In spring 2012, Josh Varney and partners established a new route on the seldom-climbed Heritage Wall, which is reached along the southwest side of the north fork of the Eagle River, in the western Chugach Mountains. The 3,900’, triangular-shape...
In March, Jay Claus, Ben Gray, Ruedi Homberger, Andrew McLean, and Eli Potter made the first ascent of the prominent Goodlata Peak (8,166’), which lies between the east and west forks of the Chakina River, and is one of the few named peaks in...
During the summer of 2011, Mike Miller, Ben Still, and I set our sights on a remote mountain at the end of Endicott Arm, roughly 80 miles south of Juneau. Simply getting to many of climbs in Southeast Alaska is an adventure, and this trip would...
In May, James Kesterson, Paul Muscat, Joe Stock, and Glenn Wilson made first recorded ascents of a few snowy 7,000-8,000’ peaks from the Sheep River Glacier in the Talkeetna Mountains. They landed on the glacier southwest of Point 7,820’, 1....
The 2012 climbing season marked the 20,000th time Denali’s summit was reached. The number of climbers has increased from less than 500 per year prior to 1980 to about 1,200 a year today. This year on Denali, 498 climbers out of 1,223 reached th...
On April 22, Chad Diesinger, Kennan Jeannet, and I climbed a new route on White Princess (9,800’). White Princess is located six miles up the Castner Glacier and three miles up the M’Ladies Branch. The approach gains almost 3,000’. We ...
Most of the mountains surrounding Haines are geologically not good to climb without snow on them. However, there are quite a few exceptions to this rule, especially in the mostly unexplored wilderness of the surrounding area. The granite spire...
In the ’60s and ’70s the Twaharpies in the University Range saw a flurry of activity. Large-scale, well-funded Japanese and American teams made first ascents (sometimes together) of most of the large mountains in the area. A Polish team visi...
Himjung is located north of Annapurna and Manaslu in the Peri Himal range, and is nestled between Himlung Himal and the Nemjung peaks, surrounded by numerous 6,000-meter peaks with large glaciers and difficult approaches. Despite having be...
The de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver floatplane slowly spiraled downward, aiming for a tiny, emerald-green lake. The contrast between spruce trees and glacial ice formed a defining line between the harsh forested wilderness and rugged mountainscape of...
I enjoy climbing as much as anything in the world. I indulge in that beautiful upward movement, feeling the breeze and trying to be creative and become a part of the wall. It is enormous fun. But I also love setting goals for myself. The challen...
Day 0. Fall 2010 Most climbers who flip through the Yosemite guidebook give Mother Earth (VI 5.12a A4) only a cursory glance. It’s a route that could define the word obscure in Yosemite Valley, yet anyone who has spent days on El Cap ha...
Chamonix, February 2012. We are four climbers living in a two-room apartment: Lise, Jeremy (a.k.a. Djamel), Pedro, and me. François (a.k.a. Pompon) is always over at our place to play cards or talk about our mountain projects. We spend every fr...
We are running on empty. It is 6:12 p.m., late in the day for Rick Allen and I to be on the summit of Nanga Parbat, but that’s how it is. We had left base camp almost two weeks earlier with four other climbers, intending to traverse the ful...
In April, Natasha Sebire and I made the long journey from our homes in Australia to the northernmost part of Liverpool Land. From Constable Pynt we hired dog sleds to travel north along the frozen Hurry Fjord, through the Klitdal Valley, and...
Climbs on certain seacliffs in Greenland, including recent ascents in the Upernavik area of West Greenland, may be off-limits at times because of regulations protecting nesting seabirds. These rules prohibit entering within certain distances of...
Lee Roberts, Dave Rudkin, and I left the U.K. on July 24. Three days and four plane rides later, we arrived in Upernavik, where we were met by our local contact, Nikolas Sorenson. Our freight was delayed, so it wasn't until July 30 that we w...
After a comparatively benign passage from Scotland to Greenland in my 10m sailing boat, Dodo’s Delight, we made a long motor up the west coast. Either there was no wind, or the wind was against us. Eventually, we arrived at the Sortehul Fjord, c...
From June 20 to July 23, Tomas Brt (Czech), Jan Smolen, and I (both Slovak) visited Tasermiut Fjord and enjoyed largely excellent weather, so different from my first visit in 1998, when I experienced only a few days of sunshine. ...
The Polish Mountaineering Association sent a three-man team to Greenland specifically to repeat the 2007 Kaszlikowski-Kubarska route, Golden Lunacy, on the huge sea cliff of Maujit Qoqarsassia (AAJ 2008). Although the team did not follow the or...