On June 3 at 5:42 p.m. NPS rangers at 14,200-foot camp received a call requesting assistance from a guided team on the summit ridge of Denali. The guide stated that one of their clients was “unresponsive, apneic, and pulseless.” The 48-year-old ma...
On May 3, a 35-year-old male climbing solo on the West Buttress route was reported missing. The climber had departed Kahiltna Base Camp on April 27 for a ten-day solo attempt on Denali (20,310’). He was the first climber of the season on the West ...
Many of the illnesses and traumatic injuries that led to ranger response could have been prevented with prudent decision-making and reasonable ascent profiles during the expeditions. Climbers should always err on the conservative side of risk mana...
The 1985 AAJ published a single paragraph about the first ascent of the route now known as the Slovak Direct. A more substantial account is published below, adapted from the book 100 rokov JAMES (“100 Years of JAMES”), released in 2021 on the cent...
In the year 1964, when Royal Robbins was 29 and at the peak of his powers, he performed an astonishing amount of hard climbing: the second ascent of two El Capitan routes, the first ascent of the north face of Mt. Hooker in the Wind Rivers (one of...
Jon Inoriza approaching the base of Monte Roncagli (2,251m) with the 2022 route on the south side indicated. Photo by Ibai Rico. Following in the spirit of a previous expedition that Ibai Rico had made to the Cloue Icefield in far southern Ch...
Lifelong educator, explorer, climber, musician, fine wood craftsman, and mentor David F. McGivern took his last breath on October 11, surrounded by siblings, a few friends, and his high school sweetheart and life partner Marie Dochnahl. David was ...
On Sunday, January 29, 2023, Aaron Minton and I climbed a new ice route on the west face of Sloan Peak (7,835'). The climbing involved seven new pitches with difficulties up to WI4+, and we continued up the upper portion of Superalpine, a WI3/4 on...
In March 2023, Elias Antaya, Ethan Berkeland, Jonathan Koenig, and I were having a productive cabin-based trip climbing beautiful ice lines throughout the Chitistone Valley in the Wrangell Mountains. After repeating Broken Dreams (1,500’, WI6, Com...
On August 29, 2022, I arrived in El Chaltén with one objective: a winter solo ascent of Cerro Chaltén (Fitz Roy) via the Supercanaleta, a goal since my first wintertime visit to the Chaltén Massif in 2013. I returned in 2019, but never managed ...
The summit mushroom of Cerro Celador (3,067m) as seen from the south. The 2022 route followed the south face, traversing around the west side of the peak to reach the summit. Photo by Mike Dahlquist. On October 29, Cedric Babec, Andres Bosch,...
Weather wise, this was a statistically “average” season in the Chaltén Massif, which means there were few weather windows and conditions were challenging. There were five fatalities in the Chaltén Massif. In August 2022, during an attempt to cl...
Mateo Esposito (Canada) and I established a new route on the north face of Aguja Poincenot between January 17 and 20, 2023. [Editor’s Note: The 2023 route begins left of Old Smuggler, crossing it at a ledge system at mid-height (where that route j...
On December 19, 2022, Felipe Cancino (Chile) and Scarlett Graham, Mitchell Harter, Frank Preston, and Riley Rice (all USA) made the first ascent of Cerro Pared Sur (2,548m, 47°25’37”S, 73°27’40”W), located in the far southeast corner of the Northe...
The November 2022 route up the northern side of Cerro Arenales. From October 29 to November 16, 2022, we—Rebeca Cáceres, Nadine Lehner, and Isidora “Isi” Llarena—put up a new route on Cerro Arenales (3,437m) and completed a 150km multis...
A winter view looking east to the group of peaks at the northern end of Parque Nacional Patagonia: (A) Llave de Granito, (B) Summer Solstice Spire, (C) Nevado Navidad, and (D) Cerro Choss. The 2022 route, the Sueños de Kwanzaa Traverse, summit...
On February 8–9, 2023, Antar Machado and Cristóbal Señoret (both from Chile) climbed a new route on the northeast face of El Monstruo, which they called La Chilenita (1,200m, 5.11+ A0). La Chilenita shares a start with the wall’s first route, t...
In February 2022, Kevin Heinrich and I completed the first ascent of Entre Cristales y Cóndores (11 pitches, 1,500’, 5.12 C1) on Atardecer, which forms the west face of Cerro Laguna in the Anfiteatro. The route was first envisioned by local climb...
Sierra Velluda (3,585m) is an eroded stratovolcano and the tallest peak in Parque Nacional Laguna del Laja, in Chile’s Bío Bío Region. The main, north summit was first climbed by Fahrenkrog, Kroessig, and Tilly in 1940. The southern summit, appr...
In November 2022, Lisandro Arielovich, Federico Barberis, Glauco Muratti, and Martin Suso made the first ascent of the remote peak Cuchilla Negra (ca 5,130m, 33°01’07”S, 69°54’12”W) in the Cordón del Potrero Escondido. Muratti had attempted the p...