From June 5-6, Vitaly Akimov, Dmitry Grekov, Stepan Maltsev, and Sergey Selivyorstov made the first ascent of Pillar Peak (4,050m). This splendid, 900m east-facing buttress is northwest of Peak Boks (a.k.a. Box), above the lower moraines of the Ak...
It was a beautiful July Saturday for top-roping climbs at Mickey’s Beach with my buddy Tracy. While belaying him on the Egg formation, I got a great view of him climbing above the ocean and decided to take a photo. Still belaying, I slowly backed ...
In February 2015, Matt Van Biene, Coleman “Troutman” Blakeslee, Tad McCrea, and I climbed at La Pirámide (a.k.a. Cerro Colorado), a cliff discovered by Jim Donini and others in 2009 [see AAJ 2014 for Donini’s introductory report]. While at the cli...
The 2014–2015 season was marred by the death of Pablo Argiz, the pilot of a helicopter that crashed while attempting to rescue an injured climber. Argiz crashed because he misjudged the capabilities of his own helicopter; however, he was attemptin...
On the afternoon of January 31, after completing La Travesía del Oso Buda and making an attempt on Cerro Torre’s southeast ridge, Marc-André Leclerc and I hiked up to Niponino with our sights set on another longstanding project of mine. During my ...
For this past season in Chaltén, my 12th trip to these mountains, Marc-André Leclerc and I blocked off three weeks together from January 15 to February 7. Marc is quite young, but already a very accomplished technical climber. He arrived in Chalté...
Cerro Piramidal del Potrero Escondido (5,386m) is located in the Central Andes, outside of Mendoza. On September 16, Lucas Amuchástegui, Juan Bautista Alonso, and Pablo Laumann (all Argentina) departed from Punta de Vacas to reach Río Chorrillos a...
Cerro Negro Pabellón (6,086m, 33º26´59.9"S, 69º42´09.7"W) is a rarely visited peak in the Cordón de las Delicias; it is the highest of the Cordillera Frontal, near Mendoza. The mountain had three previous ascents: first by Mendoza climbers in 1953...
The Cordón Riso Patrón is a mountain range on the western edge of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field and is one of the most remote areas of Chile. In austral winter 2014 our team of Franz Goerlich, Paul Sass, Uwe Seifert, and I (all Germany) reache...
On April 30, I was leading Diagonal (5.6) on the Small Cliff at Ragged Mountain. I fell from a point about halfway up, at a point where the diagonaling crack offsets to the right. I had put in a cam about 10 feet up and then a nut in a not-great p...
Cerro Albardón del Potrero Escondido (5,112m) is part of the Cordón del Potrero Escondido Los Clonquis, outside of Mendoza. In November, Adrián Petrocelli and Glauco Muratti (both Argentina) departed from Punta de Vacas to make the first ascent.Th...
On October 22, Alexis Trudel (Canada) and I left Cusco with Luis Crispin (Peru) and headed toward Mollepata. From there we headed to Soray Pampa by truck with Edwin Espinoza, who would join us for our climb. We hiked up to the base of Cerro Jatunj...
In early June, Phillip Moser and Chris Romeike (both from Germany) started their ascent of Nevado Chicon (5,526m, a.k.a. Ch’iqun) from the small village of Munaychay (ca 3,300m), located in the Chicon Valley above Urubamba. They made two trips wit...
On July 7, Daniel Araiza (Mexico), our cook William, and I left Huaraz and made our way toward the eastern Huayhuash. The next day we walked for three hours to reach Laguna Carhuacocha. On July 9 we hiked with all our equipment to a camp in the mo...
Davide Cassol and I left Italy on May 26 to travel to the eastern part of the Cordillera Huayhuash and attempt new routes. Once in Huaraz, we purchased food for a month and then enlisted nine mules and two horses to transport nearly 300kg of gear ...
In April I went with Luis Crispin to explore the south face of Nevado Colque Cruz (6,102m, a.k.a. Alcamarinayoc), at the northern end of the Cordillera Vilcanota. We made it to ca 5,900m before a large slab avalanche cut loose and we retreated. In...
On September 15 eight ski mountaineers departed Stanley in the Falklands, aboard Podorange, for a 35-day, yacht-supported ski trip to South Georgia. There were three sailing crew, and members of the mountaineering team were Anto Baird, Dave Baldwi...
On January 8, 2015, Doychin Boyanov, Nikolay Petkov, and Aleksander Shopov (Bulgaria) made the first ascent of Falsa Aguja (1,680m) via the north ridge. They climbed from a camp on the vast plateau north of the main Tangra Range. The team measured...
The large massif of Nevado Sahuasiray (5,818m) is an impressive sight while traveling by car from Cusco. Sahuasiray and its neighbor Nevado Chicon tower almost 3,000m above the cities of Urubamba and Calca. The first ascent of Sahuasiray was by an...
Our mountaineering team of Ueli Gnädinger, Leif Langenskiold, Conrad Weiss, and me (all Swiss) left Puerto Williams on the catamaran Libellule on December 29 and returned on January 29, 2015. Out of our 22 days on the Peninsula only four had good ...