceland to Kulusik Island and the full-service village of Tasiilaq before getting helicoptered into the Schweizerland mountains of east Gree...
SLIP—RIVER CROSSING, POOR POSITION, MISCOMMUNICATIONBaffin Island, Auyuittuq National Park, Mount ThorOn July 10, 1984, a climbing group from Japan was returning to Pangnirtung after an ascent of the West Face of Mount Thor on Baffin Island. Their...
ALTHOUGH the goddess Nanda* (Devi means “goddess”) does not appear in the ancient sacred Hindu texts, that does not mean that she, a consort of Siva, is not one of the important, if not the most important, of the Hindu deities in Garhwal. She pe...
KNEE INJURY, INEXPERIENCEAlaska, Mount McKinley, West ButtressOn May 30, the two members of the Sled Dog expedition, Matt Sachs (34) and June Braugham (40) were evacuated from the 14,200-foot camp on Denali. On the 29th, Sachs sustained a knee inj...
Masherbrum Attempt. Our “four-man” expedition dwindled down to me alone, but I knew most of the Balti porters from previous trips and had faith in them. I find reports of their unreliability, greed and negative qualities frightening and untrue. We...
La Esfinge, Dion’s Dihedral, New Variation and First Free Ascent. Looking at the Sphinx (La Esfinge) and following its features and lines, it rapidly becomes obvious that one feature dominates all others. That is the 150-meter left-facing corner, ...
AFRICA was about the last place I ever expected to find myself. Not because it lacks interest, but just to see all those elephants and tigers running around loose! I had heard of Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro but neither of them had the lure of th...
The relentless swells of the north Atlantic eased as Peter Fasoldt and I, inside the small fishing vessel Royal Oak, turned north into Cape La Hune Bay. The barren fjord runs for miles with granite walls on all sides. We readied ourselves and Delt...
AVALANCHE, WEATHER, UNROPEDYukon, Kluane National Park, Mount Logan, East RidgeJ.A. (22) and her partner C.D. (34) began their expedition on May 27. They were scheduled to return by June 25. J.A. had previously summited the King’s Trench on Mount ...
After a promising spring that saw a trio of big new ice lines on Tangle Ridge (see AAJ 2010), followed by a new line on the Emperor Face of Mt. Robson (below), the summer was a bit of a disappointment. The lackluster season can be at least partl...
AAC, South Central Section. At the Club’s 1994 annual meeting, French Hill discussed the idea of forming a southwest section with Mike Hall. In April, 1995, French Hill formally proposed the idea to AAC Executive Director Charley Shimanski. With a...
An American at Chamonix in 1754G. R. de BeerF.R.S., A.C., S.A.C., Hon. D.-ès-L. (Lausanne), Correspondent de I’lnstitut de France, Director of the British Museum (Natural History)THE earliest account known of an excursion to Chamonix is also the f...
Kautz Cleaver. Point Success, the southwesterly of Rainier’s three summits, and the only point above 14,000 feet which may be reached without touching glacier ice, was first reached by Stevens and Van Trump during their historic ascent of Rainier ...
HAVING decided to visit Mount McKinley, Dougal Haston and I consulted the Alaskan pioneer climber, Bradford Washburn, and scrutinized his wonderfully sharp aerial photographs of the South Face. There seemed to be a possible line up the face betw...
Sentinel Rock—A New Direct North Wall RouteYvon Chouinard(This article is included not only because the ascent is significant in itself but also because it relates in detail one of the Yosemite Class VI climbs described in the author’s other artic...
RAFFI BEDAYN 1915-1982A son of Sarkes Bedayn, the food merchant of San Francisco, Raffi took up climbing in the mid 1930s. He soon became one of the leading rock-climbers of the Sierra Club and made his mark in the company of such luminaries as Be...
Aguja Mermoz, East Buttress. Italians Vanni Spinelli, Ezio Tanzi, Antonio Colombo, Giulio Maggioni, Danilo Galbiati, Giorgio Confalonieri and Davide Corbetta climbed the 700-meter-high east buttress of the Aguja Mermoz. They set up Base Camp at th...
FALLING ROCK, CLIMBING UNROPED, WEATHER Washington, Olympic MountainsIn the past year, the Olympians Hiking and Climbing Club had embarked on a program of teaching basic climbing skills to improve safety on the long cross-country traverses through...
FALL ON ROCK, RAPPEL ERROR–RAPPELLED OFF END OF ROPEWyoming, Lander, Sinks CanyonOn May 4, Jim Ratz (52) fell to his death while rappelling from a route called Honeycomb, four miles from his home in Lander.The following description and analysis we...
Everest: The Ultimate Challenge. Al Burgess and Jim Palmer. Beaufort Books, New York, 1983. 214 pages, color photographs, diagrams. $27.95.“I had chosen the Canadian expedition over the Lhotse climb because it was cheaper,” candidly writes author ...