On May 20, Britt Ruegger, 34, and I (age 29) were climbing the Mini-Moonflower Route when a debris avalanche swept the route and hit us as we were rappelling. We’d arrived at KIA (Kahiltna International Airport) on May 8 and proceeded to log some ...
Aerial view of Denali, showing approximate locations of (1) the crevasse into which two climbers slid on May 20, (2) the West Buttress, and(3) the 14,200-foot camp. NPS Photo Two climbers were ascending Denali’s West B...
In the early afternoon on May 3, a group of three ski mountaineers departed their base camp in the west fork of the Ruth Glacier. This was the first day of clearing following a storm that had lasted more than a week. Their objective was to climb a...
On the northwest ridge of Sa’i Lhamo, with (A) Karpo Kangri (6,535m), (B) Argan Kangri (6,789m), (C) Peak 6,420m, and (D) Gazgazri (6,150m) in the back. Photo by Cyril Renailler In the summer of 2016, Pascal Hottiaux, Alain Pozo, Cyril Renail...
At 9:42 a.m. on April 14, rangers were notified about an injured climber by a local air taxi service that had received a text from the climbing team’s Garmin inReach device. The team of three reported that one climber had broken his right leg whil...
ON JULY 22, 2018, just before 11:30 a.m., Andrzej Bargiel from Poland reached the summit of K2 (8,611 meters). That day and the day before, more than 60 other people summited K2—a record for a single season—but unlike the large majority of them, B...
The accident scene on an unnamed peak in the Hidden Mountains of Alaska. (1) Location of John and Alissa at the time of the fall. (2) Emmett's position. (3) Emmett's belayer. The face is about 1,500 feet high. FOUR CLIMBERS set out to explore...
ON SEPTEMBER 30, at about 2 p.m., Jim Morrison and I pulled off our overboots, clicked into our ski bindings, and laboriously buckled our boots. Our oxygen masks were off, making every action at 27,940 feet, on the summit of Lhotse, extremely slow...
On February 13, I took a 20-plus-meter lead fall while attempting a new route high on the north face of Mt. Lawrence Grassi, above my home in Canmore. My friend Ethan Berman and I had good weather, were climbing well, and were within two pitches o...
On the evening of June 6, NPS rangers were alerted about a climber who was unresponsive and experiencing seizures in 14,200-foot camp. This 40-year-old male had been pulled from his tent when his climbing partner found him experiencing seizures wh...
In the summer of 2018, Dmitriy Pavlenko (Russia) soloed a new, independent route on the First Tower of Korona (4,810m). He had made a previous attempt on this line in the summer of 2016, stopping halfway up the route. A second attempt, in the wi...
IT'S EITHER the lung or the heart,” Conrad Anker said between gasps. He was suffering from severe pain in his chest. The temperature of around -20°C wasn’t helping. It was November 2016, and we were about 450 meters up on our second attempt on...
At 10:06 p.m. on June 1, NPS rangers were notified via Garmin inReach that a climber near the summit ridge appeared to be suffering from severe altitude illness. Other climbers in the vicinity had administered two doses of dexamethasone, a steroid...
During the 1990s, the French Federation of Mountaineering and Climbing (FFME) developed a training program for groups of elite young alpinists—the Jeunes Alpinistes de Haut Niveau. The final session was often an expedition, and in 1994 chief coach...
IN MY MEMORY'S EYE, I can easily see the mistake. As I scampered up a granite wall on the Swiss side of the Aiguilles Rouges du Mont Dolent, I’d noted with mild curiosity that water was dripping from under the two-meter-tall block of rock I was ...
Bas Visscher and friends from the Netherlands visited the Virjerab Glacier in August 2016, and though warm weather thwarted their attempted climbs, they came away with photos of some impressive unclimbed objectives in this area (see the photos bel...
FOR ABOUT a month starting in mid-August 2018, our Italian group explored the Rangtik Valley, inspired by the extremely useful report by Matija Jošt published in AAJ 2017. Our main goal was the first ascent of unnamed Peak 6,080m (H2 as designated...
THE TAKPHU HIMAL in Nepal’s extreme far west is only 15 kilometers south of Gurla Mandhata (7,694 meters), which towers over holy Lake Manasarovar in Tibet, with the holy of holies Mt. Kailash just a little further north. Takphu is best approached...
Editor’s Note: In 2017, Jeff Lowe received a Piolet d’Or Lifetime Achievement Award, only the second American (after John Roskelley) to gain this honor. His many accomplishments have been well documented. In lieu of repeating that long list here, ...
FOR MOST EVERYONE who reads this—be it now or in the distant future—Marc-André Leclerc will be remembered the way all young alpinists who left us too soon are: as an amalgamation of their deeds in the mountains, their prowess on rock or ice, their...