McKinley West Buttress Variant. On June 11, Bruce Normand and I climbed a new variant on the right side of the southwest face of the Direct West Buttress. It involved twenty belayed pitches of water ice of Alpine Grade III. We completed the climb ...
In the second half of May, a Tangent expedition led by Ian Barker and Mark Basey-Fisher (U.K.), with Warren Allen, Julian Cooper, Mark Morrison, Sebastian Sloane (all U.K.), Andrey Pogudin (Russia), and I made the first ascent of a peak in the Gun...
Cook & Peary: The Polar Controversy Resolved. Robert M. Bryce. Stackpole: Mechanicsburg, PA 1997. 1133 pages. $50.The literature of polar exploration, unlike that of climbing, is known for its historical tomes. Yet Robert M. Bryce’s Cook &...
AVALANCHE, POOR POSITION, FAILURE TO TEST CONDITIONS, RELYING ON OTHERSAlaska, Delta Range, Castner GlacierIn the early afternoon on March 1, a group of 17 people (15 class members, co-leader Ty Humphrey, and I) arrived on skis and snowshoes in an...
Annapurna III Attempt. Four Koreans led by Ko Kwang-Soo tried to climb the southwest face of Annapurna III. Kyoung Joo-Choi and Byung Hyun-So reached 6650 meters on October 28. The climb was then abandoned because someone had stolen much of their ...
Mount Hale Pinnacles and Mount Hale, East Face. On the ridge of Mount Hale that extends toward Mount Whitney, before ending above Arctic Lake, there are two very prominent towers separated by a gap of 100 feet. I climbed them in June with a belay ...
DAVID JONATHAN BERNAYS1932-1980David J. Bernays was born in 1932 in New York City and died suddenly of a heart attack on July 6, 1980. Dave, who as a young man got his beginning as a mountaineer on the hills and rock faces of the Adirondacks in th...
A hotel for skiers, Jim Creek Lodge, has been opened at West Portal, Colorado, on the western slope of the Continental Divide. It is reached in two and one-half hours from Denver by the Moffat Tunnel. The hotel, elevation 9,000 ft., stands at the ...
JOHN R. HUDSON 1946-1969I first got to know Hudson driving across the country in June, 1966. He had hitchhiked to my place with his entire gear in his Kelty, and we went West as fast as we could in a doubtful auto – we had to get to Yosemite befor...
FALL ON ICE, INADEQUATE PROTECTION, INADEQUATE BELAY Washington, Mount Baker, North RidgeElain Fu (33) and I (Stephen Ramsey, 33) were simul-climbing up the ice cliff on the North Ridge of Mount Baker. I was in the lead. At 6:30 a.m., I reached a ...
GUNNAR NASLUND 1950-1982 On August 4, 1982, Gunnar Naslund, a four-year member of the American Alpine Club, lost his life when he was struck by a collapsing cornice as he led a rope attempting the first ascent of Needle Mountain in Alaska’s remo...
Red Sea Mountains, an historical overview and recent first ascents. Following the discovery of an old book by G.W. Murray entitled Dare Me To The Desert (1967), in which the author describes his explorations of Egypt’s Red Sea Mountains in the 192...
Nameless Tower, Trango Towers. Our expedition was composed of East German Berndt Arnold and West Germans Kurt Albert, Wolfgang Güllich, Wolfgang Kraus, Thomas Lipinski, Martin Leinauer, Dr. Jörg Schneider, Martin Schwiersch, Jörg Wilz and me as le...
Return to the AlpsUrsula CorningTHERE had been one summer after another of stifling New York heat—hands sticking to the table, body sticking to the chair—but there had been Alpine calendars on the desk to remind me of better things. Suddenly seven...
Climbs near Pumasillo, Cordillera Vilcabamba. With the arrival at Cuzco of Peter Radcliffe from Patagonia, our party was complete. John Gates and I had flown from New Zealand to meet Dave Bamford and Tom Clarkson following their different successf...
On January 3 James Mehigan, Olly Metherell, and Andrew Stokes-Rees made the first ascent of Fountain Gully on Afella in the Ouanoukrim chain. After a frantic evening of food shopping in Marrakesh, Mehigan and Metherell had their first scary moment...
INEXPERIENCE, PROTECTION PULLED OUT, FALL ON ROCKWashington, Icicle CreekOn April 29, 1989, I was assigned to lead three students, Tom Del Carlo (30), Bob Dalby, and Ken Wells, up a multipitch route known as “B & D” on the east side of Wadell’...
Gangchenpo, Jugal Himal. An all-Nepalese expedition from the Nepal Police Force led by Narayan Chand Thakuri made the first ascent of Gangchenpo (6387 meters, 20,955 feet). They climbed the southwest ridge of this handsome smaller peak, which lies...
Cerro Gallan, Province of Salta. Although our Austro-Swedish Andean Expedition did some excavations in the ruins of the Indian town of Guan- chin and of the fortress of Batungasta near Fiambalá, it was not there, near the Ojos del Salado, but 225 ...
Rambles and Mountain Climbs in Various Parts of the WorldWalter D. WilcoxTHE writer has been asked to compose an article on his various mountain climbs and adventures, omitting any reference to the Canadian Rockies, his favorite and most cherished...