Clemens Pischel and I traveled to the Cascada de Basaseachic (Basaseachic Falls) in the beginning of January 2014. Once there, we were absolutely overwhelmed by the fantastic rock walls, forming a natural amphitheater around the 246m waterfall, wi...
In January 2014, Alex Honnold free-soloed El Sendero Luminoso (V 5.12d), on El Toro, which was established by Jeff Jackson and Kurt Smith in 1994. Eleven of the route’s 15 pitches are rated 5.12, making the climb perhaps the most sustained free so...
In the fall of 2013, South African climbers Benj de Charmoy, Duncan Fraser, and Leo Le Roux established the nine-pitch route Dancing with the World (300m, 6c). The line climbs left of some prominent black streaks on the left side of the Mitsinjoar...
Unclimbed, freestanding, multi-pitch desert spires are an ever-increasing rarity. For those seeking such treasure, the Tigray today likely inspires the same thrill as Fred Beckey’s first glimpse of Moses Tower in the early 1970s.My 2012 visit to G...
In January 2012, Magali Salle and I made a trip to Ethiopia, hoping to explore and climb new routes. First stop: the Gheralta region. The area is full of colorful sandstone, though we sometimes found places where it’s more sand than stone. Despite...
On Sudan’s eastern border with Eritrea lies an impressive collection of granite walls and domes called the Taka Mountains. Inspired by past reports from Tony Howard (AAJ 1999) and David Jonglez (AAJ 2003), and other vague rumors of climbing, my wi...
In April 2013, Patrik Aufdenblatten (Switzerland) and my longtime friend Ines Papert (Germany) joined me for a trip to the beautiful village of Taghia in the Atlas Mountains, where there are many limestone big walls up to 1,000m tall, with much po...
In mid-January, Andreas Parparinos and I climbed many new routes on the amazing south face of Timichcha (1,972m), which is clustered with large buttresses and towers.In the town of Ighrem we found a very basic room to make our base camp. On Janua...
Click the image below or "Download Original PDF" in left menu to download the revised and updated Know the Ropes section from the 2013 edition of Accidents in North American Mountaineering.
The Austrian Christian Stangl has become the first person to climb the three highest mountains on each of the seven continents. While many people now have climbed the so-called Seven Summits, only Stangl has—seemingly unequivocally—climbed each ...
After six weeks in base camp and one attempt at the British Route on the southwest face of Xixabangma (a.k.a. Shishapangma), the weather got worse, with a lot of fresh snow at altitude and a strong northerly wind. We could see a one-kilometer hori...
In May, Zhou Peng and I saw Chomolhari Kang (7,034m, 7,054m GPS, 28°09.869’N, 90°10.951’E) for the first time. We were traveling from Pumajiangtang village to Kangma with the aim of getting a closer view of peaks on the Bhutan-Tibet border. We had...
My main project for the year was an expedition to Tibet in October with Miha Gasperin (doctor), Luka Krajnc, Tadej Kriselj, Nejc Marcic, Marko Prezelj, Luka Strazar, and Martin Zumer. There is an obvious unclimbed line on the south face of Phola G...
On September 14, Zhou Peng and I climbed Peak 5,955m, a summit among the small knot of peaks south of the main road that runs southwest from Yangbajain, along the south side of the Nyanchen Tanglha. The following day we climbed Peak 6,192m (29°51’...
In March, Rueben Shelton and I shipped 200 pounds of food and climbing gear to our outfitter Peter Kilabuk in Pangnirtung, which he snowmobiled to a cache near Summit Lake prior to our arrival. Rueben and I arrived in Pangnirtung on July 3, and Ki...
[Editor's Note 10/2014: It appears that the two climbs described below were either wholly or partly climbed by Clark Gerhardt and Craig McKibben in 1976 (see report in AAJ 1977). On Gauntlet Peak, Gerhardt and McKibben climbed "an inviting buttres...
Fewer than a handful of people I know have expressed interest in climbing Twins Tower. Not wanting to miss good conditions, thanks to a low snow year and hot summer, I went out on a limb and asked Josh Wharton. I was surprised when he said yes and...
In early September, Sonnie Trotter climbed a new route Castles in the Sky (5 pitches, 5.14a) on Castle Mountain. The route, which he established with Sam Eastman, took 10 days to redpoint and ascends an overhanging prow on the lower limestone band...
“Wile: devious or cunning stratagems employed in manipulating or persuading someone to do what one wants.”To an outside observer, it would seem that Chris Brazeau was using powers of persuasion in lining up our rock climbing adventure for the day....
In the summer of 2008 Paul McSorley casually mentioned a line he had scoped on the north face of Snowpatch Spire, starting about 40m right of Sunshine Crack. [The un-freed Hell or Highwater (8 pitches 5.11 A2, Langsford-Moorhead, 2007) climbs betw...