In 1984, Swiss alpinists Norbert Joos and Erhard Loretan ventured with a small team up the seven-kilometer-long east ridge of Annapurna, which borders the south face in a rippling line of subpeaks and summits. For the final four days on the crest,...
We first saw the 500m walls of It-kaya, east of the village of Bezengi, while making the first ascent of Ak-kaya in January 2011. The area around It-kaya is strikingly beautiful, with many herbs, flowers, and boulders, making it a kind of ...
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Pico Titán (4,263m) is situated on the Cordón de Límite in the Central Andes, 6km northwest of Cristo Redentor, near the Argentinean-Chilean frontier. Given its proximity to the village of Las Cuevas and the Portillo ski center, it is fairly eas...
On November 5, 2011, Mijel Lotfi and I reached the summit of the mythic Nevado Excelsior (5,773m), the highest peak of the Macizo de la Jaula. This almost unexplored area is located west of the famous Cordón del Plata. Most of the peaks in the ...
The Argentina-Chile border has a number of lesser-known peaks, and many others have only seen a few ascents. Cerro Caracoles (4,504m) is one of these. Seen easily by travelers who cross the Andes by car, it had only three ascents, all from from...
On July 8, Gregg Beisly (NZ), Paul Meehan (US), and I left La Paz at around 6 a.m. with the intention of climbing water ice in the valley containing Laguna Jachcha Khasiri, the same valley used to access the regular route (southeast ridge) on Jati...
Traditional Aymara people have descriptive names for their mountains: Illimani is Water Bearer, Huayna Potosi is Thunderous Youth, and Mururata the Beheaded Peak. Our expectations were therefore high as we set off to climb Gigante Grande in the so...
Of all Illimani’s aspects, the south face is perhaps the most beautiful and impressive. This huge wall offers lines of high technical difficulty, through vertical ice runnels and rock. Hidden from general view, it seems inaccessible, but it is not...
[Editor’s note: Pat Goodman won a 2009 Lyman Spitzer Cutting-Edge Award from the AAC. This report on his permit frustrations in October 2009 is reprinted from the AAC's trip reports.] The five Chinese men and women stood confident, and in...
The Bezengi Wall (sometimes spelled Bezingi) rises along the mountain frontier between Russia on the north and Georgia on the south. The sharp, ca 13km ridge links several of the highest peaks of the Caucasus: Lial’ver (4,350m), Gestola...
Federico Bueno Aloísio from Argentina, Jose Luiz Belmonte and Eduardo Ricardo Diaz from Bolivia, and I (originally from Brazil) made the first ascent of Chochis Tower in the Roboré–Santa Cruz de la Sierra region of Bolivia’s eastern lowlan...
This July, I had the honor of fulfilling the mission of the Mountain Fellowship Award by establishing new routes on unnamed features near Waterwheel Falls in the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, Yosemite National Park. Over the course of two we...
The Tyutyu massif has five independent summits, up to 4,460m, and offers traditional rock and alpine routes in a gorgeous setting. The longest and most alpine routes are on the north side, which can be reached only by a long trek or by helic...
The international expedition called A Cada Uno Su Thaki (To Each Their Own Trail) was conceived by Anne Bialek (France) and Sergio Condori (Bolivia). Whereas traditional treks in the Apolobamba region tend to follow the Caminata de los Medicos K...
The mountains of Bolivia have seen a resurgence in new routing, largely due to the emergence of a strong cadre of local mountain guides, as well as a number of talented, enthusiastic foreign climbers resident in La Paz. A team of local guides repo...
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...