Our first major event this year was in support of theWestern Colorado Climbers Coalition’s (WCCC) annual fund-raiser in April. The proceeds will go to possible land purchases in Unaweep Canyon, south of Grand Junction. Activities included a boulde...
Our section completed many events in 2013, focused on developing the Idaho climbing community. Among these, Jim Donini spoke at two dinners, one in Boise and the other in Sun Valley, providing stories of adventure that inspired everyone in attenda...
In addition to rock climbing outings in the Superstition Mountains, east of Phoenix, and the McDowell Mountains of Scottsdale, the Arizona Section added a canyoneering event to its list of activities. Canyoneering is very popular in the Southwest ...
We had four main events in 2013: a climbing/restoration weekend in Joshua Tree in March; a stewardship day at the third annual Idyllwild Climbers Festival in May; helping with the work party and a fund-raiser for the section’s Live Your Dream gran...
Our “Climb-munity” gatherings continued to be popular and well attended throughout the year. These included ice climbing in Cold Stream Canyon near Truckee, rock climbing at Pinnacles National Park, a June weekend on Donner Summit, and our much-lo...
The Alaska Section partnered with the Hatcher Pass Mountaineering Huts Group to support motorized vehicle–boundary education and incident reporting around the Snowbird Hut. This involved posting boundary signs, handing out brochures with motorized...
Northern Exposures: An Adventuring Career in Stories and Images. Jonathan Waterman. University of Alaska Press, 2013. 240 pages. Paperback. $30.Growing up in the suburbs of Boston, Waterman strove to sate his thirst for wilder places by cutting cl...
Shipton & Tilman: The Great Decade of Himalayan Exploration. Jim Perrin. Hutchinson, 2013. 412 pages, black and white photos. Hardcover, £25.The highest ideals of mid-20th century mountaineering have been summed up in the phrase “brotherhood o...
The Summits of Modern Man: Mountaineering after the Enlightenment. Peter H. Hansen. Harvard University Press, 2013. 392 pages, 24 halftones. Hardcover, $35.Climbing has recently attracted increasing attention from major university presses. This i...
Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration, David Roberts. W. W. Norton & Company, 2013. 368 pages, hardcover/paperback, $27.95/$16.95.Douglas Mawson’s 1911–13 Antarctic journey was riddled with horrific crevas...
Climbing Fitz Roy, 1968: Reflections on the Lost Photos of the Third Ascent. Yvon Chouinard, Dick Dorworth, Chris Jones, Lito Tejada-Flores, Doug Tompkins. Patagonia Books, 2013. 144 pages. Hardcover. $35.The iconic 1968 climb is reflected on here...
Echoes: One Climber’s Hard Road to Freedom. Nick Bullock. Vertebrate Publishing (U.K.), 2013. 256 pages. Hardcover. £20. Nick Bullock’s new book Echoes opens with a violent revenge attack in a prison training facility, in which one pr...
The Seventymile Kid: The Lost Legacy of Harry Karstens and the First Ascent of Mount McKinley. Tom Walker. Mountaineers Books, 2013. 304 pages. Paperback. $19.95.Tom Walker’s The Seventymile Kid is an antidote to one of the least-read books from t...
Short Peaks: 33 Brief Mountain Tales. Jerry Auld. Imaginary Mountain Surveyors, 2013. 280 pages. Paperback. CAN $25. Climbing fiction has always been problematic, perilously close to an oxymoron. During the bad old days in Camp 4 we used to read a...
Everest–The First Ascent: How a Champion of Science Helped to Conquer the Mountain. Harriet Pugh Stuckey. Lyons Press, 2013. 402 pages. Hardcover. $26.95.This superb, wonderfully researched, and readable book does several impossible things impossi...
The Alchemy of Action. Doug Robinson. Moving Over Stone, 2013. 188 pages. Paperback. $24. First, full disclosure: Doug Robinson is an old and good friend. I am a fan of his writing in general and am included in The Alchemy of Action as both friend...
Rock, Paper, Fire: The Best of Mountain and Wilderness Writing. Marni Jackson and Tony Whittome, editors. Banff Centre Press, 2013. 295 pages. Paperback. $21.95.On the face of it, an anthology of pieces written by students in any kind of writers’ ...
In early April, I spent ten frustrating days waiting in town, hoping to fly into the Revelation Mountains. Nothing was going our way. First the weather was bad and pilots were available; then the weather was good, but our pilots couldn’t fly in. O...
In July, Graham Zimmerman and I spent 10 days in the remote Revelation Mountains, at the far southwest end of the Alaska Range. This sub-range has seen a recent surge of activity in the spring season, and climbers have returned with stories of hug...
After leaving a balmy spring in the Oregon desert, Geoff Unger and I headed for the east face of the Mooses Tooth. We shared the flight with David Lama and Dani Arnold, who were gunning for a line up the middle of the face, while Geoff and I were ...