On November 17 two friends of Niels Tietze hiked to the base of Fifi Buttress to look for their overdue friend. The two knew that Tietze had been up on the formation, working to establish a new route, and had been doing so alone, using fixed lines...
In October, Alex Doria was injured in a long fall on the third pitch of the Regular Northwest Face on Half Dome. Doria had made a substantial runout to a stance near the end of the 5.8 pitch and was preparing to place a piece when he lost his bala...
On October 11, Quinn Brett (female, 30s) was attempting a Nose in a Day ascent with Josie McKee when she took a very long fall while leading the right side of the Boot Flake. The two women were using speed-climbing tactics: Brett was effectively r...
THE HISTORY and exact whereabouts of established routes on Illampu, particularly its western aspect, has been something of a muddle. New information about several routes is helping to set the record straight.Illampu has two summits: north (6,310m,...
Rob Lamey and Mike Rolf (U.K.) were active on Lofoten's westernmost island of Moskenesøya in 2016, putting up several new routes, including two on Merraflestinden.On July 26 the two climbed Nonchalance (Norwegian 6) on the Reine Slab (Reinesvaet),...
Above the tiny rural villages of Madagascar’s Tsaranoro Valley, the granite walls stand proudly like ancient giants. The stone is rough to the touch and grippy like Velcro—even with an unchalked hand in the hot Malagasy sun. In 2018, I made the lo...
From July 24–27, 2016, Maciej Bedrejczuk, Piotr Sulowski, and I made the first free ascent of the Rhombus, the outstanding north-facing feature on Chatyn-tau (4,412m). Around half a dozen routes climb the 600m-plus rock wall of the Rhombus, and we...
In March, Bolivian resident Davide Vitale and friends traversed Peak 5,396m in the Negruni Range of the central Cordillera Real. As had been done in the past, the Vitale team climbed onto the southwest ridge from the south (AD), but from the summi...
I met Brette Harrington at Gripped magazine editor Brandon Pullan’s house—a veritable couch-surfing operation for climbers hanging around Canmore—in mid-March, almost exactly five weeks after the death of her partner, Marc-André Leclerc. There was...
Edward (“Ed”) Boulton died at his home in North Seattle on September 27, 2018. He was 91.Ed was born and raised in Seattle and attended Roosevelt High School. He served in the U.S. military for a few years immediately following the end of WWII. Ed...
On the afternoons of September 27 and 28, a series of rockfalls occurred on the far right side of El Capitan, near the line of Horsetail Fall. The initial rockfall on September 27 struck two climbers who were walking along the base of the cliff af...
At 6:59 p.m. on June 10, Yosemite dispatch received a report that a climber had rappelled off the end of her rope while descending Harry Daley (2 pitches, 5.8). Barbara (mid-30s, not her real name) was now on top of the fourth-class pinnacle that ...
The period from May 11–19 delivered a mix of spring weather to Yosemite. Cameron Brown (age 41) and I (Stephen Shostek, age 59) experienced sun, rain, snow, and cold weather during our Salathé Wall climb. We sheltered for two days in the Alcove (p...
On August 24, Tom Frost—whose character and influence outshone his remarkable routes—died peacefully after a short battle with cancer.Frost was the last survivor of the team that made the first ascent of El Capitan’s Salathé Wall, the second route...
After an attempt from the south in 2017 (AAJ 2018), Eric Kowalski, Alex Tang, and I returned to the China-Kazakhstan border for another attempt on the peak popularly known as Sauyr Zhotasy (3,840m). This mountain is not exceptional in either altit...
On the night of May 15, around midnight, two climbers (male and female, both in their 30s) reported they were stranded on a ledge below Dolt Tower on El Capitan. The climbers had attempted an alpine-style ascent of the Nose, bivying once at El Cap...
On March 3, at 8:24 p.m., two male climbers (both in their early 20s) reported they were stranded partway up the Royal Arches route (approximately 15 pitches, 5.7 C0). The climbers had moved slower than expected, and, with a storm approaching, the...
AMONG THE MOST COMMON sites for traumatic climber injuries are the lower leg and ankle. These injuries are also likely to cause the need for evacuation and a visit to the hospital. Injuries to the lower leg range in severity from a sprained ankle ...
Charlotte Fox was strong and good in the mountains, not known for speed so much as being able to go and go and go. She climbed Everest in 1996, surviving the famous nighttime “huddle,” with her eyes and contact lenses freezing and patches of frost...
Cathedral Peak’s big east-facing wall, rising above Cathedral Lake in the eastern Wind Rivers, has a long history, attracting the attention of climbers since at least 1979, when Fred Beckey and Jim Kanzler completed the route they named Orion’s Re...