Influenced by performance ascents made by international mountaineers, certain Indian athletes are now making impressive speed ascents on their own peaks. In 2016, Indian ultra-marathon runner Kieren D’Souza moved to Manali in order to concentrate ...
The Ladakh Mountain Guides Association (LMGA) organized an expedition in September 2018 to the Skitmang region of southeast Ladakh, about 140km from Leh. Our objective was unclimbed Peak 6,364m. Participants were Dorje Angchuk, Kunga Dorje, Tsewan...
The north face of Pik Simagina. (1) Aquadiskotheque (5A, 2021). (2) Belinski Route (5B, 1969). (3) Polivoi (5B, 1969). (4) Rodikov Route (4B, 1990). Just visible to the right is the left edge of the north face of Pik Free Korea. Photo by Alexey ...
Looking northwest from the glacier west of Jankho Laya in 1996. From left to right, Jakoceri, Chachacomani, and the various summits of the Tres Marias. Photo by Angela Goodacre Donini AAJ 2020 contained an account of several climbs on and nea...
Sarah McNair-Landry on pitch two of Ijiraaq, a.k.a. Shapeshifter (5.10). Photo by Erik Boomer With travel restrictions across the globe, Sarah McNair-Landry and I focused our attention on backyard adventures. Luckily, our backyard is Baffin I...
The southeast face of Pik Ural East: (1) 2020 Nilov Route (5B), (2) 1982 Ivanov Route (5B), and (3) 1986 Makarov Route (5B). Photo by Dmitry Golovchenko The Bezengi area is the highest region in the Caucasus, with six of the range’s eight 5,0...
In separate incidents, two climbers fell to their deaths from Kelso Ridge, a popular 3rd-class scramble up 14,267-foot Torreys Peak, west of Denver. An experienced 71-year-old alpinist was reported missing on July 16 after he failed to return from...
Looking northeast up the access valley to (A) Lamo-she, (B) Peak 5,624m, and (C) Peak ca 5,600m. Photo by Yuikeung Ho In October, Siyuan “Azuo” Huang and I explored some new alpine routes in Sichuan. We began in the Tatsienlu Massif, whic...
The east face of Pico Italia with the 2019 Ecuadorian-Australian route Día Libre. Photo by Seb Pelletti While completing part of our IFMGA aspirant guide course, Aldo Coral (Ecuador) and I spotted an unclimbed line on the east face of Pic...
On November 23, I (male, age 34) began a proposed three-day traverse of the White Mountains from White Mountain Peak to Boundary Peak. The traverse, which consists of 20+ miles of ridgeline over 12,000 feet, is mostly easy walking on tundra, thoug...
Snow Lotus from the top camp at 4,900m. The route climbs into the bowl below the face in shadow, then up to the left of the sunlit snow dome to reach the skyline, which is followed back left to the upper north ridge a little short of the summi...
The north ridge of Falak Sar in profile, see from the approach to the west. Photo by Ahmed Mujtaba A Pakistani team made one of the few successful ascents in the country during 2020 when they climbed a significant new approach to the nor...
Camp 1 on Mukot Himal in 1967. Behind lies the northwest face of Peak 5,975m. To the right, in the background, is Sita Chuchura (6,611m). Photo by F. Charles Dufour Officially opened in 2014, Mukot Himal (as spelled on the HMG-Finn map, ...
Rajesh Gadgil near the head of the Lung Tung Glacier with unclimbed peaks 6,160m (left) and 6,190m to the southwest. Photo by Divyesh Muni “Why would the cattle go through so much trouble, just for some grass?” exclaimed Abhijit. After ascend...
Jupkia (left) seen from Camp 2 at 5,610m. Photo by Abishek Das In 2002, several members of the Climbers’ Circle, a Kolkata mountaineering club, trekked from Uttarakhand to Himachal Pradesh. While crossing Gibson Pass, they noticed a peak to t...
The west ridge of Picacho Kasiri (right) and the descent to the north, as seen from the summit of neighboring Picacho Pucusani. Photo: Alex von Ungern In 2018, Juan Gabriel Estellano and I made the first known ascent of Picacho Kasiri's s...
In May 2017, French skiers Tiphaine Duperier and Boris Langenstein made a very productive visit to the Nun-Kun region. The pair took a jeep from Kargil to Parkachik, where snow still blocked the road, and walked to the village of Tangol at 3,350m....
Because those damn British Columbia hippies don’t allow choppers to fly over their side of the Rockies, Dave Cheesmond and I had to hike half a day to even see the east face of Mt. Assiniboine (3,618m). (OK, I kind of agree with those hippies!) Wh...
On November 15, Paige (female, 20) and I (male, 24) set out to climb the ultra-classic Jah Man on Sister Superior. We made it to the base of the tower about 11 a.m. to find another party making their way to the top of the first pitch. We figured w...
This flag-draped rock pile on Manaslu is just below the point where most climbers stop their ascent—a point about 20 meters before the actual summit. Photo by Guy Gotter In recent years an international group of mountaineering researchers cam...