The Bible says “do not be afraid,” or a variation of the same, 366 times. That’s because the writers did not look far enough into the future to know what it would be like to climb with Layton Kor. There are individuals who seem fated, or p...
CANADA We thank Canada for submitting reports from Alberta and British Columbia for this year. Robert Chisnall, an ACC member from Kinsgston, Ontario, was responsible for editing the narratives. UNITED STATES This is the second y...
I dreamed I was in the Fisher Towers, walking on a ledge a couple of hundred feet up. I kept stumbling into pieces of angle iron bolted to the rock. These were, I realized, anchors. Peering below, I saw what seemed to be climbs every few fee...
DEEP IN the southwest corner of Alaska, the Revelation Mountains, like their biblical namesake, comprise the final chapter of the Alaska Range. These magnificent peaks are the last major folds of earth to rise above the western lowlands that str...
International rock climbing classification systems are shown in the chart at the right, and below is a comparison of Alpine, Ice, Snow, Aid, and Commitment grading systems. This chart is designed to be used with the American Alpine Journal to ...
In February 2013, I was on my way to California after fishing during the winter on the Bering Sea, and I called my good friend Paul Byrne to bail on our spring trip to the Alaska Range. Luckily, during that same phone call, we agreed on a ne...
There are certain skylines wilder and far more beautiful than the sum of their parts: the Fitz Roy massif in Patagonia, the Aiguilles of Chamonix, and the Trango group in Pakistan. These are places where each mountain seems positioned to comple...
Boris Avdeev Diana C. Dailey Bill E. Forrest Richard M. Gnagy Ben Horne Dale L. Johnson Ann D. Middleton Theodore Nicolai Roger Payne John J. Roberts Steve Romeo Gil Weiss Michael Ybarra
The eldest of three, Michael was the consummate big brother: self-assured, protective, and always the leader. From an early age he exhibited superior intellect and a desire for adventure. Michael was full of boundless energy and always mischievo...
Yan Dongdong, one of China's leading alpinists, died in July in a crevasse fall while descending from a peak in the Tien Shan. Dongdong's accident occurred while doing what he loved the most, namely putting a technical route on a completely unk...
Gil Weiss died with Ben Horne in July while descending from Paclaraju Oeste in the Cordillera Blanca, after establishing a new route. Gil was a key member of the informal, San Diego–based Pullharder Alpine Club. Originally hailing from Queens, ...
Jack Roberts, a mountain guide and guidebook author best known for desperate first ascents in Alaska, died on January 15, 2012, while climbing Bridalveil Falls, near Telluride, Colorado. Jack was almost 60 years old when he fell, which speaks v...
Roger and I first tied in together in 2002 at the base of a huge unclimbed ridge in Arizona’s Grand Canyon. Our friendship was thus forged on an alpine-like ridge deep in a ditch in the desert (AAJ 2003). Two years later Julie-Ann joined us for...
Annie outdid her renowned father, Joe Dodge, as a mountaineer, and I believe that if she had not kept such a full plate with demands of wife, mother, and grandmother, she might have had time to develop her dad’s oratorical experience as well. Jo...
In the introduction to his autobiography, Dale Johnson quoted Christopher Morley: “There is only one success: To be able to spend your life in your own way.” This philosophy was a cornerstone of Dale’s approach to life, guiding the roles he pla...
The climbing world lost one of its most inspirational climbers when Ben Horne died while descending from a first ascent in Peru, in July, with Gil Weiss. Ben grew up in Virginia and went to college at Rice University in Houston, where he excel...
As the evening shadows gathered on June 3, 1950, the chances seemed slender that 31-year-old French climber Maurice Herzog would see the next morning, let alone his 93rd birthday. At about 2 p.m. that afternoon, he and Louis Lachenal, climbing w...
A legend of the Colorado climbing scene, Bill Forrest died of a heart attack on December 21, while snowshoeing on Old Monarch Pass with his wife and outdoor partner of 26 years, Rosa. He was 73.For those of us who made Boulder our climbing home ...
On February 1, 2012, the climbing and caving world lost a quiet and unassuming pioneer and role model. Herb Conn passed away in the heart of the Black Hills, in the same bed he had shared with Jan, his wife of nearly 68 years. Herb and Jan...
Legendary Colorado climber Harvey T. Carter died in March at the age of 81 from prostate cancer. Harvey started climbing in the late 1940s in Colorado Springs, where his mother and father were professors at Colorado College. Over the years ...