After staring at the obscure shady buttress on the left side of the Glacier Point Apron for three years while new-routing on Liberty Cap, Steve Bosque and I decided to hike up in Summer 2013 and check out the options for a new route.We chose a dir...
Last spring a team of jokesters with positive attitudes and some big-wall experience ganged up in Camp 4 for early morning libations. Richie Copeland was on the scene with his newly spray-painted chrome helmet and haul bag. A passerby couldn’t hel...
Climbing around Yosemite Valley has been tremendously rewarding over the past few years, as obscure walls have delivered excellent new routes and solitary experiences. In the spring, Steve Bosque, Josh Mucci, and I established another of these rou...
Cheyne Lempe and Ethan Pringle established the Constant Gardener (V 5.11+ R A3) on the north face of Higher Cathedral Rock, from September 12–13. The approximately 1,000’ climb ascends 600’ of new terrain before joining the Chouinard-Kamps-Pratt R...
From June 4–5, Cheyne Lempe and Everett Phillips completed a new route up Sentinel Rock: Short Haul Bait (V 5.8 A2+). The route climbs seams, chimneys, and corners on the left edge of Sentinel’s sheer northeast face for approximately 1,000’. Much ...
Over the summer, Jake Whittaker and I put up a new free route approximately 100 yards left of the Widow’s Tears amphitheater. We called the climb the Lurch (7 pitches, 5.12c/d), after one of the last moves on the route—by far the crux.The Lurch fo...
Myles Moser and I began climbing a new route on Bastille Buttress in October. Located on the south side of Lone Pine Peak, the Bastille is a whale of granite soaring about 2,000’ and with only two established routes: the Beckey Route (Beckey-Brown...
As full-time desk jockeys, Daniel Jeffcoach and I did not have an extra day for an approach that gains 4,000’ over seven miles. We did not want to carry much water either. We thought our new route on the Sphinx (9,146’) would go quickly and be no ...
My infatuation with the Juggernaut began years ago. Dave Nettle and I were high on the Incredible Hulk, waiting out a summer thundershower. As the rain eased and the clouds lifted, I noticed the profile of the Juggernaut to the west. I later asked...
On August 10, Greg Horvath and I established a new route on the east pillar of Mt. Barnard (13,680’), which is ca 3 miles north of the Mt. Whitney massif. I first eyed the route a year earlier during an ascent of the east pillar on which Mike Maid...
Over a weekend in mid-June, Caitlin Taylor and I established a new route and first free ascent on the remote Flatiron Butte (ca 11,600’), a seldom-visited wall somewhat lost to history. In recent years the area has come to be known as Shangri La. ...
In local Paiute legend, a young boy named Hai’nanu disrespected Tuvaimawiye’e (what we now call Convict Lake) and challenged its power. The lake swelled up and chased Hai’nanu high into the mountains. After climbing to the top of the highest peaks...
On September 9, Scott Sinner and I hiked 12 miles from Whitney Portal to the base of Mt. Chamberlain. Going from sea level to over 13,000’ with a 60lb pack knocked me down a peg, and I slept for 14 hours. We camped on the eastern shore of the uppe...
Jake Dayley and I made the first ascent of a spire in Mormon Canyon, on the north side of the drainage, directly across from Earth Angel. The route follows a crack system on the west face before traversing to the southwest aspect of the summit blo...
I had always felt a fascination for northwest Yunnan, the region at the eastern end of the Himalaya where three great rivers flow close by and parallel to each other. The American climber Mike Dobie, who lives in China, suggested I check out...
From May 2–7, Alik Berg (Canada) and I established a new route on the east face of the Mooses Tooth (10,335’). Our route starts on the ramps of Arctic Rage (Gilmore-Mahoney, AAJ 2005) and then takes a steep and direct line up the massive upper hea...
At the end of January 2014 we realized our aim of making a new route and the first winter ascent of the north face of Chanchakhi (4,462m). Our team included four Ukrainian climbers: Mikhaylo Mironchak, Volodymyr Roshko, Dmytro Venslavovsky, and me...
"Open up, I’m coming in!” I squeeze under the rain fly of the portaledge next to Nik Berry and Mason Earle. The rain is turning to sleet and the thunder’s getting closer. The three of us are hunkered down, 800 feet up the north face of Mt. Hooker ...
“Right now your grief is this giant gaping hole with sharp edges, but as you move forward in life the edges soften and other beautiful things start to grow around it…flowers and trees of experiences. The hole never goes away, but it becomes gentle...
Ryan: “A Wild Ride to the Summit of Mount Johnson” reads the American Alpine Journal. Beneath the headline, a meaty account of Jack Tackle and Doug Chabot’s first ascent of the Elevator Shaft in 1995.I’m fresh off my first real alpine climb, Halle...