Cerro Castillo, Southeast Face, North of the Southern Continental Icecap, 1982. Yugoslavs Tone Golnar and Ljubo Hansel, New Zealander David Waugh and Korean Chil Kyou Son teamed together to make the first ascent of the southeast face of Cerro Cast...
Ruth Gorge, Mt. Dickey, Blood from the Stone. In March, Sean Easton (Canada) and Ueli Steck (Switzerland) established a remarkable mixed route on the 5,000' east face of Mt. Dickey. The route, which they named Blood from the Stone, includes diffic...
C.l.S. Competitions, 1996. Russia is the only country in the world where mountaineers who make ascents in various mountains then send in their accounts to an arbitration board appointed annually by the Russian Mountaineering Federation to contend ...
Cerro Torre, Winter Ascent. On June 30 there was almost one meter of snow at Base Camp, but luckily Maurizio Giarolli, Andrea Sarchi, Paolo Caruso and I had skis. In about nine hours we reached the col on the southeast spur of Cerro Torre on the M...
Coast Mountains, remote areas summary. 2004 was an astonishing year in the Coast Mountains, especially the Waddington Range. The new Waddington Guide was felt dramatically, with perhaps triple the usual number of climbers entering the range. Moreo...
Yalung Kang Attempt. I had originally hoped to climb Yalung Kang by the normal southeast-face route with a small alpine-style team. When the members of my original team could not come and I could find no others, I decided to attempt it alone with ...
FALL ON ROCK, FALLING ROCKColorado, Mount AeolusOn July 6, 1984, Joseph Stolla (37), an experienced climber and an attorney from Englewood, Colorado, fell to his death from Mount Aeolus when a large block of rock broke off. A month later, a hiker ...
Cerro Selk’nam, First Ascent. On October 4, I made the first ascent of a peak near Bahia Pary, naming it Cerro Selk’nam after the historical indigenous people of the area. On September 25, I was dropped off and made Base Camp at Bahia Pary. After ...
Mount Williamson, Direct South Arête. The south face of Mount Williamson is a complex wall of chutes, ribs and faces. The easiest approach to the face is via George Creek. However, this is closed for ten months of the year as a bighorn sheep prese...
Nevado Ulta, Andinista-Rifnik, to summit ridge. On July 18, after two failed attempts in 2006 and 2007, Slovenian Viktor Mlinar and I made the first ascent of Nevado Ulta’s south face. The whole climb took four days from Huaraz. The first day, aft...
FALL ON ROCK, INADEQUATE EQUIPMENT–SANDALS, OFF ROUTE, NO HARD HATColorado, Boulder Canyon, Near Security Risk CragOn April 2, a 31-year-old male was attempting to set up a top-rope system when he suffered a fatal fall from a rock outcropping near...
El Gigante, Logical Progression. Over a seven-and-a-half-week period in spring Peter Baumeister (Germany), Luke Laeser (U.S.), and Bert van Lint (Belgium) established an entirely bolt-protected 28-pitch route on El Gigante's northwest face. All of...
Washington, Mt. Baker. On 25 May John Dallmeyer (27), Mario Strim (30), Margaret Secrett (28), and Judy Small (26), had been siding on Mt. Baker and decided to climb to the summit. The party was last seen on the summit of Mt. Baker in a rising sto...
Peruvian climbers Beto Pinto, Rolando Morales, and Steven Fuentes left Huaraz at midday on July 8. After a two- hour drive to Llaca Valley at 4,300m, they walked toward Vallunaraju’s (5,600m) south face. One-and-a-half hours in, they found a sma...
Broad Peak. A six-man party was organized by the Pakistani Army School of Mountain Warfare and Physical Training which successfully climbed Broad Peak. Three camps were placed along the normal route. On July 30 the summit team left Camp III at 725...
French Himalayan Expedition. The long-awaited French expedition to the Himalayas finally chose the mountains of Baltistan as its goal. Its main base was Skardu, from which it continued on to Askole. arriving there May 14th. Base camp at the Concor...
Cerro Chepical, first ascent and Cerro Fandango, ascent. In February 2005 Antonio Pontoriero and I erected a camp on the southwest shores of the salty Laguna Brava (Fierce Lagoon). Nearby were Inca ruins, the Inca Trail, and a wrecked airplane tha...
Mt. Louis. Essentially the route up Mt. Louis that I did in 1952 with Walter Perren, the Zermatt guide then with the CPR in Lake Louise, was identical with the standard one to the base of the final tower. There it diverges to the right (direction ...
Watchman, West Face, Zion National Park. In May 1973 Mike Weis and I climbed the west face of the Watchman via a direct route below the summit. The 13 pitches were all free save for a pendulum on the twelfth. On the first lead we passed a rappel n...
“Wallace Stegner Spire.” In the summer of 1992, Peter Cummings and I explored the granite towers and drainages to the south of Hamilton Lake in Kings Canyon National Park. The most spectacular tower in the region, however, was marked by a smooth a...