Looking back to Mt. Strachan from the final skin up Mt. Dechen on day three of the Hooker Range traverse. Photo by Anna Keeling. Ruari Macfarlane is visionary when it comes to unclimbed and unskied lines in New Zealand. Our idea for a ski tr...
Sam Smoothy peers down Aoraki/Mt. Cook’s north face during one of 2024’s big ski descents in New Zealand's Southern Alps. Photo by Will Rowntree. Warm, settled weather in the early summer of 2024 led to a steady stream of activity in the rang...
Gangga I and the route of first ascent on the upper west face and ridge. Photo by Xueer Yu. During the summer of 2024, Haoyu Wen and her various climbing partners made the first ascents of six peaks in the northern Shaluli Shan (some of them ...
The 2023 route up the west face of Peak 5,560m (GPS) in the northwestern Chola Shan. The snow slopes below the face were reached by climbing to a saddle off the bottom of the picture from the northeast (left). Photo by Xueer Yu. In August 202...
(A) Nobgyar North, (B) Nobgyar, and (C) Zhuqing from the northwest, showing the 2024 ascent (left) and the descent of the rock buttress directly below Zhuqing, along with the first three bivouacs. Photo by Zhan Fang. The highest of a cluster ...
In 2024, my company, Feeding the Rat Expeditions, obtained the first permits to visit the Chinese side of K2 since 2011. However, in October, immediately before our planned departure, the permits were unexpectedly suspended, for reasons only descr...
Paradise Lake with (A) Peak 4,539m, climbed in 2024, (B) Peak 4,359m, (C) Peak 4,171m, and (D) Peak 3,700m showing the line of Dry Martini, also climbed in 2024. Photo by Expedition. Deng Tao, Li Bo, and Zhang Xinyi arrived at Paradise (a.k.a...
On the first ascent of Dry Martini, looking east across Paradise Lake toward unclimbed rock. Photo by Zhen Wang. As the proverb goes, you won’t know how big China is until you arrive in Xinjiang. The long journey to Paradise Lake proves this ...
Dennie Vester (NZ) on the sixth pitch of Fun Dee (5.12a), on the Dream Wall in Ao Nang, Thailand. Photo by Dakota Walz. For most climbers, the town of Ao Nang is simply a launchpad to the famous Tonsai and Railay bays. However, Ao Nang has i...
Situated southeast of Mérida in far western Venezuela, the Sierra Nevada holds the country’s highest peaks, culminating in Pico Bolívar (named after Simón Bolívar, the Venezuelan military officer who liberated many South American countries from Sp...
Patrick Hill high on the walls of San Isidro Canyon during the first ascent of Hard Very Cactus. Photo: Matt Reeser El Salto is known primarily for sport climbing. However, on December 15, 2023, Matt Reeser (USA) and I established Hard Very C...
In 20 years, we’ll be more disappointed by the things we didn’t do than by the ones we did. With this philosophy in mind, Daniele Bonzi, Francesco Fumagalli, and I—friends from the province of Bergamo and fellow members of Italy’s Corpo Nazionale ...
In August 2024, Miška Izakovičová (Slovakia), Callum Johnson, Simon Smith, and I (all from Scotland) explored the area around Torsukattak Fjord in southern Greenland. We established multiple new rock routes, including a partial new route on our pr...
In June and July, the British team of Indie Fallowfield, Ben Kent, and Chris Moore established a flurry of new climbs on and around a previously unclimbed 400m formation named Innaarsuit (approx. 65°33’49.7”N, 53°10’57.0”W) on Kekertarmiut Island....
The Umiammakku Nunaat region of western Greenland contains many remote unclimbed peaks in a rugged strip of land between coast and ice cap. We learned about these mountains from historical AAJ reports by teams that approached by boat and climbed n...
On October 26 and 27, Iván Acosta, Sergio Acosta, Jesús Avalos, Phany Cano, Israel López, Carlos Sanchez, and I climbed Estrella Fugaz (420m, 5.10b A2) on El Gran Trono Blanco’s southwest face. Our route is now the first you encounter near the bot...
On the lower part of the southwest face during the first ascent of Karjiang (7,216m). Photo: Liu Yang By his definition of a mountain versus a subsidiary top, mountaineering statistician Eberhard Jurgalski lists the Himalayan peak Karjiang (...
A collapsed serac in the icefall was the crux of the 2022 attempt to reach Sundardhunga Khal. Photo: Anindya MukherjeeAccess to Nanda Devi’s Inner Sanctuary has captivated mountaineers for more than a century. On the southern rim, Sundardhunga Kha...
Descending from CB26 back to the approach glacier after the ascent of the peak by the northwest face. Photo: Juraj Koreň Seven years ago, Michal Sabovčík and I started a project where we aimed to ascend a previously unclimbed mountain or rout...
The Shingo La (5,090m) is a high pass on an old trekking route from Lahaul to Zanskar. More recently, the route has been converted to a motorable road. The planned Shingo La Tunnel, beneath the pass, should ensure the road will be usable in all we...