The Mulanje Massif in southern Malawi, a sprawling network of forested peaks with myriad granite faces, whose highest summit rises to 3,002m, has seen a renewed burst of development in the past four years. The crown jewel, the two-tiered northwest...
Mt. Kenya (17,057’/5,199m), the second-highest peak on the African continent, has been all but forgotten in the annals of alpinism. Since 2000, only a few new routes have been established on the complex peak, with the most notable, put up by Germa...
As lifelong Kings River fishermen, Daniel Jeffcoach and I have visited the valley below Garlic Dome many times. Talking one day, we decided that a fisherman may be able to spend a lifetime in that valley and never have a problem with that great bu...
The first time I went to Upper Ala-Archa was not at all for mountaineering purposes. We had planned to spend about a week there to do some ski touring. But the idea of potential new ascents settled in my mind almost immediately. When I got home, ...
In early July, Gabriel Beno, Lukas Kroker, and I acclimatized on Pik Legendarnaya Magnitka (4,550m), then traveled to the Koksai Valley, west of the Bor-Dobo border crossing into Tajikistan. We hiked three hours south of the Pamir Highway to our f...
In September, our group of 12 Dutch climbers—Sjoerd Boersma, Dennis Hendrikx, Robert Löwensteyn, Jeffrey Meesters, Martin Platteschor, Michiel Telkamp, Noor van der Veen, Anniek Verschuur, Regien Winnubst, and three coaches, Court Haegens, Boris...
During August my team traveled to the rarely visited Shugnan Range of the southern Pamir. We started our approach from the village of Varshedz, around 85km northeast of Khorog. In three days we reached base camp at 4,520m near the moraine of the V...
The first route up the east-southeast side of Siulá Grande was climbed by Max Bonniot and Didier Jourdain (France) in 2016. Their route, Le Bruit des Glaçons (1,400m, ED 6c WI5), climbed the rocky, lower east pillar and mixed, upper southeast ri...
Marc Toralles leading the second pitch (7b/5.12b) of the east face of Siulá Grande during the 2019 attempt. Photo by Roger Cararach. The adventure to climb the east face of Siulá Grande began in the summer of 2019 when Roger Cararach, Marc T...
At the end of June, members of the Slovenian Youth Alpine Team (SMAR)— Denis Arnšek, Matevž Gradišnik, Davo Mihev, Anja Petek, and I—traveled to Peru to sample the climbing. Aritza Monasterio, a longtime local, originally from Spain, would join...
The Darran Mountains, in the lower South Island, hosted the bulk of the alpine climbing activity over the summer months of 2022. In January, Bruce Dowrick and Llewellyn Murdoch ventured into the heart of the central Darrans, where they climbed new...
In 2021, Lukáš Bulla, Marek Radovský, and I had planned to repeat the Polish route on the northwest face of Pik Vernyi (4,850m), near Kyzyl Asker, but instead we established our own route, a little bit left on the same face. The 650m route (WI5...
The north face of Pik Korolyova (5,816m), showing (1) Oleneva-Mukhametzyanov-Parfenov (2022) and (2) Belotserkovskiy-Temerev-Tyulyupo (2021), continuing up the northwest ridge to the top. In July our team of Nadezhda (Nadya) Oleneva, Ratmir ...
During an expedition in the summer of 2022, I speed-soloed the east side of Kyrkchilta (a.k.a. 1,000 Years of Russian Christianity, 4,507m) via a long variation to the Potankin Route (southeast arête, Russian 6A, 1991). I followed the prominent r...
Thirteen years after the first free ascent of Eternal Flame (7c+/5.13a) on the south face of Trango Tower (6,250m), the route saw three free ascents in the summer of 2022. Eternal Flame was established in 1989 (with free climbing up to 5.12c) and ...
Leonardo Gheza, Francesco Ratti, and I (Italy) put up a significant new route on Uli Biaho Great Spire (as named by the first ascensionists in 2006), a 5,594m peak in the Trango Towers area. Our 510m line follows the big corner that plunges down t...
Looking southwest from the north cwm of the Sim Gang Glacier. The snowy summit in distant left is Peak 5,925m, climbed in 2022. Photo by Murilo Lessa Once upon a time in a far-away corner of Pakistan, Philip De-Berger and I made the first com...
In August, Krzysztof Wielicki visited the Dih Dur Valley with Grzegorz Chwoła, Frank Gasser (Italy), Roman Gierach, Katarzyna Karwecka-Wielicka, Wojciech Walas, and Dariusz Załuski (all Poles apart from Gasser). The logistics were organized by Jas...
The southeast face of Peak 5,561m, showing the line of ascent and ski descent in April 2022. Photo by Boris Langenstein. After visiting the Sumayar Valley, near Rakaposhi (see report here), Boris Langenstein and Kevin Sur traveled to the vall...
On November 14, Americans Rich Draves, Ted Hesser, and I, along with Sherpas Ang Phurba, Dawa Nurbu, Dorchi, and Tenji, made the first ascent of the southwest ridge of Peak 5,608m. Unnamed on the HMG-Finn map but called Kuirhun in Jan Kielkowski’s...