Kieran Parsons and I made the first ascent of the northwest ridge of Mt. Burns in December. It's an enormous feature that dominates the head of the Landsborough Valley, a large but fairly isolated valley in the Southern Alps, immediately ...
A five-man British expedition comprised of Steve Brown, Paul Josse, Terje Lokken (Norway), Phil Morgan, and John Venier spent 12 days in late August exploring the glaciers around the western headwaters of the Mustabbes River. Various members...
Lebanon isn’t the first place that comes to mind for rock climbing—it’s better known for beaches, nightclubs, and the threat of instability. The Lebanese civil war (1975–1990) and ensuing turbulence have kept tourists away and limited the develo...
Saint Leu, Réunion, 5 p.m. I’m sitting on the veranda of a little bungalow, the sun setting over a black sand beach. It is our last day on the island. I receive a text message: “I did it, thank you team.” At first I don’t understand. Then I feel...
Mt. Tutoko, west face. Guy McKinnon soloed the first ascent of the west face of Mt. Tutoko (2,608m), the highest peak of the Darran Mountains, near the southern tip of New Zealand’s south island. The ca 1,900m face had only one recorded...
The Musandam Peninsula is a 700-square-mile enclave of Oman at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, separated from the rest of the country by a 45-mile-wide swath of the United Arab Emirates. The Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf define its...
On July 22, Danish mountaineers Michael Pilegaard (26), Mads Knudsen (30), and Nicolai Bo Silver (26) set out from the 17,200-foot high camp for a summit attempt via a non-standard route up the “Autobahn,” the slope leading from high camp to De...
On June 16, a guided climber (53) descending from the summit of Denali began experiencing signs and symptoms of HAPE. The climber was able to descend to Denali Pass, at 18,200 feet, but could not travel any further under his own power. The clim...
On June 13, a guided expedition operated by Rainier Mountaineering Inc. was caught near the summit of Denali in a sudden storm. On the descent to high camp at 17,200 feet, all seven members (ages unknown) of the group sustained varying degrees ...
A Day to Die For 1996: Everest’s Worst Disaster, The Untold True Story. Graham Ratcliffe. Mainstream Publishing (U.K.), 2011. 322 pages. Color photos. Paperback. £11.99. The title refers to May 10, 1996, and what so many people have come to...
Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2’s Deadliest Day. Peter Zuckerman and Amanda Padoan. W.W. Norton, 2012. 285 pages. Hardcover. $26.95. The Time Has Come: Ger McDonnell, His Life and His Death on K2. Damie...
I have always wanted to go to Pakistan and explore a valley that has been overlooked by other expeditions. This has been a dream of mine for many years, and in September, having come across the report from a team of Bulgarians who had explored ...
In September 2011, Doychin Boyanov, Mihail Mihaylov, and I explored the Khane Valley immediately south of Nangma Valley [AAJ 2012]. In August 2012 we three, together with Tervel Kerelov, returned. We reached base camp (Boulder Camp) on the Firs...
In July Raul Gonzalez and Mikel Urabain Saez spent 22 days in the Nangma Valley, climbing a route on Zang Brakk. Unclear about the location of existing routes on the left side of the south face, they started just to the left of Ali Baba (6c+/7a ...
The Charakusa Valley has been so well documented, and seen activity from some of the biggest hitters in the alpine climbing community, I won’t waste any time trying to sell it to you. Shingo Ohkawa and I arrived in the valley in early July, ...
Will Sim and I (U.K.) had never been to the Himalaya. Together we’d climbed dozens of hard routes in the Alps, as well as taken part in expeditions to Patagonia and Alaska, but we’d never made it to the bigger peaks. The problem is knowing wher...
The pioneering photographer Vittorio Sella took his famous picture of the Muztagh Tower in 1909. Since then only five expeditions have climbed one or both of the twin summits [the east is the main top, the west several meters lower]: Briti...
Looking for somewhere to spend a nice summer holiday, I didn’t think I would once again be going to the Trango Glacier. But if you ask me now, “Why again?” my answer would be simply that I love this place. Martin Krasnansky and Michal S...
While at Trango base camp Jakob Schweighofer and I climbed three possible new routes. On August 9, and with the Slovakian Martin Krasnansky, we put up Nilam Najang (the Inside Dream) on the southeast pillar of a formation across the glacier we h...
Willis Brown (Canada) and I established what we believe to be a new route in Ala Archa National Park on October 15, 2012. After acclimatizing on an ice couloir on Bachichiki and an attempt on Semenova, we climbed a route on the north-north...