Phuparash. The members of the Charlotte Mason College Himalayan Expedition were Dave Robbins, deputy leader, Linda Rutland, Mike Rafferty, Tony Mercer, John Whittock, Dr. John Burslem, Captain Kayani, liaison officer, and I as leader. The original...
Coast Range, Waddington Group. Amid considerable activity (46 ascents) by a large Harvard Mountaineering Club party (21 people), based on the upper Tellot Glacier during an unusually fine four weeks, a few new routes and attempts were made. On Aug...
Mount Everest, Winter Attempt, 1981. Six Japanese climbers and five scientists and reporters, led by Naomi Uemura, failed to make the second winter ascent of Mount Everest by the South Col. They climbed the Khumbu Icefall and made Camp I at 19,850...
Middle Chief, Main South Peak. Located south of Dutch Miller Gap between Summit Chief and Little Big Chief, the true summit of this peak is about 2 feet higher and 75 feet south of the normally accepted summit. It is virtually unattainable except ...
In August Brent Obinger and I completed a new free line on the Incredible Hulk. Jonny Copp and I had started this line in July 2006, but had had to turn back slightly below mid-height due to incipient seams and no bolt kit.Amazingly, with all the ...
Thamserku, North Face Attempt. A Sangaku Doshikai expedition was made up of Shomi Suzuki, leader, Katsuhuki Masunaga, Koji Okano, Noboru Okada and Dr. Toshitaka Sakano. Base Camp was established at 12,800 feet on April 2 and Advanced Base Camp at ...
Saipal. Our plan had been to climb Saipal (23,079 feet) from the north, but we were prevented from starting from Pithorgarh because of the Inner Line. We had no other choice but to approach the mountain from the south, starting at Tanakpur on Sept...
Manaslu Tragedy. A Japanese expedition led by Noboru Yamada attempting a winter ascent of the normal route, the northeast face, of Manaslu was given up when Takashi Sakuma fell some 650 feet to his death from an altitude of 24,600 feet. Sakuma, Fu...
Iowa Mountaineers. 1968 was an enjoyable and eventful year. The annual banquet attracted 162 members from six states with Nicholas Clinch the guest speaker. An excellent series of 19 film-lectures were presented by world travelers and explorers wi...
Tirich Mir Attempt. The Innsbruck Mountain Rescue expedition led by Kurt Pittracher and composed of Horst Bergmann, Dr. Peter Mangutsch, Manfred Mehrli and Dr. Raimund Margreiter hoped to climb Tirich Mir by the Carinthian route. It will be rememb...
High Sierra, the overlooked middle. I don’t get it. The High Sierra has largely been ignored for new routes in recent years. Yeah, there is some great stuff going on at either end of the range, like Peter Croft tearing up the Incredible Hulk (late...
Aconcagua, North Face. Two members of an Italian expedition, Claudio Schranz and Mauro Ferrari, climbed Aconcagua via the Polish Glacier from the Berlin shelter on January 25. Schranz remained at the shelter and on January 27 made a new route on t...
Crescent Towers, Bugaboos. My wife Carolyn and I made a new route by following the indistinct ridge which forms the right side of the large gully on the southwest side of Crescent Spire. (The gully is listed as Route 3 in the guidebook.) The ridge...
Gurja Himal. The Tomari Expedition consisted of Yoshimi Yakushi, leader, Nobutaka Ito, Masaaki Nukui, Seiichi Kanayama, Tomokuni Saegi, Hiroyuki Sakai, Akira Inoue and Kenichi Shimoda. They left Pokhara on September 21 and got to the last village ...
Mountain Sickness by Peter H. Hackett, M.D. New York: AmericanAlpine Club, Inc., 1980. 29 pages.The opening paragraph begins “The past decade has witnessed an explosion in mountain traveling by skiers, back packers, climbers, runners, hunters, fis...
Huascarán. Philip Hocker, Eric Adelberger and I joined forces with the remnant of the Bleser party, Gerry Roach, Gary Palmer and Dan Garnett, and the six of us reached the south summit on July 30. As we neared the top a mild blizzard descended on ...
Mount Bonneville, South Ridge of South Peak. Carol Lenz and I climbed the south ridge of the south summit of Mount Bonneville on August 16. From the notch at the base of the ridge, we ascended a fourth-class pitch on the east side to the top of th...
In late November 2008 Bernd Rathmayer and I traveled to Chile’s Torres del Brujo, north of Patagonia, to find virgin rock. After several days of travel with horses and mules, we installed base camp at the foot of these great granite walls for th...
Annapurna, First Ascent of East Ridge and Traverse. Our members were Frank Tschirky, leader, Dr. Bruno Durrer, Norbert Joos, Ueli Bühler, Fritz Hobi and me, all guides. We established Base Camp, Camps I, II and III on September 17, 19, 27 and Octo...
Jacobs Ladder, Monument Valley. On May 5 Fred Beckey, Bob Degles and I made the first ascent of this 300-foot tower, which is identical in appearance to Standing Rock in Monument Basin Canyonlands, Utah. NCCS III, F6, A3; 53 pitons, 4 chocks, 7 bo...