In October 2014 I attempted the 900m west face of Seerdengpu (5,592m) with American Pat Goodman (AAJ 2015), but due to warm temperatures we found the gully line on the face to be a waterfall and the rock extremely loose (one of our ropes was cut i...
Teams arriving in the Western Kokshaal-Too from August onward were treated to a widespread rumor that, one month earlier, two Russians who had approached the mountains from the north had been caught on the Chinese side of the border, spent a month...
Jason, an experienced local guide, and his technically competent client decided to climb in the Near Trapps on August 7. After two multi-pitch warmup climbs, the next objective was the two-pitch Layback. At the top of the first pitch (5.5), Jason ...
At 3.17 p.m. on February 26, Simone Moro (Italy), Muhammad Ali Sadpara (Pakistan), and Alex Txikon (Spain) stepped onto the summit of Nanga Parbat (8,125m) to make the long-awaited first winter ascent. Before the 2015-’16 winter season, which in t...
Between August 18 and October 2, our expedition of four members of the Polish National Alpine Team, Maciej Bedrejczuk, Maciej Janczar, Marcin Wernik, and I, visited a previously unexplored region of the southern Tagas Mountains. We all knew each o...
Our expedition from the Scuola Guido della Torre took place in August and comprised Matteo Filippini, Tommaso Lamantia, Luca Monfrini, Emanuele Nugara, and me as leader. Our goal was not only to climb virgin summits but also to thoroughly explore ...
Marcos Costa (Brazil), Jesse Mease, Billy Pierson (both USA), and I (U.K.) went to the Choktoi Glacier in June and July to attempt the unclimbed north face of the Ogre. This Eiger Nordwand of the Karakoram is accessed by a short walk over the Si...
Last year, when my good buddy, climbing partner, and fellow adventurer Cory Hall passed away in a tragic climbing accident, I knew a memorial expedition with a friend Max “The Bear” Fisher, also one of Cory's climbing partners, was in order. Cory ...
In 1925, Philips Visser and Jenny Visser-Hooft, a Dutch couple, explored the Virjerab Glacier. They described it as “the very worst glacier of the whole Kara-Korum....The whole valley was filled with stones and boulders often of a tremendous size....
The Sierra Nevada del Cocuy was the area with the most new routes. The climbs below are described chronologically. During the rainy season, on May 2, Roberto Ariano, Omar Lopez, and Luis Pardo made the first known ascent of Pico Espejo (5,173m), a...
Until this summer I had thought of Madagascar first as the setting for a popular animated film, then as a fascinating island of mysterious pirate tales and strange animals, and only thirdly as a possible destination for a climbing trip. Now, the f...
In May, Javier “Pitxi” Gonzalez (Spain) and I went to Taghia to put up a new line on Jebel Timghazine. On our first day we started up the Akka N’Trafawt canyon with full haul bags, laboring through a few points of aid and fifth-class scrambl...
In January 2015, Barry Watts and I climbed a new route on Molalit Tower in the Gondar Mountains, in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia. French climbers Alain Bruzy and Magali Salle made the first ascent Molalit Tower in 2012 (AAJ 2014). Only t...
When they climbed Yazghil Sar (5,964m) in 2006 (AAJ 2007), Lee Harrison and Peter Thompson (U.K.) believed they were repeating the original route up the peak (AAJ 1988). Later, they learned that the first ascensionists had climbed the northwest fl...
In 2006, Lee Harrison and Peter Thompson made the first ascent of a peak they named Ghorhil Sar (ca 5,800m) on the southern rim of the Lupghar Valley (a.k.a. Lupgar, AAJ 2007). They reached the rim via an east-facing ridge and then headed up to a ...
Murilo Lessa and I visited the Lupghar Mountains in the northwest corner of the Karakoram in July. We approached via the Batura Glacier and made a base camp midway up the Yukshgoz Glacier (Yuksh means ibex; Goz means grass), at a location known to...
Tiny Almada (Mexico) and Cecilia Buil (Spain) completed the second route up Peña Amán, a 400-meter overhanging wall of sandstone and conglomerate in the Hoya de Huesca area, in the southern foothills of the Pyrenees. The first route up the west fa...
Alex Gammeter and I spent April in the Langtang Valley. After traversing Tsergo Ri (5,749m) via an ascent of the southwest face and descent of the north ridge, we made an attempt on Kimshung (6,781m, sometimes referred to as Tsangbu Ri). ...
Gian Luca Cavalli, Pier Luigi Maschietto, Edoardo Polo, and I arrived in Bishkek on July 31, 2015. Giovanni Pagnoncelli joined us at base camp about 10 days later. We flew to Batken, traveled by car to Uzgurush, close to the border with Tajikistan...
Pedra Riscada is a granite dome in the state of Minas Gerais, located in southeast Brazil. In July, Argentine climbers Ignacio Elorza, Horacio Gratton, María José Moisés, and Cintia Percivati established a new route on this wall, just left of Plac...