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,...
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...