In November 2024, I made my eighth expedition to Queen Maud Land, this time with fellow IFMGA guides Robert Miller and Tom Rabl and medic Katrin Oertel. We explored the rarely visited Gruber Mountains of the Eastern Wohlthat Mountains and climbed ...
Opening a new route was not in our plans when Ibon Mendia and I left Puerto Natales in Chilean Patagonia and walked in for a six-day stay beneath the famed Torres del Paine. The first four days brought horrible weather. We barely managed to climb ...
Hernán Rodríguez and I awoke above a sea of clouds in Torres del Paine’s French Valley. Freezing levels were low, and raging spring winds had buffed most of the snow and ice from our main objective, forcing us to descend. We gazed deep into the Fr...
Hernán Rodríguez and I dumped our packs and enjoyed the mid-day sun, watching as hundreds of toudrists scurried like ants between the foot of the valley and the famed Británico lookout. Deep in the French Valley, I was happy to finally be off the ...
In addition to new climbs on La Mascara, Cerro Trono Blanco, and Torre Norte, there were several notable ascents in Torres del Paine National Park. In February, Nicolás Gutiérrez and Aron Roca (Chile) completed a route called Espolón Chykillan on...
The northwest face of Cerro Pier Giorgio, with the west face on the right. (1) Via Gringos Locos, started in 1995 and completed in 2025. (2) Via del Hermano (2008). Other routes are not shown. Photo: Rolando Garibotti The northwest face of th...
Similar to the previous season, the weather in the summer of 2024–25 was statistically “average,” with mean temperature and levels of precipitation, which meant there were few favorable windows and mostly difficult conditions. After quite a few an...
The long, sustained splitters on the north face of El Mocho provide some of the best free climbing in the Chaltén massif. If this were in the Sierra or Chamonix, it would be a major destination, but in the shadow of giants, the face is often an af...
Ron Matous below the Eiger in 1976, when he and Mike Munger made the second all-American ascent of the north face. Photo: Mike Munger Ronald August Matous was born on October 25, 1952, in New York City. He died at 72 on December 18, 2024, as ...
On September 3, 2024, Emil Stefani, Martín Hurtado, and I—all members of the Club Andino Universitario (CAU) mountaineering group—crossed Lago O’Higgins to Punta Nahuelcar, adjacent to the Southern Patagonian Icefield. Once on the glacier, we ferr...
The Southern Patagonian Icefield—the world’s second-largest nonpolar icefield—is frequently visited by climbers on its margins, but the icefield’s notoriously volatile weather makes extended expeditions quite rare. Between November 2023 and Novemb...
Over six days from May 13 to 18, 2024, during a cold window of high pressure in Patagonia, Martin Arteaga, Pablo Miranda, and I, all from Chile, climbed a western subsummit (3,134m) of Monte San Lorenzo (3,706m), the second-highest mountain in Pat...
In January 2023, an international team visited the Turbio IV Valley and made several ascents. John Collis, Mike Coyle, and Gareth Leah climbed most of a south-facing wall beneath Cerro Tres Negros, finding many flared and mostly unprotectable crac...
Wanting to go on an expedition with friends and colleagues, I organized a team of five women including Julia Cassou, Fay Manners, Belén Prados, Rocio Rodriguez Guiñazu, and myself to explore the Turbio IV Valley. We are all driven by a deep love f...
No Rolling Stone (13 pitches, V5.10 A3), the first route up the Redside Wall in Impassable Canyon, Middle Fork of the Salmon River, Idaho. The wall was reached by a 22-mile hike and 3.5-mile swim and wade down the river. Photo: Matt Ward “Bea...
In late May, a group of three was attempting to climb King Trench (aka King’s Trench), the most frequented route up Mt. Logan (5,959 meters). Mt. Logan is the highest peak in Canada. This area of Kluane National Park and Reserve (KNPR) is known fo...
A skier captured images of his own sliding fall down a couloir on Little Bear Peak, a Colorado 14er. He impacted rocks in the choke but fortunately stopped soon below and was not very seriously injured. Photo: Dan Apodaca On April 15, I (male...
On Wednesday, March 15, a skier and a snowboarder departed from Heather Meadows near the Mt. Baker Ski Area, planning to climb and descend both Herman and Slate mountains. They climbed the south side of Mt. Herman to 6,000 feet (about 250 feet bel...
Looking up the avalanche path and debris on the north side of Hurd Peak. (O) Location of Skier 2 at the time of the avalanche. (X) Estimated location of Skier 1. Photo: Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center On the morning of June 14, a party of two...
Climbing the North Couloir of Mt. Emerson, shortly before falling ice struck the team. The frozen waterfall that was shedding ice is seen high on the right. Team Photo Our party of four planned to ski the North Couloir on Mt. Emerson (13,210 ...