Erwan Lelann and Emeline Son are on a four-year, round-the-world trip with their yacht, Maewan, and are being joined from time to time by different parties for sporting adventures. We joined them in the winter of 2014-’15 to ski in the vicinity of...
I first saw Eagle Peak East (5,300m) in the fall of 2013, after completing the first ascent of Dayantianwo in the Shuangqiao Valley (AAJ 2014). While enjoying the spectacular view from the summit, my wife, Szu-ting Yi, and I noticed a large shark’...
Number 4 is the new free route Human Centipede 5. See images below for complete route listings. Photo by Brian Smoot. I have long dreamed of standing on top of obscure and puzzling big walls, and the Red Sentinel in...
Scott Adamson and I arrived at Choktoi base camp on July 4 with permits for Ogre II and Latok I. This was my sixth expedition to Pakistan, and it was by far the warmest Karakoram season I have experienced. As Scott and I acclimated during the firs...
Other than expedition organizer Leo Houlding, the journey to Greenland was a first for us all. Joe Mohle from South Africa, Waldo Etherington, photographer Matt Pycroft, and I (U.K.) were relatively inexperienced and very apprehensive about the jo...
In early July my brother Andy and I boarded a plane to Tasiilaq on Greenland’s east coast with the aim of reaching a remote fjord I had reconnoitered in 2014 with Andy Mann, and had failed to reach on three previous expeditions. I had flown to the...
During the approach to Huang Guan Feng (Crown Peak) in 2014 (AAJ 2015), I saw a striking ice line on the northeast face of Abi (5,694m). In late January, Enzo Oddo (France) was around and psyched to make an alpine ascent, and I felt this would be ...
The central Zaalayskiy Range from the north. (1) Start of 2015 traverse. (2) Spur climbed during 2001 first ascent of Kurumdy I. (3) Descent from 2015 traverse. (A) Pik 5,995m. (B) Zarya Vostoka (6,349m). (C) Kurumdy East II (“Pik Kathi”). (D) Kur...
Chomotang (left) and Nigutse South seen from Sirsir La to the northeast. I first noticed Chomotang on Google Earth during one of my regular cyber-tours of the world’s mountain ranges. It seemed to stand out from its surrounds, being the highest i...
At the start of January 2016, my friends Jiri Lautner, Filip Martinek, David Michovsky, and I, all Czech, climbed a new route on Jebel Misht. We choose a line 50m to the right of the route Make Love Not War (2003) on the southeast face, the steepe...
During July, Eugene and Sergey Glazunov and Alexey Tyulyupo explored peaks in the long-forgotten Surmetash Valley. The expedition was only two weeks, but this was enough time for the team to make two first ascents of primarily rock routes, one on ...
In 2008, Audun Igesund from Norway went to the Nuuk area to meet local climber Aili Lage Labansen. The two put up Sortebærstien (ca 10 pitches, 5.8), on a wall at the southeast end of Storø, and climbed a handful of pitches at the start of the wes...
The goal of the 23rd Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition was to take differential GPS measurements of certain prominent landmarks in the mountains and reach previously unclimbed summits in the Tangra Range. We first established an “advanced base”—Camp ...
From December 2011 to February 2012, I led an Eagle Ski Club party to the Peninsula, where we made ascents from the Sikorsky Glacier (AAJ 2012), southeast of Cierva Cove. In the 2015-’16 season I returned to the Sikorsky with a group of Australian...
In November and December a group of seven ski mountaineers, Grae Allan, Roger Everett, Dee Gaffney, Jim Lindop, Béatrice and Bernard Lochet, and Derek Osborne, led by Manu Rioualec and me, were in exceptionally icy waters aboard the good ship Podo...
The 2015-’16 season was stormier than normal, which led to challenging conditions for getting to and climbing on Mt. Vinson (4,892m). However, the summit success rate remained relatively high, as usual. The only new climb of the season was the fir...
Following my expedition to the Orvin Fjella in November 2009 (AAJ 2010), and another to the east of the Drygalski Mountains in November 2013, I visited the Filchner Mountains in November 2015. Michael Guggolz (Germany), Kjetil Kristensen and Kjell...
Hua Shan is a collection of steep granite summits in southern Shanxi 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 was...
In Turkey, the history of ice climbing is not old. Except for long alpine ice gullies in the high mountains, few ice climbs had ever been done, and nowhere in Turkey was there a real water-ice climbing area. However, in eastern Turkey, near the to...
In July, Juvenal and Sergio Condori made a 44-hour, alpine-style traverse of the Condoriri Massif. Starting with the summit of Aguja Negra ("I" in the photo above), they continued over Ilusión, Ilusioncita, Pirámide Blanca, Pico Tarija, Huallomen ...