Qiajajima I (5,930m), first ascent. Qiajajima massif is the highest mountain in the headwaters of the Mekong River on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. It is located at about N33° 28' and E95° 11' in the most isolated region of the Yushu Tibetan Autonomo...
Everest, More on Earlier Chinese Expeditions. When the Western mountaineering world reacted with scepticism to Chinese claims in 1960 that their brave climbers had reached the summit of Everest, the authorities in Beijing did not publicly take any...
Denali National Park and Preserve, 1982 Mountaineering Summary. During the 1982 climbing season, more climbers were on Mount McKinley than ever before, but surprisingly, the summit saw fewer climbers than in several previous years. Of the record 6...
Lhotse south face, winter attempt. The 2006 Korean Lhotse South Face team, comprising Lee Choong-jik (leader), Kim Hyung-il, Choi Jun-yeol, Seong Nak-jong, Kang Ki-seok, and I arrived at base camp on November 14. We joined forces with the Japanese...
Resolution of Guiding Violation. In October 1993, a British adventure travel company, Himalayan Kingdoms, was fined $100,000 by the Nepalese government because too many of its expedition members had gone to the summit of Everest. Everest expeditio...
JOEL ELLIS FISHER 1891-1966American mountaineering lost its most youthful member when Ellis Fisher died on January 6 with his boots on at the age of seventy-four. A member of the Alpine Club (London) as well as the Swiss Alpine Club and those of F...
A Bugaboo No LongerRaffi BedayanWe were camped at last timber, just a stone’s throw from a massive spire. Breakfast was over. Sitting under the fiery August sun, we were contemplating another attack on the bugaboo of the Bugaboos, Snowpatch Spire....
Bill Stall 1937–2008In 1977 Bill Stall and I were climbing a 5.7 route on Crystal Crag, a granite pinnacle near Mammoth Crest in the Sierra. As we ascended, shining above us like a beacon to the heavens was a giant, car-sized crystal near the summ...
The First Ascent of Mt. AyeHenry S. CrosbyMT. AYE, 10,640 ft., lies directly south of the better-known Mt. Assiniboine and forms the middle peak of the main ridge which includes Mt. Assiniboine on the north, Mt. Aye in the center, and Mt. Eon to t...
“That shifty, nibbling sonova…!” The sun wakes us instead of the watch we had set for our alpine start. A nearby pika must have had a midnight snack of my salty watch wristband. A full-moon approach brought us here to Applebee Campground in the he...
Monte Pissis, Attempt, and Possible First Ascent. In April, I made a solo attempt on Pissis (6759m) via the route first pioneered by Greg Home and Fritz Radun (documented by Home in the 1996 AAJ). Later, an attractive alternative summit—the wester...
Landon Gale Rockwell 1914-2003 Landon Gale Rockwell, known to virtually everyone as “Rocky”(including his very own mother; I asked him about that once) died peacefully at his home in Clinton, New York, on March 5, 2003, after an active and well-li...
A.A.C., Southern California Section. Historically, Hollywood and the alpine world have come together with mixed results. And this was the case once again with the highly touted release in 1993 of the Sylvester Stallone movie, Clijfhanger. Ted Vail...
Longs Peak, The Diamond. In August, 1960, two Californians, Bob Kamps and Dave Rearick, made the first ascent of the Diamond (A.A.J., 1961, 12:2, pp. 297-301.) Their route goes straight up the center of the 1000-foot face. Two years later Layton K...
The Desert, Various Activity. In Canyonlands National Park two new routes were established in the remote Dabneyland. Says Steve “Crusher” Bartlett, “These towers are named after Walt Dabney, the park superintendent who instigated the strict climbi...
Katantica Group, Chaupi Orco and Other Peaks, Cordillera Apolobamba. Hermann Wolf, Otto Reus, Dieter Hain, Dr. Walter Hufnagel, Karl Gross and I as leader of the Upper Franconia Andes Expedition left Germany on April 7 and reached La Paz by ship a...
FALLING ROCKS–DISLODGED BY CUMBERWashington, North Cascades, Mount LoganOn Labor Day weekend, Silas Wild and I climbed the east ridge of Thunder Peak, a satellite of Mount Logan in the North Cascades. On Saturday, we hiked over Easy Pass, down Fis...
Rocks and FellsDavid Allan Robertson, Jr.Neither indeed is there any hill or hillocke, which doth not containe in it the most sweete memory of worthy matters.Coryat : Crudities (1611)LET’S look away for a moment from these Gothic Ablaut Verbs and ...
Ishinca, Northwest Face, Magic Mushrooms. On July 6, while still acclimatizing in the Ishinca valley, Vasja Kosuta and I established the new route Magic Mushrooms (IV 80°, 500m) on the northwest face of Ishinca (5530m). We started early in the mor...
An Eye at the Top of the World: The Terrifying Legacy of the Cold War’s Most Daring CIA Operation. Pete Takeda. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2006. Hardcover. 304 pages. $26.95.Of all the idiotic things the CIA has dreamed up in its half-centur...