The climbing potential of the Anti-Atlas Mountains was first explored in 1991 by British climbers Les Brown and Trevor Jones, when the first Gulf War diverted them from a planned climbing trip in Jordan to the ancient market town of Tafraout, on t...
On June 13, near the Hotlum-Wintun Route on the east side of Shasta, a male climber triggered a loose-wet avalanche at about 13,000 feet while glissading. The climber involved had separated from his group at around 3 p.m. and met a group of skiers...
I have been frequenting the desert of southern Utah for over a decade, concentrating mostly on the obscure and wide cracks. Texas Tower had always been on my list, as it is one of the proudest towers in the Southwest, but it was a challenge for ...
I'm a very big fan of solitude. In the Vampire Peaks, there's no hype, no circus of other climbers racing to the base of cliffs. Even the remote Cirque of the Unclimbables, near the Vampire Peaks, sees some 70 people a year, mostly gunning for Lot...
Climbing the south face of Mururata (5,775m) was part of my dream to climb all the high, extreme ice faces in Bolivia via their most attractive routes. On my first attempt, in September 2015, I went with a group of Bolivian guides and friends from...
In June 2015, Guillermo Cuadrado, Gerber Cucurell, Salvador “Muna” Llorens, and I visited the Lofoten Islands with the intention of opening new routes, seeking adventure and unspoiled rock. After two flights and a day by car, we arrived at Moskene...
In late February, Daniel Burson, Chris Guyer, Shawn Gregory, and I visited Senja for a week of mixed climbing. I had been there before, in 2013, with Steve Berwanger and Tanner Callender, and established five new climbs on the island, including tw...
In February 2014, Vincent Perrin, Bas Visscher, and I climbed a possible new line on the southwest side of Grytetippen (890m), near Fjordgård. According to the local mountain guide Bent Vidar Eilertsen, this 600m face had only one line on it, an e...
In September, American climbers Erik Larsen and Ryan Waters twice attempted the elegant south ridge of Peak 6,166m, which lies along the ridge south of Takargo, but were halted by a difficult corniced knife-edge. They then summited the peak on Sep...
We first heard about Byeliy in 2009 from Nikolai Bandalet, during a joint expedition with Belorussians to Kyzyl Asker. At that time it was the highest unclimbed peak in the Western Kokshaal-Too. In December 2014 we were awarded a grant from the Mo...
The clock doesn’t lie. But sometimes it seems to bend the truth. In the mountains, time seems fluid, its viscosity changing unpredictably. In a storm, tentbound, the sludge of time barely oozes forward. Yet when racing darkness on a climb, time ru...
From February 20 to March 7, Paul Bride, Jesse Huey, Michael Pennings, Jon Walsh, and I visited the island of Senja, north of the Arctic Circle. During the first few days, Jon and Jesse climbed Finnkona (400m, WI6+), which they agreed was one of t...
Bernadette Zak and I went to Greenland with the aim of free climbing the ca 1,000m west face of Ulamertorsuaq (old spelling Ulamertorssuaq), specifically the unrepeated and poorly protected aid route Piteraq. This climb, established in 2000, lies ...
As a youth I hitchhiked around a lot, but the best lift I ever got was the one going to Greenland last summer. Paddy Barry was planning a sailing and climbing trip from Iceland to East Greenland and back. There was one free space. Several years ag...
Dean Potter is one of the few people in sports history to have pushed the limits in multiple, widely disparate disciplines. Yet he saw his pursuits as arts and not as sport—himself as an artist not an athlete. He was a climber before the gym era, ...
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...