Tan Shan and Putala Shan, first ascents via difficult rock routes. My wife Tanja Grmovsek and I planned to visit the Qionglai Mountains in the spring of 2003 but due to the outbreak of the SARS virus just a few days before leaving for China we had...

Wyoming, Sherman Mountains—On October 16, Jim Burton (18), Floyd Young (18), Slyvan Brown (18), and Terry Richardson started to climb Piton Perch a rock climb of 200 vertical feet.Three of the climbers ascended Piton Perch and the fourth climber s...

FALL ON ICE, PLACED NO PROTECTIONAlberta, Rocky Mountains, Mt. DeltaformJock Richardson (19), Cam Cairns (19), and Mike Down (20) started at 0330 hours on 17 August 1977 to climb the first steep pitch on the north face glacier route on Mt. Deltafo...

Shivling and Bhagirathi III Attempts. Fabrizio Defrancesco, Stefano Nicolussi and I hoped to climb the Indo-Tibetan Border Police route on the west ridge of Shivling and the southwest buttress of Bhagirathi III. We got to Base Camp at the foot of ...

Mount Everest, West Ridge Attempt in Winter. Over the winter of 1980-81 Adrian and Alan Burgess, Brian Hall, Paul Nunn, Alan Rouse, Joe Tasker, Dr. Peter Thexton and I attempted the west ridge via the Lho La. We were accompanied by a three-man fil...

Tabernáculo, South Face, 1981. This peak at the center of the horseshoe of the Altar Range was ascended for the first time in 1972 by a German expedition, which used the northeast slopes. In the last days of 1981 two Ecuadorian groups placed a hig...

FALL ON SNOW, CLIMBING UNROPED, NO HARD HAT, INADEQUATE FOOTWEARColorado, Crestone NeedleOn September 11, 1982, Duane Best (22), a Western State College student, fell more than 80 meters to his death while ascending Crestone Needle with a companio...

VARIOUS FALLS ON ROCK (22 LEADER FALLS)–MOSTLY INADEQUATE PROTECTION, OFF ROUTE (2), RAPPEL ERROR, INADEQUATE BELAY New York, Mohonk Preserve, ShawangunksThere were 24 climbing related accidents reported from the Mohonk Preserve this year. The maj...

Kanjut Sar, West Face. Our expedition consisted of Masashi Tera- moto, Koichi Fujii, Masanobu Kaneko, Hiroshi Sakai, Nobuaki Miyano, Koji Shibuya, Tatsuhiko Kamachi, Dr. Michiro Kawano, Etsuo Masada and me as leader. We climbed the west face, wher...

New Hampshire, Mt. Lafayette. On 22 July Gregory Sherblow (17) and Stewart Putnam (17) were camped on top of Mt. Lafayette. A lightning storm developed and a bolt of lightning struck about 35 feet from their tent, smashed a boulder, and sent groun...

Dhaulagiri. A 12-person expedition from Torun, led by Wojciech Szy- manski, included Austrian Sepp Kathrein and German Dr. Ewa Demand. After setting up Base Camp at 15,100 feet on April 22, they placed Camp I at 18,975 feet on the northeast col fi...

Gangapurna. A Polish expedition led by Wojciech Maslowski climbed Gangapurna by the east ridge, placing four high camps on the mountain, the highest at 6800 meters. They sent three teams to the summit: on October 23 Kazimierz Kiszka, Ryszard Knapc...

Hunter, New Start of Lowe-Kennedy Route. In late May, Paul Teare and I made a second attempt at a new route on the north buttress of Hunter from the southeast fork of the Kahiltna Glacier. This second attempt also failed because of overly warm con...

P 6561 Attempt. Greg Collum, Steve Mascioli and I attempted the first ascent of P 6561 (21,525 feet), which might be called the western summit of Santopanth. We tried the south ridge, the same route attempted by the British in 1985. We established...

Echo Rock, Window Route. Echo Rock, a few miles southwest of the Moab airstrip, was first climbed six years ago. In 1974 Ken Wyrick, Terry McKenna and I made a new route, the north edge, on this 275-foot sandstone citadel. We started on the east f...

Kusum Kanguru from the Southwest. Brian Davidson, Dick Renshaw and I hoped to climb Kusum Kanguru (6369 meters, 20,896 feet) from the southwest. The approach from the Dudh Khosi was difficult and we may well be the first to reach the head of the K...

Yosemite Valley, Cathedral Spires—On April 10, 1954, Larry Lackey (19) in company with Dick Long and Jim Wilson were trying a new route on the higher Cathedral Spire. All three are experienced mountaineers and climbers. They turned back from their...

Matho Kangri I and III. Matho Kangri (or Yan Kangri) had been climbed only once before, by Japanese in 1986. A 21-member team from the Army Ordnance Corps was led by Major Harjit Singh Bawa. They reached Base Camp at 15,000 feet on the Shang River...

Torres del Paine, Various Ascents. Eli Helmuth and I visited the Paine Towers area from January to February 20. After setting up basecamp on the Japanese Camp, we took advantage of some good weather and ascended the Via Monzino on the North Tower....

Peaks North of Pinnacle Peak. On July 14 Jean Therison, Patrick Taglianut, my wife Yvette and I were set down by plane at the head of the south arm of the Kaskawulsh Glacier, hoping to climb Pinnacle Peak. A confusion of dates prevented that but w...