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,...
Champará Group. In July we spent ten days in the Champará group. We entered the Quebrada Coronquillo from the Hacienda Mira Santa by a circuitous route dictated by the earthquake damage of the previous year. We climbed P 5273 (17,300 feet) and two...
Mark Rolofson, Stuart Ritchie and I climbed a six-pitch variation to the 1964 Robbins route on the north face of Mount Hooker. We climbed the route entirely free except for 50 feet of A2 on the 14th pitch. We felt that if the rock were dry, this s...
On January 10, 2010, Waldo Farias and I did a new route, Inanición (“Starving”), on Cerro Freile (4,598m), Marmolejo Valley, Chile, 100km west of Santiago. The mountain is an island of granite between the typical bad rock of the Central Cordille...
Annapurna, Middle Summit, South Face. Our expedition was made up of only Nil Bohigas and me, though we had two friends in Base Camp. We intended to climb the route attempted by Alex MacIntyre and René Ghilini in 1982, but from the beginning it was...
Mount Charleston. As seen from the desert to the east, the northern upper crest of Mount Charleston in appearance justifies its local name, “Mummy Peak.” In October Scott Hamell and I climbed the northwest buttress, so prominent from the Lee Canyo...
California, Yosemite National Park, Indian Caves Area. On 25 March Jon Martin Spangler (18) and five companions were bouldering at Indian Caves. Spangler lost his grip and traction, slid 6 to 8 feet down an angle of rock, bounced and Hipped around...
Api. An eight-man expedition from Matsumoto Alpine Club was led by Katsuyuki Fukuzawa. After having delays on their approach due to porters being injured in a heavy snowstorm at Luwakhola from March 2 to 4, they got to Base Camp on March 24. Their...
Cerro Trinidad Sur, Der Grantler. On February 8, 2011, Mario Gilemann and I made the first ascent of Der Grantler on Cerro Trinidad Sur. The 230m route climbs close to and left of Pegadito en la Pared (7 pitches, 5.11c AO, Hartmann-Reimay, Februar...
Appalachian Mountain Club. Our members spent their summer in pursuit of diverse mountaineering challenges. Probably the most noteworthy was the ascent of Mount Huntington in Alaska by the east ridge by a party of five co-led by Frank Zahar and Nie...
P 6840, Ramparts. Billy Shott and Steve Gorhman ascended the southwest face of P 6840, a 1700-foot-high granite wall (5.10, A2). This peak lies west of P 6850, which was first climbed in 1991 by Fred Beckey and Clay Wadman. This is the second moun...
FALL ON ROCK, INADEQUATE PROTECTION, EXCEEDING ABILITIESAlberta, Rocky Mountains, Cascade Mountain, Bankhead ButtressA group of six soldiers were climbing on a cliff known as Bankhead Buttress, a few kilometers east of Banff. The leader came off w...
On August 11, a rock climber was stung more than 1,000 times when he and his three partners encountered a beehive about 6:30 p.m. and were attacked atop Mount Lemmon. His partners were able to escape the swarm, but he was stranded for several...
Poincenot, Banana Wall. After studying the region in hopes of opening a new route, we found a picture in the AAJ showing this magnificent north face with no line up the fractured center, between Old Smugglers (800m, 5.10+ A1/2, Crouch-Donini 1996)...