Tenzing: Hero of Everest. Ed Douglas. Washington D.C.: National Geographic Press, 2003. 304 pages. Hardcover, $25.00; Paperback, $15.00.I still buy plenty of climbing books, but I can rarely bring myself to read them. I review the picture captions...
1981-Polish-American Climbing Exchange Program. In late March Tom Hargis and I were told that we had been chosen as the AAC representatives in the climbers’ exchange with Poland in the late summer. After four months of uncertainty, watching the he...
Washington, Cascades, LaBohn Gap—About noon on August 1, Jack Slehofer (16) and William Johnson (18) were traveling from South to North over LaBohn Gap in the Washington Cascades. They were fishermen, headed for a string of lakes in Necklace Valle...
Nanga Parbat, 1932Elizabeth KnowltonON April 28, 1932, the German American Himalayan Expedition sailed from Genoa for India to attempt the ascent of Nanga Parbat.1Nanga Parbat is the seventh highest mountain in the world, so that if the expedition...
RAPPEL FAILURE, INADEQUATE EQUIPMENTCalifornia, Yosemite ValleyPaul Whippo (27) and Doug Meerdinkt (26) were descending from the top of Crack Center Route (YDS II, 5.6 or 5.7) at 6 p.m. on October 2. They had been unable to find an existing rappel...
HANDHOLD CAME OFF—FAILURE TO TEST HOLD, FALL ON ROCK, PROTECTION PULLED OUT, INATTENTIONColorado, Rocky Mountain National Park, Lumpy RidgeOn March 2, Hayner Brooks (44) was climbing with Ken Miller on the route Three's Company (I, 5.7), pitches o...
Kyashar, southwest face, attempt. From October 11 to 15 Jan Doudlebsky and Marek Holecek attempted the first ascent of the southwest face of Kyashar (a.k.a. Peak 43; 6,770m). This peak had its only official ascent in October 2003, by a multination...
Colorado, First Flatiron. On July 9, Gabe Lee (18), and Dave Roberts (18) attempted to climb the more difficult left side of the face, rather than the normal right-hand route. They had reached a point about four- fifths of the way up and Lee led a...
Cerro Torre, East Face. In January Phil Burke and Tom Proctor from England climbed the east face of Cerro Torre nearly to the summit. On a previous 28-day attempt, Brian Wyvill and Ben Campbell-Kelly had climbed over half the route. They left a “s...
FATIGUE, DEHYDRATION, FROSTBITE, CLIMBING ALONEAlaska, Mount McKinley, West ButtressTomoyasu Ishikawa (30) began his solo ascent of Mount McKinley from the Kahiltna Glacier on May 19. He arrived at the 14,200-foot camp on the 21st where he planned...
Jannu, west pillar. After their ascent of Merra Peak, reported above, Valery Babanov and Sergey Kofanov made the first ascent of the west pillar of 7,710m Jannu. The pair left base camp at 4,700m on October 14 and reached the summit on the morning...
There’s nothing neutral about Mt. Edgar. It’s stunning and savage. It’s beautiful and deadly. It’s amazing climbing with incredible dangers. Kyle Dempster and I stepped into the Casino Edgar in November of 2010. We didn’t lose our shirts, but the ...
In this part of Great Himalayan Range there are a lot of unclimbed and unnamed peaks with heights between 5500 and 6500 meters. Four virgin peaks were climbed during two different Italian expeditions in 1992 and 1996. In September, 1992, Massimo M...
Olympic National ParkSawtooth Ridge, complete traverse. From August 7 to 9 Wayne Wallace and I made the first full traverse of the remote and rugged Sawtooth Ridge in the Olympic Mountains. Known for its relatively good rock (for volcanic), the ri...
Steve Hackett, 1945–2011The Kachemak Nordic Ski Club and the community of Homer lost a valuable member when Steve Hackett, 65, passed away while skiing at Arctic Valley on February 26. He had been at a PSIA ski instructors workshop on a blue cold ...
Mt. Monarch, North Ridge, New Route. From August 4-7, on my fifth attempt of the route (the first way back in 1983), Bill Durtler, Bruce Fairley, and I finally made the first ascent of the North Ridge of Mount Monarch (3573m), the “big” peak south...
Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life. Arlene Blum. New York: Scribner, 2005. Black and WHITE PHOTOS. 313 PAGES. Hardcover. $27.50.If ever there has been an iconic figure in the canon of womens mountaineering literature Arlene Blum is she. Blum can be c...
Cleaver, Cleavage Dreamer and Southeast Arête. Imagine a dead-vertical alpine wall a thousand feet tall and a thousand feet wide, the summit over 13,000', countless virgin vertical crack systems, and only a few hours’ hike from a trailhead. This i...
The Undiscovered Country. Phil Bartlett. The Ernest Press, Holyhead, Wales. 183 pages, 62 black-and-white photographs. £15.95.“Theoretical studies of mountaineering have generally received bad press,” Bartlett writes. His own book, however, will p...
Patagonia—Dreams and RealityTommy Bonapace, Österreichischer AlpenvereinFOR SOME WEEKS, we had been enjoying our existence in a hut near the waters of Laguna Torre. We sat in front of the warming fire, alternately whittling on a stick of wood, rea...