In June, Brian Prince, Alaina Robertson, and I set up a camp below the northeast face of the Gambler’s Special and Dark Tower to celebrate Alaina’s birthday with some exploratory climbing. The Dark Tower is a subsummit of the Cleaver (13,382’), an...
During what was likely a record-breaking summer for park visitation, three-hour traffic jams edged slowly in a counterclockwise loop around the Valley floor while El Capitan’s mostly empty walls flickered through the exhaust and idle air of 102° J...
On November 21, Adam Ondra from the Czech Republic completed the second free ascent of the Dawn Wall (VI 5.14d), the 32-pitch El Capitan route generally regarded as the world’s hardest big-wall free climb. The route on El Cap’s southeast face, fre...
Deep in Tenaya Canyon is a slabby dome hidden by Mt. Watkins to the west and Yasoo Dome to the east. In late September, with no knowledge of any previously established climbs on the formation or the best way to approach, Mark Westman and I hiked t...
The majority of new-route activity in New Zealand during 2016 occurred during the summer period, with a number of new alpine rock climbs. Starting in the Darran Mountains, in January, Conor Smith and I climbed the northeast face of Pyramid Peak (2...
The 9th Grade: 150 Years of Free Climbing, by David Chambre (Mountaineers Books, $50). A large-format, comprehensive history of free climbing; Eurocentric with terrific color photographs.My Old Man and the Mountain, A Memoir, by Leif Whittaker (Mo...
On April 29, Nik Mirhashemi and Mark Pugliese established a 1,500’ alternate start to the French (Northwest) Ridge of Huntington. Their line begins near the start of the 1984 route Polarchrome and climbs straight up to the ridge, reaching it below...
Readers may be interested to know about Chunkurchak, a sport climbing area close to Bishkek, with both single- and multi-pitch routes, possibly useful for a couple of days at the beginning or end of a Kyrgyzstan expedition. Directions to these gra...
Before joining the estimated 1,000 climbers at base camp for Pik Lenin in August, we went by jeep to the next main valley west, the Mindzhar, where there were no mountaineers. At the head of this valley, the Mindzhar Glacier rises west to Mindzhar...
We spend the night half-sitting, half-standing, one butt cheek each, hanging from the anchor. We are freezing and our bivy sack keeps sliding down our bodies; it’s impossible to zip it completely, and snow keeps blowing in through a hole at the to...
On April 3, Craig Pope, my wife Priti Wright, and I climbed a new ice route on the north face of Dragontail Peak, a direct line up the north buttress that we dubbed Iceline Bling (250m, WI5 M4). This is an alternate start to the classic Triple Cou...
On September 9, I made a free ascent of King Kong (IV 5.11+), a line on the west face of Mt. Stuart that I had completed the week before, after five years of attempts. This linkup climbs the first four pitches of Gorillas in the Mist before moving...
In late 2015, Matt Leslie, Jeremy Luscher, Alan Semrau, and I finished a three-year project on the Illusion Wall, in the Squire Creek area of Darrington. Darrington is home to some of the best multi-pitch routes in Washington, but the 2,000’–3,000...
On January 28, 2017, Tim Bemrich, Jacob Oram, and I made the first ascent of a feature long known as the Pencil, a steep, very narrow ice line on the north face of Mt. Hood, between the North Face Gully routes and the Eliot Headwall.We approached ...
Up to now there was not a single established alpine route on Uløya Island, only three icefalls that friends had climbed a year before. The faces rise to a maximum of 550m, and we decided to go for the biggest prize, the central pillar of the east ...
In early May, Timmy ONeill and I climbed a new route on the South Face of Pontok 3 in the Spitzkoppe Range. This huge, clean granite slab is wonderfully featured, but with essentially no cracks for gear, bolts are the only option. Placing bolts on...
During the first week of August, Julian Kuettner and I completed a new line up the Atlantis Wall, on the south face of Broad Dome in the Sonora Pass area. The Atlantis Wall sits above the middle of Donnell Reservoir, approximately 15 miles from th...
Several accidents, including one fatality, occurred in the Red Gully on the standard route up 14,294-foot Crestone Peak. Although it faces south, this rocky gully often holds snow well into July, presenting mountaineering challenges on what is oth...
After running into Bruce Morris, who did two new routes on the east face of Mt. Watkins, in a local climbing gym and hearing all his praise for this infrequently visited corner of Yosemite Valley, I decided to check the east face for myself. Chris...
In 2015, Felipe Cazmargo (Brazil) told me about a climb in the “Yosemite of Brazil,” near the town of São José do Divino. A decade earlier, a team of climbers, mostly from Chile, had equipped a route called Planeta dos Macacos up the north-facing ...