On September 13 a belayer began lowering a climber from a sport route with an ATC Guide device. The climber outweighed the belayer by roughly 50 percent. The belayer, standing on unstable rocky ground about six to eight feet away from the wall, wa...
On September 29, DP and JC (both age 23) were climbing Wandering the Halls, a 5.8+ sport climb, at Bolton Quarry climbing area. DP described himself as a novice climber; JC was the more experienced of the two. DP was top-roping, with JC belaying f...
IT WAS A BUSY SEASON in the Coast Mountains outside of the city of Powell River, northwest of Squamish. With good weather in the late spring and early fall, a number of new routes were established in this burgeoning center for Pacific Northwest bi...
Bernard Marnette and I have visited Taghia several times, aiming to climb classic routes or to open new ones. When we first came in November 2011, motivated by the Arnaud Petit’s film Babel and by his book Parois de Légende, Mohamed Amil was a goa...
On March 4, Juneau resident Ryan Johnson and Canadian Marc-André Leclerc started up the unclimbed north face of the Main Tower (6,910’) in the Mendenhall Towers massif. In the early afternoon of the next day, Leclerc posted a photo from the narrow...
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK SUMMARY: Two people died in climbing-related accidents in 2017, and another was very seriously injured.On March 18, a 39-year-old man apparently died while descending from the Loft, a high saddle at about 13,500 feet, ...
On August 20, Anders Fridberg and I (both very experienced) were climbing Blood in the Water, a three-pitch route on the north face of Sharksfin, south of Estes Park. Little did we realize the route’s name would have some additional significance t...
The Coconino County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue Unit responded to a report of a climbing accident at Paradise Forks around 11 a.m. on June 10. The report indicated a climber had fallen 10 to 20 feet and was injured. Upon arrival, it was det...
On July 8, a 51-year-old male climber’s body was found at the base of the Trough (4 pitches, 5.4); it is not known whether he was soloing or scrambling to reach another route when he fell. On September 6, a climber (male, age 24) was killed and hi...
One fatal climbing accident was reported in Joshua Tree in 2017: Samuel Boldissar, 25, died as a result of head injuries after a ground fall from Spaghetti and Chili (5.7+) on Cyclops Rock. The precise cause of the fall is not known.Two serious in...
On December 3, my climbing partners Dave and Sam and a newly introduced third partner, Johnny, met up at Echo Cliffs and hiked to the crag called Easy Street. We split into teams of two, setting up ropes alongside each other. Dave and I began on C...
On August 6, a party of two was descending from Starlight Peak (14,200 feet) after climbing the Starlight Buttress route. Both climbers were experienced but unfamiliar with this particular area. They had planned to descend the northwest ridge to t...
On Friday, August 25, five climbers left the Bay Area with the goal of climbing Cathedral Peak. The team consisted of two experienced climbers (Ben and Nate) and three with little to no experience outside of the gym (Megan, Erin, and Andrew). All ...
On September 9, at 1:20 p.m., Coconino County Sheriff’s Office and other agencies responded to a report of a 12-year-old male, Person 1, who took a 20-foot ground fall while lead climbing. Upon arrival, responders found Person 1 at the base of Mic...
My climbing partner and I were attempting to climb Tenaya Peak, Matthes Crest, and Cathedral Peak—three long but moderate routes in the Tuolumne Meadows area—in a day. Because of the sheer amount of climbing and distance we would need to travel, w...
The first pitch of Zodiac, showing (1) climber’s high point near the top belay anchor and (2) the highest piece of protection that held. The climber estimated he fell 110 feet. Parker Kempf On the morning of De...
On May 3, 2017, Barry Smith and I touched down on the southernmost prong of the Pitchfork Glacier in the Neacola Range of Alaska. Our goal was to climb two adjacent virgin summits, peaks 8,908’ and 8,505’ [see AAJ 2016] , as well as to survey the ...
On a blindingly sunny day, March 5, 2018, Ryan Johnson's face radiated with the kind of satisfaction only an alpinist can appreciate. In a video sent to his girlfriend, he was smiling and calm, spinning in a slow circle to show a panorama of Alask...
A BORDER DISPUTE with China dashed our hopes of a permit for Rangrik Rang, but at the last minute Justin Guarino and I obtained permission to attempt Baihali Jot (6,365m). In September 2017 we approached up the Baihali Nala from the Chenab River...
A five-man Japanese expedition comprising Tetsuji Otsue (leader), Shigekazu Kawajiri, Kiyotaka Nakamura, Koji Matsumoto, and Goto Tomio, with three Nepalese climbing members, Man Bahadur Gurung, Iman Gurung, and Ramesh Gurung, reached the summits ...