William “Al” Read, a.k.a. “The Great Yak” of Moose, Wyoming, passed away peacefully on January 15, 2024, in San Francisco from lung disease. His wife, Susan, and daughter, Kristen, were by his side. He was 87. Al’s childhood years were spent in A...
“I would rather live 40 years of excitement and fun and exhilarating and just WOO full volume than 80 years of la-di-da-di-da. You know...boring,” Ammon McNeely said in 2006 while filming El Cap Pirate. “Why not get out there and live it?” Loved ...
Linda McMillan, loving wife and mother, and advocate for mountain preservation and primitive mountain recreation, passed away peacefully on May 14. Her last days were in Moab, Utah, surrounded by family, after a decade-long courageous battle again...
Joseph Hobby climbs a rock step in the Small Talk Couloir of Mantok 1. Photo by Fred Caloggero. The little-visited Yentna Glacier, west of the Kahiltna Glacier system, is sandwiched between the southwestern buttress of Mt. Foraker and the no...
National Park Service (NPS) mountaineering rangers treated a total of 33 patients during the 2023 climbing season in the Alaska Range. The following list provides a breakdown of the diagnoses. (Some patients had multiple diagnoses.) • Traumatic I...
In May, Americans Nik Berry and Will Sharp completed Daddy Issues (5.13+) on Middle Cathedral’s north face. The partial new route follows the first ten pitches of Father Time (AAJ 2013) before moving right off a bivy ledge into four new pitches of...
Brandon Adams leading the 11th pitch of Gaia, which would become the aid crux of the route at A3+. Photo by Lance Colley. In the spring of 2023, while walking along the base of Middle Cathedral Rock’s north face, Brandon Adams and I stumbled ...
It’s a funny story: My first time hiking in to climb the Incredible Hulk was in 2003 with my friend Allen Currano. He caught wind of a prank I was going to pull, and he found a way to meet me at my own juvenile level. We both changed into spandex ...
The route line for Choose Joy (12 pitches, IV 5.13a) on the Incredible Hulk. Photo: Abel Jones. Over 15 years of exploring and countless days of dreaming led to the discovery of a new route on the tallest section of the Incredible Hulk in the...
In 2015, when I first saw Seerdengpu (5,592m) from the west, I never thought that one day I would stand on the summit. The ca 850m west face was one of the great unclimbed walls of Siguniang National Park and had been attempted many times, notably...
Ryan Evans climbing out of the alcove to start the seventh pitch of Big Chiefin’. Photo by Damien Nicodemi. In 1993, Norm and Lorna Larson made a brief attempt on the stunning 900’ Big Chief Buttress (42.8136, -109.2382). As far as is known,...
I grew up in Ohio, where there are no mountains, but my parents made the mistake of subscribing to National Geographic. There were a number of things in that publication that piqued my ten-year-old mind, one of which was the mountains of the world...
This essay accompanied the AAJ's In Memoriam tribute to Tom Hornbein, who died on May 6, 2023. Here’s what one most often hears about Tom Hornbein’s book Everest: The West Ridge: (1) I read it when I was young, (2) it got me into climbing, (3) ...
The following climbers who passed away in 2023 wrote many reports and articles for the American Alpine Journal over the years. Here, we offer brief tributes to these friends and contributors. DMITRY GOLOVCHENKO from Russia wrote eight articles f...
Losing Aimee Barnes after a long chase by cancer has left a gaping hole in the vast fabric of her friends and family. It’s a hole that can’t be darned or patched, so we do our best by decorating around the edges and calling into the void to see if...
In late August and early September 2022, a team from the International School of Mountaineering, with a total of four guides and nine climbers, ascended numerous peaks in the northwest end of the Fergana Range. The team arrived at base camp (3,250...
Reaching the summit of the Grand Teton, the fifth peak of the Enduro Traverse, looking south over Middle Teton, South Teton, Mt. Wister, and Buck Mountain (extending along the crest above and left of the climber). Photo by Michael Gardner. Tr...
Alex Rienzie gazes at the Grand Teton from Middle Teton to the south, with the Ford Couloir dropping straight below the Grand’s summit. The photo was taken during a Teton Trifecta, linking ski descents of the Grand, Middle, and South Tetons. Pho...
Tasio Martin Elorrieta on the 14th pitch (6c+) of Txoria Txori on Punta Guillem Aparicio. Photo by Marc Torrales. In August 2022, a team of friends traveled to the Shafat Valley, where several of us opened new rock routes. Marc Toralles and ...
Nevado Veronica (5,911m) from the east, showing: (blue line) the 2021 route along the east side to join the northeast ridge, and (red line) the 2023 direct east face route. Photo by Nate Heald. In September 2021, I climbed a route on the east...