In August, William Newsom, Simon Ridout, and I made the probable first ascent of Kang Yatze III in central Ladakh. The expedition was hampered by heavy rain and flash floods in the Markha Valley, where many bridges were washed away. Base camp was ...
Following Kimikazu Sakamoto’s exploration of the Gompe Tokpo peaks in 2012, the Kolkata section of the Himalayan Club organized a trip to climb a virgin peak there in July 2014. With the help of four Sherpas, the team made base camp and Camp 1 on ...
Planes, buses, taxis, truck beds, boats, horses, and feet—it was an exciting and lengthy journey just to get into the Piritas Valley, and it was all worth it for the stunning landscape, impeccable granite, and remoteness of the valley. It was Ja...
Anna Pfaff, Lisa Van Sciver, and I traveled to Zanskar in late August. With only a couple photos of peaks from various articles, our knowledge of its climbing potential was limited. Accurate maps were unobtainable and Google Earth imagery was poor...
On September 16, Crystal Davis-Robbins and I made the first ascent of the south face and east flank of CB6A (5,450m). I had found a picture of this beautiful peak, yet had no idea where it was or how to get there. After arriving in Manali, we spen...
The monsoon had been weak and the mountains looked dry when we arrived at the Nandanvan base camp (4,400m) on August 21. Matteo di Zaiacomo, Luca Schiera, and I hoped to make the first ascent of the west face of Bhagirathi IV (6,193m), a rock wall...
The cliff that lured us to this corner of the Himachal Pradesh loomed nearly straight overhead. Shoshala (ca 4,700m) was first climbed a few springs ago (AAJ 2012). The 750m route, mixed with many bolts, follows a series of corners and cracks in t...
On September 4 an Indian expedition made the second ascent of Goat Peak via the complete south ridge. The 10-member expedition, under Dipankar Ghosh, had planned to attempt both Peak 6,115m and Peak 6,125m on the Indian Survey map, unaware that th...
A student team from Nippon University Alpine Club reached the col between T19 (6,162m) and T20 (6,157m), on the north side of the Gompe Tokpu. However, they were unable to ascend either ridge above the col (ca 5,600m). There is no evidence of eith...
Kakstet Kangri (6,561m) is an attractive mountain on the south bank of the Pangong Tso and is named after Kakstet village, from which it can easily be seen. It was climbed on September 3, 2001, by 11 young members of the Eighth Mountain Division o...
Rocky Mountain National Park rangers were notified by climbers that a man fell from the summit of Batman Rock to the base around 6:15 p.m. on September 19. The 24-year-old Vancouver, British Columbia, man was hiking and scouting climbing routes. H...
On November 8, my wife Becky (age 45) and I (Dave, age 35) were approaching the Angels Way route on Ridge Three in the Flatirons near Boulder. The weather forecast for the day was optimal, with highs in the lower 60s and no precipitation expected....
On February 16, at 7 a.m., lead ranger Nick Meyers received a call from the Siskiyou County SAR coordinator about a lost climber on Shasta. A solo, male climber, 37 years of age, with little to no experience, had attempted to climb the Avalanche G...
On September 27, two hikers found the body of Angus Moloney (22) near the trail at the base of a rock formation called the Gregory Flatironette (a.k.a. the Fifth Pinnacle) in Boulder’s Open Space and Mountain Parks. Moloney, originally from New Yo...
Four friends—Dave, Edward, Greg, and Jill—planned to attempt Mt. Itso (8,975 feet) in the Brooks Range. The group flew to the upper Jago River landing site and crossed the river without incident. After five days of strenuous effort, via two differ...
In April 2015, Bryan Sehmel and I climbed the west face of Triangle Peak in the Delta Mountains, an eastern subrange of the Alaska Range. Triangle Peak (7,100') is typically accessed from the Castner Glacier and climbed via the moderate north ridg...
While I was taking my ACMG apprentice alpine guide exam, Craig McGee, one of my instructors, told me about the Waddington Range. “It’s amazing,” he explained. “Like Chamonix, but ten times as big. Also, there is still a lot of potential for first ...
Working with a report in the Japanese Alpine News by Kimikazu Sakamoto and some Google Earth imagery, but with limited information on the peaks we hoped to climb, we decided to plan a low-budget summer expedition to the Zanskar Range. Sakamoto’s r...
Otis Peak is a 12,486’ mountain along the Continental Divide with a broad south face that hosts a plethora of spires along its east to west axis. After climbing Zowie, a tower at the eastern end of Otis Peak, I spotted some uncharted terrain to th...
Early on July 3, Jay Bachhuber, Michael Crouch, Jeff Woodward, and I forded the Rio Grande in a Toyota Tacoma and drove to the Hunchback Pass trailhead. Our party of four approached the Guardian (13,617’) that morning, crossing Vallecito Creek by ...