In March, Maximo Fernandez (Chile), Lucas “Turco” Dahir (Argentina), and I finished a project we started a few years ago on the east face of Anfiteatro, beginning partway up the gully that separates Walwalun from Cerro Anfiteatro. The seven-pitch ...
In October 2017, Ian Schwer and I completed two new routes on the south face of Cerro Pantojo (2,027m). This mountain is the heart of an extinguished volcano near the Paso Cardenal Antonio Samoré between Argentina and Chile. The normal route runs ...
During July 2016, an Argentine team (Lucas Alzamora, Juan Guerra, and Roberto Rivas Jordan) climbed a new route up the southeast face of Negro Overo (5,780m) in La Rioja Province, a mountain first climbed by the Incas. The new route ascended a sno...
Glauco Muratti has been exploring the mountains of Mendoza Province, near Aconcagua, for years. In February 2018, he joined another Argentine, Lisandro Arelovich, and headed to the remote Quebrada Chorrillos, a valley with many obstacles that has ...
Incahuasi is a 6,638m volcano on the border with Chile whose name means "Inca house" in Quechua. The world’s second-highest ruins, an Incan temple, are found near the summit. In January 2018, Diego Cavassa (Argentina) climbed a new route up the st...
Early July found Jon Griffin and me below Third Recess Peak in the Mono Recesses, a series of hanging valleys west of Mono Pass. Our friends Austin Siadak and Matt Van Biene had climbed a route to the left of the line Serving Detention (IV 5.10, H...
In mid-July, Jon Griffin, Gabriel Andres Mancilla Jipoulou, and I climbed two new routes in the Williamson Bowl of the Sierra Nevada. We first set our sights a prominent subpeak directly south of Mt. Tyndall (14,026’). We had dubbed this the First...
On August 6, under clear skies and with dreams of first ascents on remote peaks, Tess Ferguson, Anina Friedrich, Jessica Keil, and I flew into Alaska's Gates of the Arctic National Park. Wild and remote, with no roads or trails, it is one of the U...
The Direct Line (39 pitches, 5.13+), a.k.a. the Platinum Wall, is a brand-new, mostly independent free line on El Capitan. It begins just left of the Nose and continues up the steepening blankness, following a circuitous path of 22 technical slab ...
The first time I approached the Aeolian Wall on Mt. Wilson I quickly became enamored with the crack systems flanking the classic route Inti Watana (2,000’, IV 5.10c). This past season I convinced my friend Kyle to fly down to Vegas and meet me for...
When I arrived in Red Rock in early October, the temperatures were still quite warm and I had a difficult time locating consistent partners. So on off days I would venture out in the canyons with a pair of binoculars and a guidebook scouting new r...
IN THE FALL of 2017, many new climbs were established in the various steep canyons of the Wheeler Crest. In general, climbers were seeking out the cleanest slabs and crack lines, as well as the few remaining unclimbed formations. The routes are li...
In April, three new routes were established on the large formations bordering the Cartago Creek Gorge, west of Highway 395 near the town of Cartago. On the 21st, Brian Prince and I hiked heavy loads deep into the gorge to the previously unclimbed ...
On May 27, Myles Moser and I climbed a high-quality route on the left side of the Parisian Buttress, a prominent formation along the Meysan Lakes Trail out of Whitney Portal. Three pitches of golden, knob-studded face climbing protected by bolts g...
On May 4, Myles Moser and I started a new route on the sunny south face of the Stonehouse Buttress, to the right of the Chimney Route (IV 5.8, Faint-Rowell, 1974). This formation in the Tuttle Creek drainage has largely been ignored since early as...
On April 19, Myles Moser and I spotted an unclimbed snow and ice gully on the northeastern side of the Bastille Buttress, a 2,000’ granite monolith that juts from the north ridge of Lone Pine Peak. With binoculars, we could see sections of thin ic...
El Cap continued to see considerable free climbing attention this year from an international cast. In the fall, Barbara Zangerl (Austria) and Jacopo Larcher (Italy) returned to make the second free ascent of Magic Mushroom (VI 5.14a) in an 11-day ...
After sharing adventure climbing stories and pictures of chossy towers one night over dinner in the fall of 2015 with the legendary Richard Jensen, we envisioned a Fisher Towers climbing project that unexpectedly ended up spanning three trips over...
PROLIFIC Utah route developer Bill Ohran recalls ripping down a dirty desert road in the San Rafael Swell in the mid-’90s, blaring Henry Rollins in his Chevy Nova. Unable to find a climbing partner, but with a strong desire to disconnect from the ...
In July, Markus Gschwendt (Austria) and Anton Sharobayko (Russia) made a lengthy and unusual traverse of Pik Lenin (7,134m). Starting from the standard Camp 1 at 4,400m on the normal route up the north side of Lenin, the pair climbed the east face...