South of Kyzyl Art Pass and immediately west of the great Karakul Lake lie the Zulumart subranges of Karachim and Karajilga. This is a fine area for traveling, with many wild animals and no people. In August the small team of Vilnis Barons, Ronald...
SLOVENIAN ALPINISTS have a strong reputation. Straight-talking, quiet, and solid climbers, they regularly climb hard alpine routes without any fuss. When Luka Stražar attended a BMC International Winter Meet in Scotland a few years ago, I shared a...
THE ORIGINAL PLAN was for three of us to attempt Latok I: me and Glazunov brothers, Evgeny and Sergey. We had never climbed together, but we knew one another. I thought we would make a great team for a mountain like this. Although I’m already old ...
IN MAY 2018, Niall Hamill and I were on our way to the Emperor Face of Mt. Robson. We couldn’t wait to get there, but we also couldn’t help pulling the van over to the side of the Icefields Parkway to stare at Peyto Tower, a 300m shield of brigh...
WHEN CONSIDERING the world’s great pilgrimages, perhaps you think of Mecca’s Hajj, Japan’s Kumano Kodō, or Spain’s Camino de Santiago. I think of a pilgrimage across ice, of dozens of scientists, staff, and students skiing and slogging 80 miles ov...
IN MID-MARCH I glided my skis across a snow-covered glacier of the Juneau Icefield. A short distance away, near base camp, four of my closest friends were scattered on rocky outcroppings, watching the sun set over the Mendenhall Towers. The seven ...
Brette Harrington made two trips to the Juneau Icefield in June 2018, first with Caro North and then Gabe Hayden. The following is a summary of their new routes and some climbing history on each formation.South Duke, Northeast Face. Harrington and...
IT WAS JUNE 1 and Chantel Astorga and I were making our way up the East Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier under clear skies. The expansive south face of Denali emerged as we rounded a corner, and the mighty Slovak Direct, rising nearly 9,000 feet to th...
Colin Haley heading into a crux passage during his record-setting run up the Cassin Ridge, notably wearing only a daypack, single boots, and no harness. Photo by Nicholas Gantz IN JUNE 2007, MY FRIEND Mark Westman and ...
HAVE YOU EVER seen a climber doing something unusual, like belaying with an unfamiliar device or technique?Have you ever seen a situation that may not be immediately dangerous but could be one day, like setting up a rappel device with a non-lockin...
In September, Nikolay Totmianin (sometimes spelled Totmjanin or Totmyanin), a climber and guide from Russia, and I explored the Bel Uluu Glacier in the western part of the Trans Alai. We had previously visited the eastern section of the same range...
From July 24–30, 2018, Evgeny Murin and Ilya Penyaev (both from Russia) made the first ascent of the south pillar of Kyzyl Asker (5,842m). The route follows the obvious ridge line to the left of the 2016 Lindic-Papert ice couloir, Lost in China, p...
IN RECENT TIMES I have realized that what really makes me happy is visiting new regions, particularly if they are little explored. My latest adventure was perhaps more intense than usual, but the mountain didn’t let me down, the ascent giving me g...
Elkhorn Mountain (2,194m)—located in the Elk River Mountain Range of Strathcona Provincial Park—is the second-highest peak on Vancouver Island and has a reputation for being loose and chossy. This is especially true of the northwest and west asp...
Not long after passing through the village of Lobuche, and at an altitude of 4,900m, a left turn brings you into the valley of the Khangri Nup Glacier. This is rarely traveled and there is good potential for climbing peaks and virgin walls. H...
High-altitude illness (HAI) occurs when climbers are exposed to the lower baro-metric pressure associated with elevation gain, resulting in insufficient oxygen available for absorption by the tissues of the body. When a climber is unable to effect...
Looking south up the Jiptik Valley before and after a major snowfall. The highest summit (at the back) is Pik Schurosky (5,490m). To its right is Muz Tok (5,066m), the expedition's goal before the snow put an end to attem...
From early August until the end of September 2017, a Japanese expedition led by Tetsuji Otsue visited West Nepal. Their original aim was Aichyn (6,055m, first climbed by another Japanese expedition in 2015), but after seeing that the peaks were dr...
In May and June 2018, I made a 1,000km solo bicycle ride from Khorog, Tajikistan, to Osh, Kyrgyzstan, following the Gund River, traversing the Pamir Highlands via Murghab and Karakol Lake, and finally crossing the border to reach Osh. I saw huge p...
In December my two best friends and I were in the multi-pitch sport climbing paradise that is El Potrero Chico. It was our fourth visit to this crazy place, and we had our eyes on a 15-pitch climb called Devotion (5.11), which is notorious for bei...