In July, Colin Moorhead, Max Tepfer, and I completed a difficult new free climb on the Supercave Wall (a.k.a. M&M Wall) over the course of four days: the Tiger (1,000’, IV 5.12b). This south-facing, semi-alpine wall is truly an amazing gem, lo...
Tokopah Valley is an overlooked gem tucked within the west side of Sequoia National Park. While it’s known primarily for the 1,000’ Watchtower, towering over Tokopah Falls, the north side of the valley holds several beautiful granite formations wi...
This is a story of people meeting terrain. It’s a love story—this terrain is hot. The adventures are wild and timeless. The red lines are still being drawn. Many have fallen for this massif, seduced by the pleasure of dancing with its peaks. From ...
The word “remote” is no longer forbidding to mountaineers. Jet travel is relatively cheap and easy, and can quickly get you to any corner of the world. But getting close is one thing. Real accessibility is another story entirely. Planes land in P...
Out of the shapeless mass that is the past, moments stand out like still photographs. I remember driving through the concrete canyons of Calgary’s downtown one spring morning in 2005 and deciding that, yes, I’d go with Steve Swenson to Pakistan. U...
On June 21, 2013, I (61 years old, experienced climber) set out to climb the Regular Route (III 5.9) up the north face of Fairview Dome. I had climbed the route at least a few times before, including rope-soloing the climb. Thus, while leading the...
On July 13, I visited Tahquitz Rock with partner Brian (31) after a few-year hiatus from climbing. I’m an experienced lead climber, and I decided to get us started by heading up the Trough (4 pitches, 5.4), a climb well within my ability level.Cli...
From the top of Mt. Kenya, 70 miles to the north, one can see a silhouette rising nearly 1,500’ above the desert of Kenya’s northern frontier: Ololokwe (a.k.a. Sapache, “the overhanging head”). This impressive block of gneiss has been in the cross...
My friends and I had decided to end a day of climbing in late February with a 5.9 arête called Ain’t So Eazy. No one in our group had tried it before. Before starting the climb I expressed some concerns to my belayer: The bottom holds were wet, th...
When I began pulling together an expedition to explore part of the Pamir, I had no set objective except to arrive with full kit and see what turned up. After coffee with Mark Thomas, a friend and highly experienced climber, he was in. Also joining...
Daniel Joll and I climbed a new route on the south face of Mt. Aspiring (3,033m) on September 6. The route climbs through the right-hand side of the lower rock band before traversing left across the central ice fields and finishing directly up an ...
During July I teamed up with New Zealand expat Gregg Beisly for our annual exploration of the cordilleras Real and Occidental. Gregg lives with his family in Bolivia and works with a youth leadership program in the shantytown of El Alto, above La ...
In April a 13-member Korean team—the Vision Expedition, led by Kim Tae-Hoon—climbed Dragmorpa Ri (6,185m) on the Tibetan border, west of the upper reaches of the main Langtang Glacier. The group arrived at its 4,700m base camp on April 10, and on ...
Dancing with the gusts of winter wind, Natalia Martinez and I inched onto the summit that had long been the focus of our dreams. It was 10:45 p.m. and pitch dark. More than simply the high point of a mountain, this peak was the validation of years...
“Until one is committed there is hesitancy.... The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.” —W.H. Murray Nineteen-thousand-foot glaciated pea...
On October 4, Scott Adamson, Angela Van Wiemeersch, and I established a new ice and mixed line, The One Who Knocks (550’, WI6 M5 R/X), on the northeast face of Reids Peak (11,708’) in the Uinta Mountains of northeastern Utah. I scouted the line in...
On July 5, Mary Ann Overfelt and I set out to tackle the West Slabs of Mt. Olympus (1,600’, 5.5), east of Salt Lake City. We started hiking a bit later than we would have liked, but still reached the start of the route about 11 a.m. A few other pa...
In early October, Jonathan “JD” Merritt and I climbed a long ice and mixed route on the north side of Peak 12,878’, a sub-peak just northeast of Shoshoni Peak (12,967’) in the central Indian Peaks. I first scouted the route after a deep two-day fr...
For several years Mark Jenkins and I had wanted to climb together in the mountains of Wyoming, where he has done many new routes. In mid-August the stars aligned and we planned a week in the vicinity of Cloud Peak (13,167’) in the Bighorn Mountain...
What was going on? Odd-Roar was awakened by the sound of a slide coming from above. When the first ice blocks hit the portaledge, he threw himself into the wall, half on top of Ole, covering his head as best he could. A few anxious seconds late...