On June 23, two friends and I (Wesley Hartman, 17) were climbing on the east side of Kindergarten Rock. I climbed what I believe was a 5.10 with a safe belay from my partner Trey. When I got to the top I was planning to clean the route and rappel ...
Click the image below to view a PDF of the Statistical Tables from Accidents 2014. The data shown accounts for reported accidents through 2013.
The timing was perfect. A team of female students from the Japanese Alpine Club was planning an expedition to the Himalaya, just as Nepal opened more than 100 new peaks.The women chose three of these newly opened peaks in Mustang: Mansail (Mansail...
On October 17, Benjamin Jones, Jonathan Mancuso, and I left Kathmandu to explore four unclimbed and newly opened peaks in the Upper Mustang region.From Jomsom it took five days to reach a ca 4,875m base camp, and two days later we set a high camp ...
Northwest of Lo Manthang, the Mustang Himal previously was forbidden to both climbers and trekkers. The opening of new peaks in 2014 by the Ministry of Tourism radically changed this situation, and there are now beautiful climbs to be done in ...
Following our autumn fieldwork season studying nearby glaciers, Ibai Rico (Spain) and I (USA but based in U.K.) planned several interesting lines from the Langtang Valley.To acclimatize we explored the approach to the south saddle of Ganchempo (6,...
After visited Rolwaling in 2013 (AAJ 2014), I headed back with new objectives. This time my partner was Sam Hennessey (U.S.), with whom I'd climbed in Yosemite. Despite the rapid growth of tourism in Rolwaling, with numerous trekking parties, the ...
After a decade of exploration and solving puzzles on numerous peaks in the Quimsa Cruz, expeditions have become a way of life. The dream of publishing the third edition of my guide, Travesía Quimsa Cruz (Crossing Quimsa Cruz), gives me the opportu...
From June 17–20, 1974, Americans Roman Laba and John Thackray climbed the northwest ridge of Huayna Potosi. The AAJ 1975 feature describing this climb is erroneous in recording it as the northeast ridge. The only reference to an earlier ascent of ...
On August 25, Pacifico Machaca and I drove to the west side of Huayna Potosi and then walked two hours to the lake below the west face. Here, we examined possibilities for a new mixed route on this stunning wall. Carrying neither tent nor sleeping...
On October 10, Artem Bylinksi (Russian), Juvenal Condori, Rodrigo Lobo (both Bolivian), and Davide Vitale (Belgian) reached Penas, drove to the road head at Jalluwaya, and then walked three hours to Laguna Warawarani, where they camped. Leaving ne...
From January 15–18, 2015, two rope teams completed the third and fourth enchainments of the three Towers of Paine. Oriol Baró (Spain), Paula Alegre, and Esteban Degregori (both Argentina) climbed and descended Torre Norte via the Monzino (400m, 5....
Orlando Lopez, Fabian Londono, and I hoped to free climb the complete route Osa Ma Non Troppo (700m, 7b A2/A3, AAJ 2007), established by Italians Michell Cagol, Rolando Larcher, Fabio Leoni, and Elio Orlandi. The route is located just left of Cota...
From December 30, 2014–January 17, 2015, Myles Moser and I made the first capsule-style ascent of the route Una Fina Linea de Locura (31 pitches, VII 5.12 A3) on the Central Tower in Torres del Paine. Our goal was to free every pitch of the 4,000’...
At the beginning of January 2015, a group of 16 students, NOLS instructors Anne Peick, Christian Steidle, Martin Arteaga, and I organized an expedition to the El Engaño Valley, which includes the Cordón Colmillo. To our knowledge this range (north...
In November, Ulises Espinosa (Chile) and I went to the Las Leñas Valley, where in six days we completed the first ascent of Cerro General Carrera (both its west [3,198m, GPS] and central summit [3,313m, GPS]), and Cerro Manuel Rodríguez (4,026m). ...
In preparation for an expedition to the Volcano Pular, in July 2004, Norberto Alarcon, Freddy Grey, and I opened a route to the south summit of the Rubillas massif. The ascent was done in the day, starting from the town of Baños Morales, east of S...
In mid-July, I met Cecilia Buil (Spain) in Chile; our plan being to climb some new routes on Cerro Marmolejo (6,109m) located at the head of Cajon del Maipo, a long, mountainous valley near Santiago. We first wanted to climb the route established ...
La Pala (3,669m GPS), though not very high, is a very large mountain with around 1,500m of prominence. The peak is located near the fork of the Rio Claro and the Estero Godoy ravine. After having climbed to the north summit (3,647m GPS) a couple o...
Torres del Campanario (ca 5,090m) is nice set of towers outside of Mendoza in the Cordillera Frontal of Argentina’s Central Andes. It has granite very similar to the walls in southern Patagonia. In March, a number of fine new lines were opened in ...