On September 14, Zhou Peng and I climbed Peak 5,955m, a summit among the small knot of peaks south of the main road that runs southwest from Yangbajain, along the south side of the Nyanchen Tanglha. The following day we climbed Peak 6,192m (29°51’...
In March, Rueben Shelton and I shipped 200 pounds of food and climbing gear to our outfitter Peter Kilabuk in Pangnirtung, which he snowmobiled to a cache near Summit Lake prior to our arrival. Rueben and I arrived in Pangnirtung on July 3, and Ki...
[Editor's Note 10/2014: It appears that the two climbs described below were either wholly or partly climbed by Clark Gerhardt and Craig McKibben in 1976 (see report in AAJ 1977). On Gauntlet Peak, Gerhardt and McKibben climbed "an inviting buttres...
Fewer than a handful of people I know have expressed interest in climbing Twins Tower. Not wanting to miss good conditions, thanks to a low snow year and hot summer, I went out on a limb and asked Josh Wharton. I was surprised when he said yes and...
In early September, Sonnie Trotter climbed a new route Castles in the Sky (5 pitches, 5.14a) on Castle Mountain. The route, which he established with Sam Eastman, took 10 days to redpoint and ascends an overhanging prow on the lower limestone band...
“Wile: devious or cunning stratagems employed in manipulating or persuading someone to do what one wants.”To an outside observer, it would seem that Chris Brazeau was using powers of persuasion in lining up our rock climbing adventure for the day....
In the summer of 2008 Paul McSorley casually mentioned a line he had scoped on the north face of Snowpatch Spire, starting about 40m right of Sunshine Crack. [The un-freed Hell or Highwater (8 pitches 5.11 A2, Langsford-Moorhead, 2007) climbs betw...
A system to the right of Hobo’s Haven on Snowpatch Spire’s Tom Egan Wall had long been eyed from Applebee Camp. Cody Lank and I succeeded in climbing this new line in 2012: East Columbian (4 pitches, 5.12).The blank first pitch was the key to unlo...
In August 2013, Evan Reimondo and I spent seven days in the remote Leaning Tower group in the southern Purcell Mountains. [The Leaning Tower group is located south of the Bugaboos and is home to impressive granite walls on Hall Peak (a.k.a. Leanin...
The steep, 365m-high, south-facing wall directly above Victor Lake, 15km west of Revelstoke, B.C., got its first route in 2007, when Dean Flick from Revelstoke completed the Mission after nearly 10 years of work. Since then the featured quartzite ...
In July, Ben Kunz, Tim Halder, and I enjoyed nine days of impeccable weather in the Waddington Range. Our primary objective was the McNerthney Pillar (McNerthney-McNerthney,1986) on the northern flanks of Mt. Waddington.Our pilot, Mike King, allow...
I first became aware of Mt. Bute several years ago, when a team of three climbers from Squamish succeeded in establishing a monstrous 50-pitch ridge climb: School of Rock (Kay-Martinello-Sinnes, AAJ 2010). After their trip they noted the free-clim...
After a couple of slow years, there seems to be an upswing of interest in new routes in southwestern B.C., including several new winter lines.In late February 2013, Bruce Kay and Damien Kelly climbed Fire Ball (500m, WI5 M5) on the west face of Mt...
In early April, Jonathan Crabtree, Charles Parr, Eli Sturm, and I explored a portion of Canada’s St. Elias Range, located within Kluane National Park. Our primary objective was the south face of Lowell Peak (11,910’, known as Pinnacle W4 on some m...
On May 7, pilot Paul Swanstrom flew Derek Buckle and me from Haines to ca 3,700’ on the lower Seward Glacier close to the Yukon border. The week prior, storms had broken precipitation records for much of neighboring southeast Alaska. Our objective...
On April 10 an eight-member expedition from the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Alpine Club, led by Lim Il-jin, arrived in Phu. Here they hired a local guide to lead them to base camp (5,050m) on the Bharchapk Glacier. Lugula is the highest p...
The Organ Mountains are about 60 miles north of El Paso, Texas in southern New Mexico. The history of climbing in the Organs is vague prior to the 1940s, when a group of German rocket scientists began climbing technical routes. Royal Robbins estab...
During the summer and fall of 2013, I ferreted out two new lines on the monolith of Big Rock Candy Mountain while researching an upcoming guidebook. In June, Greg Miller and I put up the 11-pitch route Nicaraguan Nut Butter (1,300’, 5.9) ground-up...
There are few places anywhere in the world where you can approach multi-pitch alpine ice and mixed climbs with just 20 minutes’ walking. For better or worse, the Pikes Peak toll road delivers just that. Most of the classic rock and ice routes on t...
When Jacob Neathawk and I climbed a new start to the southwest corner on the Petit Grepon in Rocky Mountain National Park in September 2012, I realized that there was plenty of untapped terrain farther up the Sky Pond basin. So, in June 2013, Josh...