On April 29, Nik Mirhashemi and Mark Pugliese established a 1,500’ alternate start to the French (Northwest) Ridge of Huntington. Their line begins near the start of the 1984 route Polarchrome and climbs straight up to the ridge, reaching it below...
Readers may be interested to know about Chunkurchak, a sport climbing area close to Bishkek, with both single- and multi-pitch routes, possibly useful for a couple of days at the beginning or end of a Kyrgyzstan expedition. Directions to these gra...
Before joining the estimated 1,000 climbers at base camp for Pik Lenin in August, we went by jeep to the next main valley west, the Mindzhar, where there were no mountaineers. At the head of this valley, the Mindzhar Glacier rises west to Mindzhar...
We spend the night half-sitting, half-standing, one butt cheek each, hanging from the anchor. We are freezing and our bivy sack keeps sliding down our bodies; it’s impossible to zip it completely, and snow keeps blowing in through a hole at the to...
On April 3, Craig Pope, my wife Priti Wright, and I climbed a new ice route on the north face of Dragontail Peak, a direct line up the north buttress that we dubbed Iceline Bling (250m, WI5 M4). This is an alternate start to the classic Triple Cou...
On September 9, I made a free ascent of King Kong (IV 5.11+), a line on the west face of Mt. Stuart that I had completed the week before, after five years of attempts. This linkup climbs the first four pitches of Gorillas in the Mist before moving...
In late 2015, Matt Leslie, Jeremy Luscher, Alan Semrau, and I finished a three-year project on the Illusion Wall, in the Squire Creek area of Darrington. Darrington is home to some of the best multi-pitch routes in Washington, but the 2,000’–3,000...
On January 28, 2017, Tim Bemrich, Jacob Oram, and I made the first ascent of a feature long known as the Pencil, a steep, very narrow ice line on the north face of Mt. Hood, between the North Face Gully routes and the Eliot Headwall.We approached ...
Up to now there was not a single established alpine route on Uløya Island, only three icefalls that friends had climbed a year before. The faces rise to a maximum of 550m, and we decided to go for the biggest prize, the central pillar of the east ...
In early May, Timmy ONeill and I climbed a new route on the South Face of Pontok 3 in the Spitzkoppe Range. This huge, clean granite slab is wonderfully featured, but with essentially no cracks for gear, bolts are the only option. Placing bolts on...
During the first week of August, Julian Kuettner and I completed a new line up the Atlantis Wall, on the south face of Broad Dome in the Sonora Pass area. The Atlantis Wall sits above the middle of Donnell Reservoir, approximately 15 miles from th...
Several accidents, including one fatality, occurred in the Red Gully on the standard route up 14,294-foot Crestone Peak. Although it faces south, this rocky gully often holds snow well into July, presenting mountaineering challenges on what is oth...
After running into Bruce Morris, who did two new routes on the east face of Mt. Watkins, in a local climbing gym and hearing all his praise for this infrequently visited corner of Yosemite Valley, I decided to check the east face for myself. Chris...
In 2015, Felipe Cazmargo (Brazil) told me about a climb in the “Yosemite of Brazil,” near the town of São José do Divino. A decade earlier, a team of climbers, mostly from Chile, had equipped a route called Planeta dos Macacos up the north-facing ...
In December, Nicolas Dávalos (Ecuador) and I climbed a new line up the southwest side of Monja Grande (5,316m), one of the major peaks comprising the Altar Massif. (Editor’s note: Monja Grande’s elevation is frequently stated as 5,160m, but the au...
Known for its iconic pyramid shape, Mt. Aspiring is often called the “Matterhorn of the South,” as it is the only peak above 3,000m outside of the Aoraki/Mt. Cook region and it towers above its surroundings, mesmerizing all who see it. In the days...
From June 5–7, Max Didier, Cristobal Señoret (both Chile), and I made the first ascent of the unnamed rock peak immediately south-southeast of Kishtwar Shivling. We climbed alpine style via the southeast ridge from an advanced base camp on the gla...
In early August, Mikey Schaefer completed a difficult new route on the Liberty Bell formation. A Slave to Liberty (450m, 11 pitches, 5.13-) climbs the first three pitches of Freedom or Death (5.10, 5.11, 5.11), then steps right to join Thin Red Li...
Kilimanjaro is a superb mountaineering destination, but for rock climbers there are only few interesting crags in the vicinity. Maybe the best is Mt. Longido, easily accessible from Arusha via the well-paved "Nairobi Road." Its sharp western summi...
In early May, at the start of Patagonian winter, Nico Gutierrez, Cristobal Señoret, and Diego Señoret (all Chile) made the fourth ascent of Cerro Paine Grande. They climbed the 300m summit pyramid via a variation that involved three new pitches, l...