FALL ON SNOWAlaska, Mount McKinley, Denali PassOn June 10 at 1945, Lev Sarkisov (61) of the Denali-2000 Khalatian Expedition (D2K) was descending unroped from Denali Pass on Mt. McKinley when he stumbled at the 17,400-foot level and fell 400 feet....
Kwangde Shar, Khumbu Himal. In October, I joined Roger Everett to make an alpine-style ascent on October 26 of the north face and descent of the south face of Kwangde Shar (20,309 feet). This is one of the new peaks listed by the Nepalese governme...
Mount Maude, North Face. Mount Maude’s ice-clad north face is belted by an impressive hanging glacier. The most outstanding feature of the face, however, is a steep icefall high on its left side. In 1957, Fred Beckey's party made the first ascent ...
STRANDED DUE TO MEDICAL CONDITIONAlberta, Banff National Park, Mount Temple, East RidgeOn August 27, while on a solo ascent of the Aemmer Couloir variation (IV 5.7) of the East Ridge of Mount Temple, W.K. started having neurological problems while...
Saraghrar, Southwest Buttress Attempt. The difficulties on the southwest buttress of 24,075-foot Saraghrar do not decrease all along the great buttress. The foot of the wall is at 16,575 feet, making the wall 7500 feet high. Spaniards made a first...
Ape Lake Region. On July 30 Sterling B. Hendricks, Donald Hubbard, Alvin E. Peterson and I landed on Ape Lake in the Mount Monarch region of the Coast Range of British Columbia. During the next 25 days we climbed nine peaks, of which four were vir...
Mount Everest. A huge post-monsoon Nepalese-Italian expedition led by Francesco Santon did not reach the summit of Mount Everest. There were 32 Italians, 15 Nepalese, one Austrian (Kurt Diemberger), two Czechoslovakians and two Thais, as well as 2...
Mount Rainier, Willis Wall, Winter Ascent. After years of trying, the north face of Mount Rainier has finally been climbed in the winter. In mid-February, 1970 Jim Wickwire and I made the third ascent of the 4000-foot Willis Wall via the newest an...
Half Dome, Arcturus, first free ascent. In June Rob Pizem and I free-climbed (5.13) the 22-pitch Arcturus on the northwest face of Half Dome. Originally climbed by Dick Dorworth and Royal Robbins way back in 1970, the route had been forgotten by Y...
Thamserku, Southwest Face. The expedition was composed of Takeshi Kimura, leader, Satoshi Kimura, Sakae Hosogai, Takashi Kamo, Yasuhiko Hayashi, Hideaki Goto, Takashi Hayakawa, Yuji Mizutani and Kozo Naraki. They placed Base Camp at 14,750 feet on...
Langtang Himal. The Australian Peter Taylor made the first ascent of a 21,592-foot peak in the Langtang Himal with two Sherpas despite bad weather.
Manaslu East Ridge Attempt. Hervé Thivierge, Gilles Claret Tournier, Jean Franck Charlet, Dr. François Dantoine and I arrived at Base Camp at 14,450 feet on September 10, where we had four days of bad weather. After establishing Camp I at 18,050 f...
Harvard Mountaineering Club. This year the Club has undergone one of the cyclical fluctuations to which college clubs are so prone: it has suffered from a deficit of expeditionary mountaineers and had an abundance of good rock climbers. There has ...
Kamet and Abi Gamin. A 16-man Indian Army expedition was led by Major J.K. Bajaj. They carried no oxygen and used no high-altitude porters. Base Camp was set up at the junction of the Raikana and East Kamet Glaciers at 15,250 feet on May 12. Camps...
Owir Zom. Franco Cena, Nello Delù, Alexa Braun, Guido Botto, Giorgio Vicentini and I traveled from Italy to Peshawar by Volkswagen, to Chitral by Land Rover and to Owir by Jeep. We took three days to ascend the Owir valley to Base Camp at 11,500 f...
In September Mike Dahlquist and I climbed a new route on the south face of Bear Creek Spire. The routes nine pitches (5.10) trend just left of center of the tallest part of the face, following various crack and corner systems. We had come to cli...
Aconcagua and Cordon de la Plata Traverses. In ten days, between February 17 and 27, the Mendoza guide Gabriel Cabrera traversed Aconcagua by climbing the Pirámide buttress (southwest ridge), south summit ridge and main summit. He descended the Gl...
Pigeon Spire, East Face Variation, Bugaboos. In mid-August Dave Davis and I attempted to climb the east face of Pigeon Spire all free. We began at the start of the Cooper-Kor route and followed a direct line for six leads to the base of an imposin...
Dhaulagiri IV Tragedy. Five Austrian climbers, Richard Hoyer, leader, Peter Lavicka, Peter Nemec, Kurt Ring and Kurt Reha, with Sherpa Tensing Nindra, were lost on Dhaulagiri IV (25,133 feet), presumably in an avalanche which may have overwhelmed ...
The Southern Cordillera Real. Mountaineering and Skiing in Bolivia, by R. Pecher and W. Schmiemann. Chur, Switzerland: Plata Publishing Co., 1977. 16 black-and-white photos, 14 sketches and line drawings. Price: $5.In spite of its ambitious title,...