Our table football skills had started to improve when we finally heard "weather is good for flying, get ready." It was mid-March, and Miha Zupin and I enjoyed the beautiful views flying into the Alaska Range, passing Denali, the Kichatna Spires, a...
“We’d be climbing 90˚ water ice right now if it were only winter,” I said to a very moist Casey Elliot as he mantled onto moss on a tiered ledge system. We were halfway up the northwest face of East Temple Peak, in the Deep Lake area of the Wind...
With no real objectives other than finding unscripted adventure in the mountains, Matt Threlfall and I set off for the Winds in early August. We decided to start in the Deep Lake area and do some warm-ups, but upon arrival we were immediately draw...
In July, Oliver Deshler and I once again returned to our old haunts of the Clear Creek region in the northern Winds. Two years prior, we had reconned the east-southeast face of Osborn Mountain (11,811’), several hundred feet right (east) of Forl...
In August, Jon Jugenheimer, Jared Leader, Bryan Miller, Geoff Ris, and I headed into the Wolverine Cirque in the northeastern Winds. Over the course of 10 days we established a few new routes, bailed off of a few ground up attempts and started f...
Some 15 miles of rolling forest and open grassy meadows lead from Big Sandy Opening to the boulder-strewn base of Mt. Hooker in the Wind River mountains. In August 2018, Nick Mestre and I met up to explore some crack systems on the left side of...
In July, two climbers sailed from Washington state to the Toba Inlet, about 100 miles northwest of Vancouver. They made their way to the head of the Tahumming River and hiked a little less than four miles of logging roads before reaching a sign th...
Looking south from Pik Wolfi. (1) Northwest face of Pik Elo. (2) Northeast flank of Gora Riri. (A) Peak of about 5,450m. (B) Pik Anto (southeast flank, climbed in 2019, not visible). Marc Andri Riedi In late June we flew from Switzerland ...
The west face of Abi in the northwest Siguniang Range. (Blue) Chen-Hua-Tong Route (2019). (Red) Shivering (Yan-Zhao, 2010). Photo supplied by Xia Zhongming Until 2019 there was only one route on the west face of Abi (5,694m): Shivering (5....
Abi from the southeast. (1) West face and southwest ridge (Shivering, 5.7 M3 AI2, Li-Yan-Zhao, 2010). (2) Breakthrough (Wang-Xiang, 2019). (3) Graduation Exam (Liu, 2014). On the original ascent of Abi, in 2004, French climbers continued up this...
Delusion Dweller (500m, 13-14 pitches, 5.10d/5.11a) on Bill's Dome. Photo by David Lussier One hundred years ago, a trapper named Bill Drinnan roamed the headwaters of Hoder Creek, in the southwest corner of what’s now Valhalla Provincial Par...
Peak 620m (65°55'5.53"N, 6°40'57.51"W) lies on the north coast of Qianarteq Island, opposite the abandoned American military base at Ikateq (Bluie East Two Airfield, built during World War II). I first caught sight of it while working in this area...
The east face of Bautaen and the line of Origo Heights. The fjord of Hornsund lies in southern Spitzbergen (Svalbard), and on the south coast of its inner waters lies the small peak called Bautaen (76.97086°N, 16.38613°E). This is a remote su...
The Kugelhorn (68.25592°N, 16.47003°E) in the Efjorden region is perhaps best known for its classic east ridge (Ostkammen, Norwegian 5-/5). The north face is steep and extensive, and to date there have been only a few routes: the North Slope (5 ...
The mountain locally named Geshot Peak (a.k.a. Toshe III or Toshain III, 6,200m, 35°8'44.44"N, 74°24'14.92"E) lies about 20km southwest of the summit of Nanga Parbat. On June 29, I made the first ascent of the peak, starting from the Bunar Valle...
In AAJ 2019 reported the presumed first ascent of Pik Ushat by an Australian expedition. However, this was not the first ascent, nor even the second, as noted in the following report from a two-man team that visited the area in 2002. After an alm...
“Hey, Simon, I’d like to go somewhere big like Waddington rather than go rock climbing on obscure spires.”Well, I thought, that’s raised the bar. Ian Welsted and I were discussing climbing objectives for our Coast Mountains trip in the summer. ...
I returned to British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast this summer for another season of exploration and route development in the Daniels River Valley, funded in part by an AAC Live Your Dream grant. At the end of July, a weather window finally appeared ...
In 2017, from the vicinity of Ak Baital Pass on the Pamir Highway, I photographed a peak at 38°32’12.0”N, 73°28’28.5”E with an altitude of 5,553m, according to the Soviet military map. Lying west of the Ak Baital Valley in the southeast part of th...