On August 13, Mike (21) and Russell (19) climbed Royal Arches (15 pitches, 5.7 A0). They finished late in the day, hiked along the rim to Washington Column, and began their descent via the North Dome Gully climbers’ trail shortly before dusk. By t...
On August 2, Carl and Michelle (both from Canada) climbed Northwest Books (5.6). The descent is second- or third-class, but they found themselves on some slabs that Michelle was afraid to cross, despite her 5.7 climbing ability. Carl built a rappe...
On July 26, Ted (25) and Stephanie (23) climbed Royal Arches (Grade III 5.7 A0). They started at 10:30 a.m. Ted, with 4.5 years of experience versus Stephanie’s one year, was the team leader. The climb took a lot longer than they expected, so they...
On June 24, Australian climber Shane Houbart (29) was on his second day of attempting to solo the West Face of Leaning Tower (Grade V 5.7 C2). After lunch at Ahwahnee Ledge, he began aiding up and right on pitch five. Shane had consciously decided...
On June 2, British climbers Felix Kiernan (28) and Luke Jones (27) began an ascent of the East Buttress of El Capitan (5.10b). There was one rope team ahead of them, but because the British party was moving faster, the other team let them pass at ...
On the morning of May 19, Mason Robison (38) was killed in a fall while leading pitch 27 of the Muir Wall (VI 5.9 A2) on El Capitan. This pitch, rated C1, heads up a left-facing dihedral for 20 feet, traverses left around a small roof, and then co...
On May 13, Peter (31) and Alain (26), both from France, were climbing pitch six of the Regular Northwest Face (VI 5.9 C1), hauling a bag for a bivouac at Big Sandy Ledge. Peter took a 20-foot lead fall on the crack labeled “5.9 polished fingers” i...
On June 30, the U.S. Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center out of Bridgeport was on Mt. Shasta conducting training exercises when Seargent Ruiz (25) attempted to jump over a crevasse at around 11,500 feet. Upon landing on the other side of...
On June 27, James Brown (30s), a Sierra Wilderness Seminars (SWS) guide, was struck by a large ice boulder in the lower leg and knocked off his feet. Ranger Nick Meyers was notified by SWS’s Dave Cressman about 8:15 a.m. Cressman stated that Brown...
On June 16, a climber (33) was glissading on the Avalanche Gulch route at approximately 11,700 feet when he lost control and injured his shoulder. Apparently he had had surgery on the shoulder in the past and was familiar with the injury. The clim...
On February 18 at 11:30 a.m., dispatch informed me (Celeste Fowler) of an overdue climber, J. Scherer (31), on Mt. Shasta. The reporting party was B. Thompson.Thompson gave the following account. On February 17, he and Scherer began to climb Mt. S...
On January 20, Ranger Nick Meyers was notified by Siskiyou County SAR of an injured solo climber, Aaron Pessah (25), on the Green Butte/Sargents Ridge route at 11,300 feet. He was apparently unable to walk or descend due to a knee and leg injury. ...
On July 7, Lilia Telenkevic (46), an experienced client on the Mt-19-7 Summits expedition, was pulled off her feet by her rope team while descending below the fixed lines, at around 15,000 feet, on the West Buttress route. During the fall she twis...
About 5 p.m. on June 23, a female client (28) on the AMS-Hamill expedition fell while negotiating the bergschrund at the base of the fixed lines at 15,400 feet on Denali’s West Buttress route. At the time of the fall, her left arm was wrapped arou...
On June 2, a client (43) on a guided trip was evacuated with a severe case of high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE). The guides had contacted rangers about one of their clients who seemed to be exhibiting signs and symptoms of HAPE. Rangers conduct...
On May 28 a team of five Polish climbers fell while descending the upper mountain above Denali Pass. They descended on their own power to the 17,200- foot camp on the West Buttress route and contacted an NPS ranger patrol there. One climber (39) r...
At the end of March, I (Colin Haley, 28) left for a climbing trip in Alaska’s St. Elias Range with Portlanders John Frieh and Daniel Harro. We were flown into the range by Paul Claus midday on April 1. We spent a few hours setting up our base camp...
In September 2013, I traveled with British writer Jamie Bunchuk to produce a film, in association with the Murghab Ecotourism Association, about a Kyrgyz-Tajik hunter and herder named Orozbek, who lives in a small settlement just off the beautiful...
Ben Dare and Daniel Joll, who did the first ascent of the south face of Marian Peak (2,102m) in March 2013, added a second line on the left side of the 1,000m face on February 7, 2014. Mater Dei (20) shares the same start as the 2013 route thr...
On the day before Thanksgiving, a 24-year-old climber was top-roping her last climb of the day: Gorilla (5.10). Approximately 15 feet up the climb, her foot slipped out of a jam while her left hand remained jammed in the crack. As she fell, her ha...