Denali was enchanted with the world—he was obsessed with the color blue, because it was the color of the sky. He held wonder in his striking blue eyes, love in his smile, and a playful wisdom beyond his years. The day we met, he talked delicately ...
Sikandar Ali Khan and I left Islamabad on February 7 and arrived in Shimshal on the 10th. With six local porters and a cook we established base camp at Shuijerab (4,380m) and then high camp at 5,000m at the base of Minglik Sar (6,050m) on Shimshal...
Theodore (Nick) Nicolai, scion of a prominent Oregon family, who died in September 2012, was Oregon Section Chair in 1969 and 1970, succeeding Lute Jerstad. In 1971 he was first elected to the AAC Board of Directors, and in 1974 he was re-elected ...
James Guy “Pop” Hollandsworth, Sr., beloved founder of the Asheville School mountaineering program, first director of the North Carolina Outward Bound School, and past president of the Carolina Mountain Club, passed away at age 97 on June 21, 2013...
Artur Hajzer, one of Poland’s best high-altitude climbers from the “golden age,” was killed while retreating from Gasherbrum I on July 7, 2013. He was 51. Born on June 28, 1962, in the Silesia region of Poland, Artur graduated from the University ...
John Ewbank, legend of Australian rock climbing, died in New York on December 2, 2013. Few other climbers could lay claim to doing the first ascent of the hardest route on a continent, inventing the system by which it was graded, and then seeing t...
Stanley Wayne BoucherStanley Boucher passed away on September 30, 2013. He was born and raised in Colorado Springs, and he graduated from honors from Colorado College, where he majored in English and history. Drafted into the Army during the Korea...
Doug Abromeit, 65, the retired director of the Forest Service National Avalanche Center, died suddenly from an apparent undiagnosed heart condition while mountain biking with friends last spring. Doug grew up on a family homestead on Lake Pend Ore...
In July, Gabriel Fava, Carlitos Molina, and I went to the remote and little-visited southern end of the Cordillera Quimsa Cruz, specifically the Huallatani Valley, accessed via the village of Rodeo and Altarani Valley to the southwest. We were una...
On April 29, 2012, Gregg Beisly, Chris Clarke, and Robert Rauch climbed a partially new route on La Flama, a fine spear of granite northeast of Muralla Grande. The route starts up the northwest face, ca 30m before the pass between La Flama and El ...
The three most significant summits in the well-known Kuchu Mocoya valley of the Northern Araca are Saturno (ca 5,340m), Gran Muralla (ca 5,100m), and Cuernos del Diablo (5,270m). I planned to make first solo ascents of significant routes on each o...
In May, Camilo Lopez and I visited the northern Taruca Umana Valley, and on the 21st completed a route on the southeast face of Cerro Taruca Umana, climbing new ground in the upper section.Before leaving La Paz we met resident Denys Sanjines, a cl...
On August 30, Gregg Beisly (NZ), Robert Rauch (German/Bolivian), and I climbed an 800m ice line on an unnamed 5,400m peak above Totoral Pampa, near the south face of Mururata (5,864m). We left La Paz mid- morning on the 29th and, other than passin...
On April 21–22, a group of UIAGM guides and aspirants, led by Sergio Condori (head of the Bolivia Guides Association), opened a new route on the south face of Mururata. Departing at 1 a.m. from Lake Arkhata, they arrived at the foot of the face at...
On October 18, Gregg Beisly, Robert Rauch, and I headed to the southwest face of Serkhe Khollu with the intention of climbing steep ice right of Tiers of Pachamama (AAJ 2012). We found somewhat less ice than expected, and so decided instead to fol...
On August 13, Alex von Ungern (Swiss) and I established a route we believe was previously unclimbed on Wila Manquilizani, a summit between the Cumbre (the ca 4,650m pass on the main road over to the Yungas) and Chacaltaya. The route is best approa...
At 4 a.m. on August 10, Gregg Beisly and I set off to add another route to Pico Italia’s east face, of which we made the first ascent in 2012 (AAJ 2013). We were keen to find an easier line leading directly to the summit. After wading two hours th...
On July 12, Argentinians Gabriel Fava and Carlitos Molina put up a new route on Pico del Norte, the rarely climbed northern outlier of Illampu (6,368m) at the north end of the Cordillera Real. Leaving the mining town of Ancohuma (a.k.a. Ancoma), t...
Many worthwhile rock climbs are found on the granite cliffs above Zongo Lake. Located at ca 4,800m, these can form part of an acclimatization program or provide relaxing days before or after a climb of Huayna Potosi?. There are around 30 older, tr...
The mountains immediately west of Torssuqatoq Sound were not explored until 1975, when a large and productive British expedition from St. Andrews University, led by Phil Gribbin, invaded the area. Its achievements should not be underestimated: Mem...