The Trap Dike starts in a dike gully (pictured here) before exiting onto a slab leading to the summit of Mt. Colden. This popular route, part scramble and part technical climb, has been the scene of many rescues. Photo: NY State Dept. of Envirom...
On August 6, Eben (42) and Stewart (32) hiked down the Chimney Canyon Trail at 8:49 a.m. to get to the base of The Second Coming (4 pitches, 5.8) on Muralla Grande. Eben had nine years of climbing experience and was training and mentoring Stewart ...
New Hampshire’s Mt. Webster offers moderate multipitch ice routes with a distinctly alpine feel. In December 2024 a climber fell while leading a mixed chimney (seen here in fat conditions) on a route called Shoestring Gully. The ensuing overnigh...
On November 10, I, Eric Chaudhary, and a partner (male, 26) were climbing Marijuana (5 pitches, 11c) in the Black Orpheus Amphitheater. My partner was leading the second pitch (10b). It exits hard left off a hanging belay with one bolt for protect...
In August, a climber got a knee stuck high on a two-pitch route in Gallatin Canyon. Here, she gets help from a fellow climber. She was freed in a few hours and finished the route. Photo: Climber 1. On August 15, two teams of two climbers were...
McPartland Mountain (8,417 feet) is one of many striking summits in Glacier National Park. In August 2024, the highly consequential terrain pictured here claimed the life of a very experienced climber who had previously summited 128 peaks in the...
On July 11, RC (male, 69) and Joel were climbing at Crow Hill, a popular area with 100-foot-high cliffs. Both climbers were familiar with the area and quite experienced. They climbed pitch one of Outersite (5.7), then followed a bushy, left-trendi...
As two climbers were cleaning a boulder, one fell to the ground after his fixed rope was severed by the sawing motion of the weighted rope running across the coarse and acutely angled edge. Photo: Tom Neary On May 11, Tom Neary and his brothe...
The view from the new route up the southwest face of Parus West, with part of the north face of Sabakh in back, at the head of the Ashat Gorge. Photo: Olga Lukashenko. For a long time, I had been obsessed with climbing the north face of formi...
This very foreshortened view of the Gully Wall at Ross Rocks shows Seeking Forgiveness (5.10), marked in yellow. A crack finish above the two-bolt belay (blue X’s) has no fixed gear, while the lower part has four bolts (blue X’s). This discrepan...
On December 16, the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office received a report that 42-year-old Keith Hayes had not returned home that evening after going climbing. Around 9 p.m., friends of Hayes’ found his body near the top of the Second Flatiron, after ...
The Spear (a.k.a. Satan’s Spear)—the left of the two pillars—is a new, farmed ice route in the popular Rigid Designator Amphitheater. This climb was the site of a serious leader fall in December 2024. Photo: Phil Wortmann On December 14, I wa...
Nathan Chaszeyka in the depths of a chimney on Bird Brain Boulevard. Higher on the route, Chaszeyka’s belay/rappel device became detached from his harness. This set a chain of events in motion, culminating in a near-fatal fall while on the desce...
Less frequented than other areas, the routes in Escalante Canyon still hold loose rock. The yellow dashed outline indicates where a huge block was located before being dislodged by a climber. A climber’s foot in the margin of the photo (blue arr...
A ground fall occurred on May 18, when two cams pulled. Both are over 30 years old. The Metolius TCU is an old version with all cams an equal width. Later, the single middle cam was widened to provide more opposing surface area. The U-stem Black...
In November 2023,* D and M (female, early 30s) were on day three of a visit to Joshua Tree National Park from the U.K. It was D’s third trip to the park and M’s first time visiting. M had been climbing for ten years, primarily sport climbing (up t...
Ian Fried (33) and I (Tobias Tillemans, 46) had set up camp at Iceberg Lake (12,600 feet) at the base of Mt. Whitney. It was 3 p.m. when Ian heard a clattering noise coming from the mountain. A climber informed us that he had just seen a solo clim...
In June, a lowering climber fell 80 feet when his anchor knot came undone. This photo was taken after the accident. The two dangling ends had been integrated in the original “knot.” When the climber clipped the resulting loops and began lowering...
On May 17, at 3:30 p.m., a 32-year-old male fell roughly 30 feet while off route on the fourth pitch of Selaginella (5.8). The climber sustained an ankle injury with visible deformity but no obvious bleeding or loss of circulation, sensation, or m...
On August 8, at 3:45 p.m., Yosemite dispatch received a 911 call from a distressed individual who stated that one of their climbing partners had fallen off a cliff while descending from Sunnyside Bench. His friends had traversed to the base of the...