In April 2024, Robbi Mecus died in a fall while descending The Escalator (4,400 feet, 5.5 AI3) on Mt. Johnson. Her climbing partner survived despite critical injuries. Their line of ascent is marked in red. The route’s upper half is hidden from ...
The 2024 climbing season was marked by calm, clear periods coinciding with very low temperatures. During one of these cold spells, a climber, high on the committing Cassin Ridge—the central rib leading to the summit—suffered a severe/deep and li...
On May 19, the NPS was contacted by a concerned family member of a Japanese solo climber named T. Hagiwara (mid-40s). He was on the West Buttress Route and was last heard from on May 13. Until that date, the climber had been regularly texting via ...
On May 28, at 1 a.m., NPS personnel received an alert from an emergency satellite device requesting evacuation of three climbers who were near the summit of Denali (Mt. McKinley). The climbers, all from Malaysia, reported they were hypothermic and...
Denali mountaineering rangers and volunteers assessed 34 patients during the 2024 climbing season. Among those, 27 patients were treated by National Park Service (NPS) personnel, and 25 required NPS evacuation. The remaining two were treated and r...
After the Japanese and then the Italians made their respective routes on Huandoy Sur’s south face (see reports here and here), a French expedition attacked the face. The French were led by René Desmaison and composed of Pascal Ottmann, Maurice Fai...
On June 8 we arrived at Base Camp at 12,500 feet on the Llanganuco Lakes. We should have taken time for acclimatization, but perhaps because we knew the Japanese were already on the wall, of which we caught glimpses through the clouds, the next da...
Our expedition consisted of Kunihiko Kondo, climbing leader, Masaru Hashimoto, Tetsuya Ishii, Masatoshi Yoshino, Shuzo Manabe, Yasuhide Hayashi, Terue Katayama, Ms. Yuriko Hashimoto and me as leader. We established Base Camp on the Llanganuco Lake...
The following international climbers who passed away in 2024 wrote many articles and reports for the American Alpine Journal. Here, we offer brief tributes to these friends and contributors. ARCHIL BADRIASHVILI not only was among Georgia’s leadin...
The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within. By Cory Richards (Random House). Cory Richards has been a prolific 21st-century alpinist, high-altitude mountaineer, and adventure photographer. From being the first and only American ...
Headstrap: Legends and Lore from the Climbing Sherpas of Darjeeling. By Nandini Purandare and Deepa Balsavar (Mountaineers Books). Alpine Rising: Sherpas, Baltis, and the Triumph of Local Climbers in the Greater Ranges. By Bernadette McDonald (Mo...
Survival Is Not Assured: The Life of Climber Jim Donini. By Geoff Powter (Mountaineers Books). Hats off to Geoff Powter and Jim Donini for teaming up to tell Donini’s life story in Survival Is Not Assured. The story is beautifully written and cap...
A Place Among Giants: 22 Seasons at Denali Basecamp. By Lisa Roderick (Di Angelo Publications). A Place Among Giants is not only a fresh perspective and certain-to-be classic of mountaineering literature, but also a love story involving the autho...
Everest, Inc.: The Renegades and Rogues who Built an Industry at the Top of the World. By Will Cockrell (Gallery Books). Will Cockrell wanted to know how, after a mere 394 climbers reached the summit of Chomolungma in the 39 years leading up to 1...
A Light Through the Cracks: A Climber’s Story. By Beth Rodden (Little A). Beth Rodden’s memoir recounts her harrowing kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan, in 2000, and the famous climber’s long struggle with recovery and search for identity within the sexis...
Tobin, the Stonemasters, and Me, 1970–1980: Remembering Tobin Sorenson, the Best Climber in the World. By Rick Accomazzo (Stonemaster Books). Much the way nature abhors a vacuum, historians seem to hate unlabeled epochs. A chunk of American climb...
Mountains Before Mountaineering: The Call of the Peaks before the Modern Age. By Dawn L. Hollis (The History Press). Other Everests: One Mountain, Many Worlds. Edited by Paul Gilchrist, Peter Hansen, and Jonathan Westaway (Manchester University P...
For Jan Solov and I to attempt a new route on a 5,000m South American peak in a 13-day round trip from Britain would require all the elements of easy access, predictable weather (if such a thing exists), a considerable amount of luck, and strong a...
Heading up the western arm of the Djangartynbashi Glacier, en route to Line Peak (hidden on the left). The peak in back is likely unclimbed. In September, Małgorzata Ilkiewicz and I traveled to the Djangart area in the Central Kokshaal-Too. W...
Caitlin McHale and Isabel Jones descending from the top of Peak 4,749m in the Ak-Shyyrak Range, on the south side of the south fork of the Kara-sai Glacier, after the first ascent. The team attempted Peak 4,825m, at far left, reaching a point ab...