Muztagh Ata, second ascent of southeast ridge, alpine style. In order to be well-acclimatized for their alpine-style attempt on Shivling during the autumn, 26-year-old Kazuya Hiraide and 33-year-old Kei Taniguchi climbed Muztagh Ata (7,546m), maki...
California, Yosemite National Park. On December 17, Steve Roper (20) and Frank Sacherer (21) started to climb to the base of the face of Half Dome, hoping to get a little practice at easy ice climbing. They carried ice axes and crampons, but no ro...
PROTECTION PULLED OUT WHEN WEIGHTED–FALL ON ROCK, TRYING TO STICK TO A SCHEDULECalifornia, Yosemite National Park, El CapitanCraig (25) had several years of free climbing experience but little with aid. On May 29, he and his partners, Brent and Da...
Every year in Yosemite seems to bring fresh challenges, starting five years ago with my first long trad climbs and continuing year after year into longer and harder routes. This summer in the Valley was my season of aid climbing. And since I hav...
Kulu Eiger, North-Northeast Face. Two days before departing for India, I received a fax from the Indian Mountaineering Foundation indicating that the Government of India had not granted clearance for our expedition to Kishtwar. After the numbness ...
Yosemite Valley, various activity. Big wall free-climbing in Yosemite hasn’t lost its appeal, and many impressive ascents were achieved in 2004. The Leaning Tower in particular has seen a lot of recent action, probably due to its more manageable l...
Mt. Logan, South Face Attempt, and Mt. King George, Lauchlan Ridge. John Chilton, Rich Prohaska and I went to the St. Elias Mountains with the help of the John Lauchlan Award to climb the south face of Mt. Logan. We drove to Kluane Lake and waited...
Balloon Dome, various ascents. The Crucible (IV 5.11 A1). Dave Nettle and I started this route in late October 2005 and retreated from the bivy ledge atop pitch five, due to an early winter storm. Chris LaBounty, Neal Harder, and I completed the r...
New York Section. The New York Section of the AAC is blessed with a strong cadre of committed volunteers who help make it one of the most active and vibrant of the AAC’s regional Sections. Its Annual Black-Tie Dinner has hosted many of the world’s...
Stauning Alper. I have just (February) received information on a French expedition led by François Wolf with two others. They did 400 kilometers on skis and made three first ascents. They descended all the mountains by parapente, the first time th...
WILLIAM OSGOOD FIELD1904-1994It was 1941 when I first met Bill Field, a geology graduate of Harvard’s class of 1926. He had already spent some fifteen years pursuing his consuming interests of photographing, recording and cataloguing coastal glaci...
Kanchenjunga, North Face. Our expedition consisted of Swiss Guides J-P. Rieben, Bernard Polli, René Mayor, Vincent May, Marco Bruchez, Gervais Filliez, D. Michellod and me as leader, Dr. Claude Pfefferlé and Sherpa sirdar Pasang Gyalchen. After a ...
Mount Alberta’s North Face and Northeast RidgeMark WilfordInspiration FOR INVOLVEMENT with this great Canadian peak came early in my climbing career via a photo by Jim Stewart in the 1973 Ascent, entitled “Canada in Winter.” A two-page spread of M...
Richard E. McGowan 1933–2007first became acquainted with Dick McGowan more than 50 years ago when the climbing world in the United States was a small village spread across the country, connected by gossip and rumor and not the Internet. If we didn...
Minapin. A British expedition to Minapin (23,840 feet) in the Karakoram ended in tragedy. On July 7 Dennis Kemp and Walter Sharley were observing the leader, E. G. C. Warr, and F. C. Hoyte going strongly only 300 feet from the summit when a severe...
On May 22, Sam Johnson and I flew in to the Hayes Range portion of the eastern Alaska Range, looking for maximum adventure. We spent six perfectly cloudless days transporting tremendous amounts of gear around the Gillam Glacier, and then stood bel...
K2, North Ridge. In July, two expeditions met at the bottom of the north face of K2, the world’s second highest peak (8611 m). A Polish Expedition under the guidance of Krzysztof Wielicki consisted of six Poles, two Italians and two Americans. Our...
Stiletto, Drag Queen. On July 26 Justin Cassels, Jonny Simms, and I started up a corner system on the Stiletto that Jon and his girlfriend Kinley had explored a few days earlier. Justin and I had also attempted the route, but we ran out of time tr...
“Thunder Mountain”Geoff Hornby, Alpine Climbing GroupONE OF THE BEAUTIES OF CLIMBING in the central Alaska Range is the ease of access to the mountains in terms of time and the tremendous potential for exploration, first ascents and new routes. Th...
Kangerdlugssuaq South, first ascents. From July 22 to August 18,2005, Dave Swinburne and I climbed 16 new peaks within three previously unvisited glacier systems that descend from the fringes of the ice cap southeast of the Hutchinson Plateau. We ...