In September veteran climbers from Pune organized a trip with climbers from the “new generation” to stimulate interest in big-wall climbing. The Sahyadri Range, east of Mumbai, is composed of black basalt, and offers innumerable opportunities ...
On September 28 Simon Gietl and I stood on the summit of the Arwa Spire. Only 10 days previously I had been walking the long exhausting path from the last villages to the foot of this mountain. It was my third time. In 2002, as a young alpine g...
On October 1, Szu-ting Yi (Taiwan) and I climbed the ca 1,050m south ridge of Kemailong to make the first ascent of this striking granite tower in western Sichuan. [A photo of this mountain, labeled Peak 5,873m, was first published in AAJ 20...
On September 3, 2011, Szu- ting Yi (Taiwan), Eric Salazar, and I (both U.S.) made the first ascent of Crown Mountain in the northern Shaluli Shan of West Sichuan. We approached the peak, which is 10km southeast of Xiashe (5,883m), by je...
In August, Aditi and Rajesh Gadjil, Vineeta Muni, Lt. Col. Shamsher Singh, and I visited the Ang Tung Range, northwest of Pangong Lake. The Ang Tung is a small group of peaks west of the Koh Lungpa Valley. This valley had never been visited by...
Cerro Cota 2000, east face, first free ascent. Stephane Hanssens, Merlin Didier, and I spent January 14 to February 12, 2013, in the French Valley, living in a cave and climbing big walls. We did not see anybody except for the one day we wen...
Amy Ness and I began climbing the east face of the North Tower on January 9, 2013. We planned for 12 days on the wall for an all-free, capsule-style ascent. During 15 days on the wall, we had 10 days of fantastic weather. However, with good ...
In December 2012, I flew to Patagonia with Andrej Grmovsek, another Slovenian. We arrived in El Calafate, but one of our bags wasn´t that lucky, and we spent four days there, hearing exotic new stories about our missing bag every day. We ...
In January 2013, Steve Schneider climbed the South Tower with Ivo Kusanovic and Schneider’s wife, Heather Baer. Kusanovic was the first regional climber (Punta Arenas) to climb all three Torres del Paine, and Baer was the first woman to summ...
Cerro Castillo is a rocky massif located outside of Aysén, Chile. It contains a central tower surrounded by various other needles and black rock, which is where it derives its name. When viewed from the Carretera Austral, the interesting topog...
In April 2012, Jorg Heller, Robert Jasper, and I climbed the west ridge of Monte Giordano in Tierra del Fuego’s Cordillera Darwin. The peak lies east-southeast of Monte Buckland (1,746m) in the western Cordillera Darwin, southeast of Isla Da...
In November, Chilean climbers Alvaro Vivanco, Juanita Guerra, and I, along with the German climber Max Beckmann, traveled to the Cajón de Navarro, in the V region of Chile, an area north of the Cordillera Central. Our objective was the uncli...
In April, the Perros Alpinos mountain group traveled to the Nieves Negras, located near the border of Chile and Argentina on the south side of San José Volcano. Our objective was Cerro Panamericano (4,501m), which we had tried in 2005 and 20...
In December I traveled to the Cajon del Estero Aucayes, using horse support to reach a base camp at ca 2,500m. The next day I left for a group of mountains that run from north to south and close this valley from the east. Cinco Mil (3,658m) ...
The first weekend of November, Ulises Espinosa and I, members of the Perros Alpinos Mountain Group, went to Cajon de lo Valdés, a valley containing many classic peaks. Our objective was the unclimbed Colmillos del Diablo: three rocky towers ...
In mid-January 2013, I arrived in Cochamó without sleep (lost on a bus), a partner (summiting Fitz Roy), or a plan (plan?). All I had was an awesome weather forecast. On the bus ride in, I met a large group of climbers and posed, somewhat mania...
In February 2013, after six sunny weeks of climbing in Cochamó, May Martin, Tyler Gagne, and I finished our trip by opening two new routes on Cerro Espejo in the Anfiteatro. The first, Antes de la Lluvia (475m, 5.8), wanders up a natural weaknes...
The initial project for Cyril Mokobodzki, Polo Barneoud, Nicolas Rotureau, and I (all from France) was to open a new 1,000m route in Cochamó, on the Central Cerro Trinidad. But after 10 days of nonstop rain, we downsized our goals. After days of...
I felt an instant attraction to El Monstruo when I saw one of the few existing pictures of the biggest, most remote wall in the Cochamó region. The details merely confirmed the aptitude of the name: There were no trails to its base, nor to...
The sensation of being a climber and walking into Cochamó Valley for the first time—especially after six months of planning and working, 8,000 miles of travel, and not one day of climbing for a month and a half, is tremendous. Right away, I foun...