In September, Mike Abrahamsson, Harry McGhie, Heather Swift, and I set out from Naryn to climb the north face of Pik Kosmos (5,940m) at the head of the western branch of the Grigoriev Glacier. In fact we set out three times, as we had significant,...
In September, Dominik Bednar, Miroslav Dusek, Tibor Majer, Pavel Mezera, Pavel Simandl, Tomas Vemola, Borek Zelenka, and I from the Czech Republic visited an easily accessible but rarely visited valley (even by Russian trekking groups) in the west...
My mother would probably say that going on a blind date to a foreign country like Kyrgyzstan is a bad idea. However, the signs all pointed toward the potential for a productive partnership with a shared desire for adventure. Ben Erdmann is a 27-ye...
Matjaz Cotar, Anze Jerse, Uros Stanonik, and I landed in Bishkek to find one of our rucksacks had not boarded the plane. After three days of waiting, we were left with no other option than to buy the missing gear and move on. Two days’ driving and...
On January 31, 2016, Russian climbers Max Krivosheev, Igor Loginov, and Alexander Zhigalov reached the summit of Free Korea (4,778m), having spent four days climbing a hard new route up the left side of the north face. The route lies on the steep ...
The relatively unknown Fergana Range is over 320km long with an average altitude of 3,800m. The biggest peaks are at the southeastern end, where there is heavy glaciation below the main watershed and snow peaks between 4,200m and 4,819m (the highe...
Having a spare week at the end of August between expeditions, James Monypenny, Heather Swift, and I made a quick exploratory hit in the mountains close to the Kyrgyz-Tajik border. Two days previously, James and I had driven over the Kyzyl-Art Pas...
In July, He Chuan soloed a new route on the south side of Hua Shan’s South Peak. He spent eight days on the route, which he called Climb Like You Are Dying (580m, 20 pitches, VI 5.10+ R A3). In 2014, He Chuan and Zhu Xiaofei climbed the first rout...
Hua Shan is a collection of steep granite summits in southern Shaanxi Province. It is one of the holy Taoist mountains from the time of the Tang Dynasty; Taoist monks built temples on top of high places to be closer to heaven. Eventually a path wa...
In February, after making the first ascent of Chola II in northwestern Sichuan (see report here), Marcos Costa, Kyle Dempster, and I headed to the Kawagebo Range, following up on a reconnaissance that Marcos and I had made in 2014. This range, als...
My main goal for the 2014-’15 winter was to complete the Great Wall of China Project, a link-up of the three most iconic peaks of the Shuangqiao Valley. This would involve making the first ascent of Queen’s Peak (Nuwang Shan, 5,404m), the second a...
On November 10, after four days of climbing, Marcin Rutkowski, Wojciech Ryczer, and I completed the first ascent of San Lian Southeast (ca 6,250m), one of the three Chu Shan summits to the south of Minya Konka.We arrived in Chengdu in mid-October ...
Garrett Bradley, Marcos Costa, Kyle Dempster, and I headed to the Minya Konka Range for our final mountaineering quest of the winter season: one of the unclimbed peaks to the south of 7,556m Minya Konka. In 2014, Marcos, Garrett, and I had found t...
On October 28, Koreans Kang Jong-jin, Kim Dong-jin, and Kim Young-yong made the first ascent of Nyambo Konka (6,114m). The nine-member expedition, led by Gang Sung-khu, approached via the Bawang Valley to the south of the mountain. They climbed th...
Inspired by the published work of Japanese mountaineer Tamotsu Nakamura, an Austrian- Spanish expedition visited the eastern Gangga Massif in the autumn. The expedition comprised mountaineers Gerald Boess, Judith Fall, and Paul Neil, filmmakers Lo...
In late October, Paul Manson (Scotland), Norihide Yamagishi (Japan), and I (Australia) made the first ascent of the summit at the junction of the western and central massifs of the Gangga Range. It lies at the head of the Niyada Qu river valley, a...
Marcos Costa (Brazil), Kyle Dempster (USA), and I traveled to Sichuan and Yunnan in February in search of more first ascents and new routes above 6,000m in the alpine country of the eastern Himalayan uplift. After an abortive effort to access the ...
Bada Ri (6,516m) is the last unclimbed mountain over 6,500m in the western Nyanchen Tanglha (Nyainqentanglha). It lies in the middle of the range, northwest of Yangbajain, and is hidden by other peaks. Our expedition to attempt this peak, celebrat...
In April 2015, I finally convinced Flagstaff climbers Jeff Snyder and Blake McCord to visit Zoroaster Temple and try to free the southeast face with me. This had been a “serious” project of mine ever since Mathieu Brown and I established the route...
Two teams shared a permit during the autumn for attempts on the south face of Nuptse. Colin Haley (USA) and Ueli Steck (Switzerland) hoped to make an alpine-style ascent of the 2003 Babanov-Koshelenko Route on the southeast pillar of Nuptse East I...