The leftmost end of the Chief’s north walls is braided with splitter cracks, coarse-grained corners, and ledge systems. Apart from a couple of seeps down low, the Parallels Wall dries out quickly after storms. In 2011, Eric Huges and I redpointe...
The El Niño weather pattern created very unusual conditions in western Canada during the 2014–15 winter season. Powder skiing did not happen and the lower-elevation waterfalls all fell down. Even the stalwart classics that usually remain climbable...
In late July, Brette Harrington, Hannah Preston, Andrew Rennie, and I spent two weeks base-camped out of Sunny Knob. On our first day, Harrington and I established a direct variation to the upper part of Serra 2’s approximately 1,500m south ridge....
The Russian team of Vladislav Dubrovin, Vadim Kalinkin, Konstantin Markevich, and Dmitry Skotnikov completed the first ascent of Svarog (4,960m), the central peak of the north-facing wall at the head of the Ashat Gorge. The team spent 10 days as...
Life is all about balance—at least that’s what you call it when you sacrifice work, relationships, and life maintenance to pursue a silly climbing goal. So when Scotty Nelson and I (two average climbers) eagerly agreed to a hefty training program ...
Late in the afternoon on August 16, Bradley Parker (36) was free soloing the Matthes Crest ridge traverse (III 5.7) when he fell approximately 300 feet to his death. Several climbers witnessed his fall.Earlier in the day, Parker and his girlfriend...
Nate Ricklin: Since first seeing the Cleaver (ca 13,000’) from the northeast ridge of Lone Pine Peak, I was drawn to it—a wide, 850’ tall, white granite wall. I climbed two new routes on the cliff in 2008 along with others from the Pullharder Alpi...
On August 9 my partner Matt and I (both 26) attempted to climb Bear Creek Spire via the North Arête (6 pitches, 5.8) in a single-day, car-to-car push from the trailhead at Mosquito Flats. The weather report called for a 20 percent chance of scatte...
On June 23, two friends and I (Wesley Hartman, 17) were climbing on the east side of Kindergarten Rock. I climbed what I believe was a 5.10 with a safe belay from my partner Trey. When I got to the top I was planning to clean the route and rappel ...
Click the image below to view a PDF of the Statistical Tables from Accidents 2014. The data shown accounts for reported accidents through 2013.
The timing was perfect. A team of female students from the Japanese Alpine Club was planning an expedition to the Himalaya, just as Nepal opened more than 100 new peaks.The women chose three of these newly opened peaks in Mustang: Mansail (Mansail...
On October 17, Benjamin Jones, Jonathan Mancuso, and I left Kathmandu to explore four unclimbed and newly opened peaks in the Upper Mustang region.From Jomsom it took five days to reach a ca 4,875m base camp, and two days later we set a high camp ...
Northwest of Lo Manthang, the Mustang Himal previously was forbidden to both climbers and trekkers. The opening of new peaks in 2014 by the Ministry of Tourism radically changed this situation, and there are now beautiful climbs to be done in ...
Following our autumn fieldwork season studying nearby glaciers, Ibai Rico (Spain) and I (USA but based in U.K.) planned several interesting lines from the Langtang Valley.To acclimatize we explored the approach to the south saddle of Ganchempo (6,...
After visited Rolwaling in 2013 (AAJ 2014), I headed back with new objectives. This time my partner was Sam Hennessey (U.S.), with whom I'd climbed in Yosemite. Despite the rapid growth of tourism in Rolwaling, with numerous trekking parties, the ...
After a decade of exploration and solving puzzles on numerous peaks in the Quimsa Cruz, expeditions have become a way of life. The dream of publishing the third edition of my guide, Travesía Quimsa Cruz (Crossing Quimsa Cruz), gives me the opportu...
From June 17–20, 1974, Americans Roman Laba and John Thackray climbed the northwest ridge of Huayna Potosi. The AAJ 1975 feature describing this climb is erroneous in recording it as the northeast ridge. The only reference to an earlier ascent of ...
On August 25, Pacifico Machaca and I drove to the west side of Huayna Potosi and then walked two hours to the lake below the west face. Here, we examined possibilities for a new mixed route on this stunning wall. Carrying neither tent nor sleeping...
On October 10, Artem Bylinksi (Russian), Juvenal Condori, Rodrigo Lobo (both Bolivian), and Davide Vitale (Belgian) reached Penas, drove to the road head at Jalluwaya, and then walked three hours to Laguna Warawarani, where they camped. Leaving ne...
From January 15–18, 2015, two rope teams completed the third and fourth enchainments of the three Towers of Paine. Oriol Baró (Spain), Paula Alegre, and Esteban Degregori (both Argentina) climbed and descended Torre Norte via the Monzino (400m, 5....