New Routes on The Thumb, Little Cottonwood Canyon. Since the first ascent of the Thumb’s south face, it has been felt that a much more direct route to the summit was possible. On July 3 Royal Robbins and I climbed unroped up a low-angle shelf to w...
California, Guadalupe Rock, 15 miles from San Jose—On April 20, a pleasant sunny day, about 20 members of the Stanford Alpine Club were at the practice rocks. The majority of the party was on the larger rock doing some of the easier climbs. Five w...
Exploration of Patagonian Continental Icecap and Ascent of Aguja del Río Túnel. Our expedition was composed of Jenny Morelos, Monica Stalsché, Ismael Palma, Alfredo Fragueiro, Néstor Apráiz, Fernando Bosch and me as leader. The undertaking was def...
NoshaqRichard HechtelWHEN George Barnes and I boarded the plane in San Francisco, each with ice axe in hand, the worried stewardess insisted they go into the cockpit and not under our seats. Well, if they really needed ice axes to fly this airplan...
Bipeng Valley, Peak 5,370m, first ascent. On April 27 Rongqing Su (China) and I (USA) made the first ascent of Peak 5,370 (so named because it is 5,370m) (Lat: 31° 14' 30", Long: 102° 55' 04"). This may be a sub-peak of Peak 5414.Our climb started...
The Theory of BelayingArnold WexlerTHE protection afforded by a rope in mountaineering depends primarily upon the ability of belayer and rope to stop a fall adequately. In a recent article in the Sierra Club Bulletin, some aspects of the art of be...
Early Winter Spires, South Spire, Direct East Buttress. To a degree greater than anywhere else in the Cascades, rock climbing has become a sport in its own right in the Liberty Bell region. Certainly nowhere else in the range are there so many rou...
In July three George Lowes, grandfather, father and son, all climbed the Exum route of the Grand Teton together, which may be some kind of a new record.
FALL ON SNOW, UNABLE TO SELF-ARREST, DESCENDING UNROPED, WEATHERAlaska, Mount McKinley, West ButtressThe Rainier Mountaineering, Inc. guided trip led by chief guide Phil Ershler and assistant guide Chris Hooyman began their expedition on May 21. T...
K2—The North RidgeSteven J. SwensonThe afternoon was fine, and nothing interrupted my view of the great amphitheatre about me. The cliffs and ridges of K2 rose out of the glacier in one stupendous sweep to the summit of the mountain, 12,000 feet a...
Elephant’s Perch or Sawtooth Dome, West Face, Sawtooth Range. On July 18 to 20 Dick Forster and I completed a new route on the west face of this peak, 1¾ miles southwest of Redfish Lake. Our route lies 500 feet to the left of Beckey’s. We approach...
West Fuller Butte, South Face. This route and the next are easily visible from a logging road southwest of the two buttes. Easy Wind climbs a flake which lies flat against the face to the west of a prominent gully on West Fuller Butte. Fourth-clas...
Blue Ridge Section. In 2008 the Blue Ridge Section continued to hold a series of informal meetings at the Rhodeside Tavern in Rosslyn, Virginia. Two particularly notable talks were given by Sandy Fleming, a long-time AAC member, and by Daniel Ress...
The Sunny Top of California: Sierra Nevada Poems and a Story. Norman Schaefer. La Alameda Press, 2010. 120 pages. Paperback. $14.00.A poem is like a Chinese fortune cookie: surprise and insight, wrapped inside a small mystery.The joyous hardship o...
Jatunhuma, Pachanta and Other Peaks. (Editor’s note: With two exceptions (Pachanta and Caracol), the members of this expedition used the names found on the Peruvian IGM quad Ocongate, 1:100,000, Hoja 28-t. The names on these maps rarely conform wi...
Jushua Tower, Zen and the Art of Leadership. On May 14, Steph Davis, Brandon Kannier and I arrived in the small village of Clyde River. The next three days were spent traveling by snowmobile with Jushua (our Inuit guide) across the six-foot-thick ...
North Central Section. The North Central Section has about 165 members spread out over an area of roughly 600 miles x 600 miles. The membership has two pockets, one in Minneapolis/ St. Paul, Minnesota, and the other 400 miles away in Omaha, Nebras...
Johann Wolfgang “Hans” Gmoser 1932-2006It is beyond the capability of this aging wordsmith to come up with a simple summary of the eventful and productive life of a brilliant but complex man, who was also a good friend to so many and accomplished ...
On July 12 Wayne Wallace and I cruised the waters of Lake Chelan on the buxom yet buoyant Lady of the Lake, on our way to check out the unclimbed southeast face of Dome Peak’s southwest summit. I saw the 1,800' granite face on a reconnaissance fli...
Geoffrey Winthrop Young: Poet, Educator, Mountaineer. Alan Hankinson. Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1995. 354 pages, black-and- white photographs. (Distributed in the U.S. by Trafalgar Square, North Pomfret, Vermont 05053.) $40.00.If the life of...