On August 31 a team of young climbers from Singapore University of Technology and Design, led by veteran mountaineer and consultant Edwin Siew, reached an unnamed summit (6,010m on the Leomann map) in the Karcha Valley. According to the Indian Mou...
A six-member Indian expedition led by Rajan Rikame climbed two new peaks just west of the Manali-Leh Highway at Kilingsarai (ca 260km drive from Manali), north of the Baralacha La. Peak 5,980m (32.87°N, 77.39°E) was climbed on July 31 by Rohan Rao...
In September, Zaheer Durrani, Stefan Jachmich, Susan Jensen, Gus Morton, Alison Stockwell, and I attempted unclimbed Liushen Tag (6,595m, 35°59'38.07"N, 81°35'38.73"E), south of the town of Keriya (Yutian) in Hotan Prefecture. The northern s...
On October 31, João Garcia (Portugal) and Angel Salamanca (Spain) made the best attempt to date to reach the virgin summit of Tawoche Northwest (6,335m), a marked top on the unclimbed northwest ridge of Tawoche (6,495m). This summit had previously...
After passing initiation tests in Benasque during a cold weekend in February 2012, the new Spanish team for alpinism (Equipo Español de Alpinismo) began its training and improvement program in the Pyrenees and Alps. For two years, led by Mikel Zab...
The name of the peak climbed by Tim-Macartney Snapes team in 2010 is not Pabuk Kang, as stated in AAJ 2011, but Nangamari I, labeled as Peak 6,547m on the HMG-Finn map. Pabuk Kang (6,244m) lies on the frontier ridge approximately two kilometers to...
In the pre-monsoon season Adam Bielecki (Poland), Artem Braun and Dimtry Sinev (both Russia), Alex Txikon (Spain), and former Kazakh but now Russian citizen Denis Urubko had planned a new direct route up the northwest face of Kangchenjunga (8,586m...
The day was perfect—except for the date, Friday, March 13. Mathieu “Mat” Leblanc, François “Frank” Bédard, and I had decided to finish a project we’d started last year on the far right side of the north face of Mont Gros Bras. (The 200m wall, loca...
Over four days at the beginning of April, Matthew Mower and I completed the first ascent of Ivins Mountain (7,049’) by its west face. This peak is located on the west side of the park, in the Zion “backcountry,” and it is considered one of the mos...
On June 7, a 38-year-old climber was leading a well-bolted 5.10a route on Foreplay Wall. It was midafternoon on a hot day, and the 30-meter cliff was just coming into the sun. The belayer (age about 42), with whom the leader had climbed “many time...
Funded in part by the Lyman Spitzer Award, Tim Dittmann, Jared Vilhauer, and I reached the Kishtwar Himalaya from the north in mid-September. We shared our base camp (4,400m) on the east side of the Hagshu Glacier with Slovenian and British teams....
In 2011, when I traveled to the Raru Valley with a group of young climbers, members of the expedition made the first ascent of GoCook Peak (6,050m, AAJ 2012) and noticed an unclimbed 6,060m mountain to the northeast. In June 2014, hoping to find t...
Galina Chibitok (Russia) and Marina Kopteva (Ukraine) spent seven days in September making the first ascent of the 900m northwest face of Golden Sentinel (ca 5,200m). They graded the route 6B (VI A2/A3). Golden Sentinel is the second major rock to...
Machu Kangri (6,086m), west of Leh, is located 8km south of the Sisir La and 12km southeast of Chomotang. In mid-June, Karl Herberger (Germany), well acclimatized and approaching over the Sisir La, made a bivouac at ca 4,700m, north of the peak. N...
In June and July, Karl Herberger made a number of solo ascents of high peaks in this area. On June 27 he traversed Peak 6,100m from east to west and then climbed the southeast ridge of Spangnak Ri (6,390m). Peak 6,100m (a.k.a. Kiager Ri) is a larg...
Telthop (6,185m) is situated north of Leh and is accessed via the Kardung La (at 5,350m the highest motorable road in the world) and Nubra Valley. This is an area of considerable political and military sensitivity, given its proximity to the still...
I had arranged to lead a commercial group up a peak in the Ladakh Range, south of the Nubra town of Deskit. Unfortunately, the new visa contractor hired by India within the U.S. had a very difficult time issuing the requisite “X” visas for climbin...
Rongdo is a remote valley in the eastern part of the Nubra. Historians of South Asia are familiar with this area, as it holds an ancient trade route between Yarkand and northern India (part of the Silk Road). Rongdo Valley is located south of the ...
In November 2014, Cullen Kirk, Karl Kvashay, and I climbed the first of many new routes on Tucupit Point in Zion's Kolob Canyon. Astrolizard (IV 5.11) climbs a clean, mostly wide crack system on Tucupit’s south face and is comprised of mostly Indi...
In late May, Basque climbers Kepa Berasategi and Odei Girado climbed a new route on Jangyaraju I (5,675m). On May 23 they traveled from Huaraz to Collon (ca 3,400m), entered the Ishinca Valley, and trekked past Jatunpampa. Before reaching a waterf...