Fortaleza, East Face. The 1200-meter-high east face of Fortaleza was raked by rockfall and remained unclimbed. In October and November, Yugoslavs Peter Podgornik and Matjaž Ravhekar climbed 350 meters of the wall but gave up because of illness, le...
South Tower of Paine, east face, Self Right to Suicide. In January and February 2004 Boguslaw Kowalski, Wojtek Wiwatowski, and I found ourselves in deserted Torres del Paine. Since we had heard much about bad weather in the area, we came ready for...
Huandoy Oeste and a Peak in the Aguja Nevada Group. The Poles Eugeniusz Chrobak, Tadeusz Laukajtys, Wojciech Szymanski and Ludwik Wilczynski made a new route, the south buttress of Huandoy Oeste (20,853 feet), on July 25 to 27. It is a rock-snow-i...
El Mocho and Punta Val Biois. After their climbs of Yegua Helada and Juncal, Frenchmen François Marsigny, Patrick Gabarrou, Fred Vimal and Italian Giorgio Passino traveled to the Cerro Torre-Fitz Roy region. Despite the usual bad weather, Marsigny...
Anye Maqen Attempt. Late August found our group of eight American climbers, Karl Gerdes, Jerry Tinling, Tony Watkin, John Byrne, Bruce McCubbery, Jay McCubbery, Rich Henke, and me winding our way toward Anye Maqen through the high pasture lands of...
Oregon, Lewis and Clark Park. On 31 July Donald Lewallen (19) and Steven Maxwell (18) climbed from Lewis and Clark Park, arriving on top of the butte around 1530. After establishing a rappel point around a nearby tree, they prepared to rappel down...
FALL ON ROCK, FALLING ROCK, NO HARD HATColorado, Capital PeakOn July 27, 1991, Griff Smith (42) took a leader fall while climbing a difficult route on Capital Peak. His injuries were caused by rockfall generated by his fall. He sustained a compoun...
Green River Area. In the isolated Green River regions west of Moab, James Garrett and Mike Pennings ventured out on the Horsethief Trail, then down the tightly descending switchbacks 2,000 feet to the bottom land at the edge of the Green. Their ad...
AVALANCHE, ROCKFALL, WARM WEATHERYukon Territory, Mount Logan, Early Bird ButtressOn May 19, 1993, three German climbers, L.S., S.V., and S.W., were established at an advanced base camp for an attempt on the Early Bird Buttress of the south face o...
Raksha Urai, attempt. During the post monsoon Phil Amos, Jim de Bank, myself and Simon Woods (all UK) together with Bryan Godfrey (New Zealand), and Graham Rowbotham (Canada) explored part of Far West Nepal with the intention of making the first a...
K2 Clean-Up. Mountain Wilderness, an international group based in Italy, undertook the Free K2 Expedition, which was dedicated not to climbing the mountain but rather to ridding it of the frightful amount of garbage which has accumulated there ove...
P 6225, above Bara Shigri Glacier, Attempt. Britons Christopher Chees- man, leader, James Andrew Winspear and James Richard Mason attempted this peak which rises south of the Chandra River in Lahul. After a sérac collapsed on their route, the fina...
Lhotse. After guiding on Everest, Rob Hall and I made a three-day ascent of Lhotse via the normal west-face route. We rested for two days at Base Camp and then on May 14 climbed to Camp II at 21,000 feet in the Western Cwm. On May 15, we ascended ...
FALL ON ROCK, CLIMBING ALONE, OFF ROUTE, NO CLIMBING EXPERIENCEWyoming, Grand Teton National Park, Garnet CanyonOn July 20, Jillian Drow (21) fell to her death while descending into the South Fork of Garnet Canyon after an ascent of the Middle Tet...
Ulamertorssuaq, Moby Dick, and Nalumasortoq, Umwelten. It was reported that British climbers Mike Turner, Louise Thomas, Nigel Shepherd and Ian Wilson made a number of notable ascents in the Tasermiut Fjord. Mike Turner and Louise Thomas made a ra...
The Alps, Europe’s Mountain Heart (Ann Harbor: University of Michigan Press; $39.50), by longtime AAC members Nicholas and Nina Shoumatoff, is an “unusual synthesis” of wide ranging scholarship about all aspects of the Alps, unified by the authors...
The Gunks Guide. 2nd Edition. Chockstone Press, Evergreen, CO, 1990. 342 pages. Illustrated. Paperback. $19.95.A funny thing happened at the Gunks in 1986. Silhouettes of climbers dangling beneath overhangs suddenly were sleeker, less cluttered. T...
CEREBRAL EDEMAWashington, Mount RainierAt 1030 on June 16, the climbing team of volunteers Dave Turner, Jim Funsten, and I met Todd Auker (37) and his rope mates Dave Walters and Scott Weir on the summit of Mount Rainier, in mildly lousy weather. ...
Rocky Mountain National Park, Various First Ascents. Kath Pyke and I climbed a number of new routes in the major drainages of Rocky Mountain National Park in the summers of 1999 and 2000, contributing to the new-route development in the Park of th...
Nanga Parbat Ascent and Tragedy. Our expedition was originally to be led by Arturo Santolaria, but he was injured in a traffic accident and I took over as leader. The other members were José Ramón Agraz, Joaquín Castillón, Lorenzo Ortiz and Antoni...