Morgan Harris 1916-2005The last of the great Yosemite climbing pioneers of the 1930s has died. Morgan Harris, during his 88 years, lived an astonishingly rich life, serious climbing being only a small part of it. This obituary will necessarily emp...
Over five days in April Dave Everett and I did the first ascent of Meridian Tower, one of the last major unclimbed formations in Zion National Park. The formation is to the right of the Altar of Sacrifice and most prominently visible from Oscar’s ...
The Citadel, east buttress. The mythical Cathedral Spires of the remote, rarely frequented Kichatna Mountains were our destination. Pictures of granite spires forcing their way through bellowing cloud had sparked our imagination. Unfortunately, jo...
Sea Kayaking and Climbing, Chilean PatagoniaRick RidgewayFOR YEARS Yvon Chouinard and I have speculated about journeying into the labyrinth of canals, fjords and islands of the Magellanic archipelago—that remote region of Chilean Patagonia north o...
Lara-Karena Bitenieks Kellogg 1968–2007 Lara Kellogg died last April in a fall she suffered while descending Mt. Wake in Alaska’s Ruth Gorge. She was two weeks shy of her 39th birthday. News of the accident immediately fanned out across her vast n...
Chamba-Lahul. Hamish McArthur, leader, and Mrs. McArthur, Frank and Mrs. Solari, Emile Bayle, and Margaret Munro set out from Manali at the head of the Kulu valley on July 24 for the Thirot Nala, a tributary of the Chandra-Bhaga River on the weste...
Bruce Miller and I spent nine days on Longs Peak between July 27 and August 26 establishing Hearts and Arrows, a free route up the center of the Diamond. We climbed the first four pitches of the Enos Mills Wall (V 5.11 A3), already freed at ...
Cordillera Blanca AdventureWilliam SiriIT IS perhaps surprising that mountaineers, who in the past fifty years have sought conquests in the most remote parts of the world, have devoted so little attention to one of the greatest, yet one of the mos...
SLIP ON ROCKWyoming, TetonsOn July 24, 1982, Stuart Hill (22) was accompanying Jenny Lake Ranger Leo Larson during a mountain patrol of the south ridge of Nez Perce. Helen Larson hiked in with them to the base of the climb. It was misty or rainy t...
FALL ON ROCK, INADEQUATE BELAY, MIS-COMMUNICATIONMassachusetts, Rattlesnake CliffOn June 21, 1984, I was climbing on Rattlesnake Cliff and was nearly at the top of the pitch with a top rope. I did not have my climbing shoes on and was getting very...
Acopan Tepui, Araguato King. On February 6, 2009, we left Arizona for the jungles of Venezuela. Descriptions of snakes, crocodiles, tarantulas, and ticks attached to the nether regions of the body had us scared before we even left. While the fligh...
FALL ON ROCK, SLACK IN ROPE-FAILURE TO FOLLOW DIRECTIONS, FATIGUE, PROTECTION PULLED OUT California, Yosemite ValleyOn June 21,1986, about 2030, Austin Colley (43) and Joe Kristy (40) were climbing the Yosemite Point Buttress. Kristy had just led ...
Seven Years in Tibet, by Heinrich Harrer, translated from the German by Richard Graves. Introduction by Peter Fleming. 288 pages, 1 colored frontispiece, and 25 black and white illustrations. London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1953. Price 16/—. New York: ...
California: (1) Sierra Nevada, Two 17-year-old youths, Christopher S. Reynolds and Steven R. Wasserman, left a camp camp on 7 August 1950 to climb the east face of Mt. Whitney, with only very light clothing and tennis shoes, they started up the bu...
Tony Barton and I returned to the Quebrada Huaguruncho after a two-year absence. Our objective was the first ascent of the southwest face of Huaguruncho (5,730m), by the same line we had attempted in 2008 with Olly Metherell. Barton had also pr...
Mount Wilbur, Fairweather Group. Ken Loken flew David Jones, Clark Gerhardt, Craig McKibben and me from Juneau to Lituya Bay on May 19. We disembarked on a rocky beach near the snout of the North Crillon Glacier. A few hours of unpleasant toil thr...
The Burkett NeedleThe voyage of the celestial trampsby Lionel Daudet, Francetranslated by Marina HeuschUnbelievable! He is there, unmoving, having landed just next to us. His wings barely quiver on the cold, white snow. It is one of the first trac...
FALL ON ROCK, INADEQUATE PROTECTION New York, ShawangunksOn November 9, 1986, a man (36) fell 20 meters after his protection pulled on Grease Gun Groove (5.6). He fractured his femur. (Source: Tom Scheuer, Senior Ranger, Mohonk Preserve)(Editor’s ...
Torres del Brujo, El Condor. Elena Davila, Riccardo Redaelli, and I finally reached Santiago, Chile on December 20 after a long flight from Milan. Our goal was to open a new route in the Azufre River Valley, home of the extraordinary Torres del Br...
In January of 1978 I went to Patagonia with an expedition of the Morbengo Section of the Italian Alpine Club, having as our objective the northwest face of Fitz Roy. As we approached the mountain, however, we realized that the few days at our disp...