From April 29 to May 1, Teresa Au (my wife) and I climbed a new route on the northeast face of Mt. Barrill (7,650’, a.k.a. Barille or Barrille). This was our first trip to Alaska, and we flew to the Mountain House airstrip in mid-April, planning t...
In the summer of 2015, I learned that a man claimed to have completed the West Buttress Route on Denali three years before the well-known 1951 first ascent by Bradford Washburn and team. Bob Jones, a maverick cement truck driver—apparently 95 year...
Sometimes alpine climbing is all about the adventure, sometimes it is all about the sport, and usually it is partly about both. Adventure is not superior to sport, and sport is not superior to adventure, they’re simply different. In 2016, a place ...
At roughly 10,000’, the Lost Twin Lakes of Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains sit right at timberline. Above the upper lake loom two 1,000’ walls: The western Spider Web Wall is closer to the upper Lost Twin Lake, while the Thundercloud Wall sits back a ...
In mid-September, Oliver Deshler and I returned to the Clear Creek drainage in the northern Winds to attempt the south face of Forlorn Pinnacle (11,660’), which is actually a rooster comb of separate spires at the south end of Osborn Mountain. (De...
In March, Walt Hutton, Courtney Purcell, and I did the first ascent of Peak 6,020’, a few miles due east of Checkerboard Mesa, just outside the Zion National Park boundary. We call it the Little Bishop due to its resemblance to the Bishopric, anot...
In March, Matt Mower and I made the first complete ascent of Meridian Tower to its true summit. Meridian Tower (7,332’), visible from downtown Springdale, is a large, flat-topped peak that is part of the Towers of the Virgin, just southwest of the...
Over six days in July, during a cool spell of 90°F, I made the first known ascent of Gregory Butte (ca 7,700’), in the Kolob Canyons section of Zion National Park. I had previously attempted to climb the butte via a new aid line on the southwest s...
A climber on Foxtrot in Eldorado Canyon. Photo by Adam Brink March 5 was a beautiful, sunny day in Eldo and I decided that after a good warmup I would put in a few burns on my project: Foxtrot (5.11d PG-13). I had top-...
From November 28 to December 9, Karl Kvashay and I established the first route up the prominent south face of Notch Peak (9,654’), a limestone mountain much better known for its huge north wall. This was our second go at the line after a strong bu...
“Get out of the way, quick!” I shouted, as calmly as possible considering the position I was in.It was summit day on our bid for the first ascent of the Black Diamond, an unclimbed wall in Zion National Park's Kolob Canyons region. I was 25’ up th...
Glacier National Park is a wild and remote place with sizable alpine terrain, full of possibility and uncertainty. Alpine climbing here often involves dodgy or nonexistent beta, long approaches, bushwhacks, bear encounters, and creative anchor-bui...
In late July, Adam Ferro and I hiked over the Whitney-Russell col and set up camp by a small tarn 500’ below Arctic Lake. From there we approached the long northeast face of Mt. Hitchcock, which consists of many subpeaks and attractive buttresses,...
For the past 15 years I have climbed on the often weird towers and canyons around Sedona. While the town’s New Age vibe is pretty lame, there are miles of cliffs to explore and occasionally a good climb. In the last three years I have become absor...
On May 21 an Indo-British party led by Francis Blunt, Adele Pennington, and I (U.K.), and Heera Singh and Mangal Singh (India), made the likely first ascent of the highest peak of the Vishnu Ghar Dhar Range.This range forms the southern fringe of ...
Lapche Kang II (7,250m, 28°18'01"N, 86°23'03"E) lies in the northern Himalaya, about 35km northwest of Cho Oyu, in a massif variously called Labuche Himal, Pamari Himal, or Lapche Kang. The highest summit, Lapche Kang I (a.k.a. Choksam, 7,367m), w...
From December 16–19, 2015, Giorgi Tepnadze and I, with the help of Davit Mchedlishvili until the last camp, made the first winter ascent of Shkhara South (4,320m), a small top on the south-southwest ridge of Shkhara West (5,068m). The 2,100m ascen...
In June my party climbed the south face of Donguz Orun (4,454m) via the Dolra Glacier. We reached the glacier via a two-day trek up the Dolra Valley, followed by a final steep ascent over granite slabs below the hanging seracs forming the snout of...
In early November, Rob Baker, Mitch Murray, and I reached a point about 20m below the top of the previously undocumented Xialong Rezha (5,625m, based on two altimeter readings). The peak lies at 29.886444°N, 99.511519°E to the west of the Genyen m...
From July 20–23, the Russian expedition of Olesya Babushkina, Marina Popova, Denis Prokofyev, and Vladimir Sysoev made the first ascent of the east face of the northern summit of the Great Walls of China. The team had planned to attempt a new line...