Devil’s Thumb, first winter ascent and epic, solo. On March 11 Zac Hoyt had an early breakfast at his home in Petersburg and helicoptered to base camp below the southeast face of the Devil’s Thumb (9,077'). Immediately he soloed the Krakauer route...
FALL ON ROCK, CLIMBING UNROPED, INEXPERIENCEWashington, Ricksecker Point CliffAbout 1300 on June 11, 1983, Lts. Harold Spiess (26) and Paul Magaudda (26) arrived at the Nisqually gate of Mount Rainier National Park. They were roommates, and both w...
EXPOSURE–WEATHER, INADEQUATE CLOTHING AND EQUIPMENT, HYPOTHERMIA, FALL ON ROCK–UNABLE TO COMPLETE DESCENTCalifornia, Yosemite Valley, El CapitanIn late December, Joseph Crowe (25) began fixing pitches on the Zodiac (VI 5.7, A) on El Capitan, inten...
First Free Ascent of the Nose in a DayLynn HillAFTER having succeeded inmaking the first free ascent of the Nose on El Capitan, many people asked me why I wanted to free climb it again in a day. Certainly the spectacular nature of the historic rou...
Harvard Mountaineering Club. The club opened the new year with its annual attempt to traverse the Presidential Range of the White Mountains during mid-semester vacation. Taking advantage of the experience gained from the three previous attempts, C...
Peak Semionova-Tienshanskogo, New Route. Peak Semionova-Tienshanskogo (4875m) is the highest peak of the Kyrgyzskiy Alatau. From July 24-25, Elena Nagovitsina, Tamara Zueva, Alexander Afanasiev and Dmitry Aliadvin put up a new route (5B) via the l...
Summary. [Note: In addition to mention in this summary, several of the bigger routes have individual reports, below—Ed.] The 200- 300m south face of Mt. Yamnuska (2,200m) is steeped in history as the birthplace of Rockies’ rock climbing. For many ...
INADEQUATE FOOD AND CLOTHING, EXPOSURE, WEATHERCalifornia, Yosemite ValleyOn November 10, 1985, Dan Canton reported to the Valley District rangers that his friend, Carlo Zozikyan (31) who had been climbing alone on the Zodiac route (YDS VI) on El ...
High and Wild: A Mountaineer’s World, by Galen Rowell. San Francisco,California: Sierra Club Books, 1979. Price $29.95.“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it”GoetheGalen Rowell wrote these words...
In February 2010, on the east face of Ritacuba Blanco (5,350m) in Colombia’s Cordillera del Cocuy, Fernando Gonzalez Rubio (Colombia), Ivan Calderon (Venezuela), Simon Kehrer (Italy), and I (Italy) established Tierra de Condores (800m, 7a+) in sev...
FALL ON SNOW, LOOSE EQUIPMENTAlaska, Mount McKinleyAfter acclimatizing at the 4300-meter camp on the West Buttress of Mount McKinley, Thomas Bohanon (31) and Richard Strong (28), members of the “Lean, Mean Cas- sin Machine,” climbed to the 5000-me...
Thui II, Hindu Raj. The British Hindu Raj Expedition visited the Sheta Glacier above Lasht Yarkhun in northern Chitral in August. We bypassed the large icefall in the lower part of the glacier and established Base Camp at 15,000 feet. We attempted...
FALL ON ROCK, POSITION-FACING OUT DOWN-CLIMBING SLABSCalifornia, Yosemite National Park, Lembert DomeOn August 14, Aaron Barnett (19) and Dustin Holcomb (21) were going to climb the NW Books (5.6) on Lembert Dome. Holcomb had led it before and wou...
Italians Fabrizio Manoni, Enrico Rosso, and Paolo Stoppini attempted the long, unclimbed east ridge of Nevado Santa Cruz, which begins with a steep triangular rock buttress. They first climbed the right flank of the buttress, starting at 5,100m,...
Direttissima, by Peter Gilman and Dougal Haston. New York: Harper &Row, 1966. 174 pages, 40 pages of photographs. Price $5.95.The Eiger Direct assault has been described by Christian Bonington in the 1967 American Alpine Journal. I will assume...
North Ridge of Mt. Owen, July 31, 1951. Previously, Dur- rance, Coulter, and McLane had climbed the spur leading from Valhalla Canyon to the upper portion of this ridge, but the direct ascent of the entire ridge remained for Dick Emerson and Willi...
Cerro Noemi Walwalun and El Espejo, various ascents. In January 2008, Germans Martin Waldhor and Achim Mink, and I climbed up to the Junta Valley in search of new routes. A five-hour approach brought us to our familiar bivy site, from where we cou...
The High Adventure of Mr. RandallJ. Monroe ThoringtonMYSTERY clings to unconventional episodes in human lives, none more so than to the motives which drive certain men, otherwise orderly, to forsake creature comfort on sudden impulse and disappear...
I’ve not been climbing in the mountains that long, and although I’d visited the Caucasus, Crimea, Tien Shan, and Khibiny peaks of the Kola Peninsula, I’d been fascinated by mountains outside the former Soviet Union. After training in summer 2008, ...
Nanga Parbat, Variant of the Schell Route. Our expedition was made up of Oscar Cadiach, Pere Benaiges, Narcís Serrat, Jordi Homs and me as leader. After delays caused by a blocked road, we finally arrived on July 4 at Base Camp at 3550 meters belo...