The east face of Bautaen and the line of Origo Heights. The fjord of Hornsund lies in southern Spitzbergen (Svalbard), and on the south coast of its inner waters lies the small peak called Bautaen (76.97086°N, 16.38613°E). This is a remote su...
The Kugelhorn (68.25592°N, 16.47003°E) in the Efjorden region is perhaps best known for its classic east ridge (Ostkammen, Norwegian 5-/5). The north face is steep and extensive, and to date there have been only a few routes: the North Slope (5 ...
The mountain locally named Geshot Peak (a.k.a. Toshe III or Toshain III, 6,200m, 35°8'44.44"N, 74°24'14.92"E) lies about 20km southwest of the summit of Nanga Parbat. On June 29, I made the first ascent of the peak, starting from the Bunar Valle...
In AAJ 2019 reported the presumed first ascent of Pik Ushat by an Australian expedition. However, this was not the first ascent, nor even the second, as noted in the following report from a two-man team that visited the area in 2002. After an alm...
“Hey, Simon, I’d like to go somewhere big like Waddington rather than go rock climbing on obscure spires.”Well, I thought, that’s raised the bar. Ian Welsted and I were discussing climbing objectives for our Coast Mountains trip in the summer. ...
I returned to British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast this summer for another season of exploration and route development in the Daniels River Valley, funded in part by an AAC Live Your Dream grant. At the end of July, a weather window finally appeared ...
In 2017, from the vicinity of Ak Baital Pass on the Pamir Highway, I photographed a peak at 38°32’12.0”N, 73°28’28.5”E with an altitude of 5,553m, according to the Soviet military map. Lying west of the Ak Baital Valley in the southeast part of th...
Paul Cordy, Tony Richardson, and I flew to the Waddington-Combatant col with White Saddle Air on August 5, aiming to take advantage of a brief weather window. We planned to warm up on Mt. Combatant (3,756m) via Cam Cairns and Michael Down’s 1982 r...
Pemba Sherpa (Nepal) and Hiroki Nakayama (Japan) approached Hongu (6,764m, a.k.a. Hongku, Honku, or Sura Peak, 27°49'34.7"N, 86°58'37.6"E) in October via the Hinku and Hongu valleys. Base camp and Camp 1 were in identical locations to the camps us...
Philipp Brugger, Martin Sieberer (both from Austria), and I trekked up the Baltoro Glacier in July with the intention of making the first ascent of Muztagh Tower's Black Tooth (6,719m). In 2016 two Germans attempted the ascent via the southeast ...
Many sources (including the AAJ) have credited the first ascent of Palung Ri (7,012m) to Slovenians Andrej and Marija Štremfelj, who climbed the south-southeast ridge in 1995 as acclimatization for an ascent of Cho Oyu. Palung Ri lies immediately ...
Seeking new ways to explore familiar Huayna Potosí, on which I often guide, I planned an extended ski tour over the 6,088-meter mountain in April. After spending the night in the Anselme Baud Hut at 5,270m, the highest hut on the south side, I sta...
In 2009, on the Fortaleza Buttress of Pico Austria (5,320m), Gerry Galligan (Ireland) and Rob MacCallum (U.K.) climbed a line up the east ridge to give Caporales Celtica (350m, AD, British V-Diff), a good route on sound rock. Ten years later, in M...
On October 16, the day after climbing Surapatilla (see report here), Chris Knight and I left our camp at 4 a.m. to climb Himaciña (5,458m, as defined by IGM map 5945-IV, 16°0'28.99"S, 68°21'43.16"W; Google Earth’s imagery is incorrectly flattened ...
In February and March, John Kelley (USA) and I were in the northwestern Rolwaling to attempt the first ascent of Chhopa Bamare (6,109m, 28°3'28.67"N, 86°5'23.08"E), the highest of a group of peaks on the Tibetan border northwest of Lamabagar vill...
Gyalsten seen from the Jugal Glacier above advanced base. The line followed on the first ascent, via the south-southeast face, is marked. A col on the frontier ridge, off picture to the right, was reached in 1955 by a British women's expedition. ...
Previously unreported was the first ascent of the northeast face of Peak 41 (6,648m) by a Korean team in 2016. The ascent remained under the radar, even in Korea, likely because of the use of a helicopter for descent.The climbers arrived at their ...
On July 23 we completed the first rock route on the east face of Blåtinden (1,142m), which we named Uløya, Welcome to (360m, Norwegian VI+). Our ascent took seven hours, during which we used neither bolts nor pitons. The rock is sharp, shattered a...
(A) Huayna Cuno Collo (5,640m). (B) Huallatani or Huayna Cuno Collo East (ca 5,600m). (C) Coricampana (5,550m) and route of 2019 ascent. (D) Anco Collo (5,460m). (E) San Luis (5,620m). Photo by Roman Siegl Jeff Sandifort (a g...
After setting up camp at 4,700m in the valley used to approach the west side of Chachacomani, the following day (October 15) Chris Knight and I left at dawn to climb the western ridge of Cerro Surapatilla (as defined by IGM map 5945-IV, 16°1'49.73...