High and Wild: A Mountaineer’s World, by Galen Rowell. San Francisco,California: Sierra Club Books, 1979. Price $29.95.“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it”GoetheGalen Rowell wrote these words...
In February 2010, on the east face of Ritacuba Blanco (5,350m) in Colombia’s Cordillera del Cocuy, Fernando Gonzalez Rubio (Colombia), Ivan Calderon (Venezuela), Simon Kehrer (Italy), and I (Italy) established Tierra de Condores (800m, 7a+) in sev...
FALL ON SNOW, LOOSE EQUIPMENTAlaska, Mount McKinleyAfter acclimatizing at the 4300-meter camp on the West Buttress of Mount McKinley, Thomas Bohanon (31) and Richard Strong (28), members of the “Lean, Mean Cas- sin Machine,” climbed to the 5000-me...
Thui II, Hindu Raj. The British Hindu Raj Expedition visited the Sheta Glacier above Lasht Yarkhun in northern Chitral in August. We bypassed the large icefall in the lower part of the glacier and established Base Camp at 15,000 feet. We attempted...
FALL ON ROCK, POSITION-FACING OUT DOWN-CLIMBING SLABSCalifornia, Yosemite National Park, Lembert DomeOn August 14, Aaron Barnett (19) and Dustin Holcomb (21) were going to climb the NW Books (5.6) on Lembert Dome. Holcomb had led it before and wou...
Italians Fabrizio Manoni, Enrico Rosso, and Paolo Stoppini attempted the long, unclimbed east ridge of Nevado Santa Cruz, which begins with a steep triangular rock buttress. They first climbed the right flank of the buttress, starting at 5,100m,...
Direttissima, by Peter Gilman and Dougal Haston. New York: Harper &Row, 1966. 174 pages, 40 pages of photographs. Price $5.95.The Eiger Direct assault has been described by Christian Bonington in the 1967 American Alpine Journal. I will assume...
North Ridge of Mt. Owen, July 31, 1951. Previously, Dur- rance, Coulter, and McLane had climbed the spur leading from Valhalla Canyon to the upper portion of this ridge, but the direct ascent of the entire ridge remained for Dick Emerson and Willi...
Cerro Noemi Walwalun and El Espejo, various ascents. In January 2008, Germans Martin Waldhor and Achim Mink, and I climbed up to the Junta Valley in search of new routes. A five-hour approach brought us to our familiar bivy site, from where we cou...
The High Adventure of Mr. RandallJ. Monroe ThoringtonMYSTERY clings to unconventional episodes in human lives, none more so than to the motives which drive certain men, otherwise orderly, to forsake creature comfort on sudden impulse and disappear...
I’ve not been climbing in the mountains that long, and although I’d visited the Caucasus, Crimea, Tien Shan, and Khibiny peaks of the Kola Peninsula, I’d been fascinated by mountains outside the former Soviet Union. After training in summer 2008, ...
Nanga Parbat, Variant of the Schell Route. Our expedition was made up of Oscar Cadiach, Pere Benaiges, Narcís Serrat, Jordi Homs and me as leader. After delays caused by a blocked road, we finally arrived on July 4 at Base Camp at 3550 meters belo...
Lofoton Islands, Vagakallens Great Pillar. We always intended to visit Norway, inspired by the Troll Wall and pictures and reports from the Lofoton Islands, which lie 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Somehow Norway always slipped down the lis...
AIRBORNE FIRST AID IN THE AUSTRIAN ALPSIn 1953 the efficiency of helicopters in high-mountain rescue work was first demonstrated in the Alps on a large scale. Experience derived from that freak winter, which by reason of its unprecedented heavy sn...
The Saryshitcharv River flows south 20km from the Shakhdara Range to meet the Oxus River at the village of Shitcharv, directly opposite the Raij Jurm Valley in Afghanistan’s High Hindu Kush. Its head is enclosed by a horseshoe of summits: Pik Mosc...
OVERDUE, OFF ROUTE, EXCEEDING ABILITIES, POOR POSITION, WEATHERWyoming, TetonsOn July 27, 1989, I (Ranger Scott Berhenfield) noticed that Harry Barcalow (28) and Michael Volkov (31) were overdue from their climb of the East Ridge of the Grand Teto...
Manaslu’s Unknown FacePierre Beghin, Groupe de Haute MontagneCURIOUSLY, THE WEST face of Manaslu has always remained sheltered from the sight of climbers while other comparable faces, such as the south face of Annapurna, those of Dhaulagiri and Na...
New Zealand ExperiencesHenry S. Hall, Jr.THE Mt. Cook district in the Southern Alps of New Zealand might well be said to resemble closely the mother Alpine range of Europe on a three-fourths scale, just as the Caucasus impresses one as a four-thir...
3,000m, Pofigo. In June, Heidi Wirtz and I made a first ascent at a climbing area known as Kupol-Stol, in the remote Barun Valley of the Sayan Mountains, just west of the southern end of Lake Baikal. We were the first Americans to grace the Siberi...
RAPPEL ANCHOR FAILURE, FAILURE TO FOLLOW ROUTE, INADEQUATE PROTECTIONWashington, Mix Up PeakOn August 15, 1991, I was climbing with Lindsay Berly (26) on the East Face of Mix Up Peak in the North Cascades. As we descended, it grew dark. It was alm...