Langtang Liring Attempt. French climbers led by Denis Chatrefou reached only 16,400 feet on the east ridge of Langtang Lining when after three days of climbing in the post-monsoon season an avalanche buried men in Camp I; they got out after a stru...
FALL ON ROCK, PROTECTION FAILURENorth Carolina, Looking Glass Rock, The Womb.Ian Randall (26) and I, Josh Whitmore (23), both experienced climbers were climbing The Womb (5.11) on the north side of Looking Glass Rock on June 9. The accident occurr...
Baba TangiA team of sisters makes the first ascent of the northwest ridge of Koh-e-Baba-Tangi (6,516m), Afghanistan.Pat DeavollI’d long wanted to climb in Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor, but with one war or another, the country had been out of boun...
DUSAN JAGERSKY 1940-1977 A few minutes before midnight on June 14, 1977, Dusan Jagersky and A1 Givler were tragically killed while descending from the summit of a unnamed peak in Alaska’s Fairweather range. I met Dusan in early 1972, a few short...
PULMONARY EDEMA OF HIGH ALTITUDEA FURTHER NOTEThe "Disease" called High Altitude Pulmonary Edema has become of increasing interest to doctors in the past few years and is doubtless of even greater interest and importance to climbers. Since publica...
The French team of Thierry Giginot and Patrice Glairon-Rappaz spent several weeks repeating quite a few of the classics from last year and making a greatly criticized second ascent of Fantasia that involved new bolts and holes for hooking. Meanwhi...
On 22 July 1947, in the Mount Waddington-Tiedemann district of western British Columbia, Charles Shiverick, of the Harvard Mountaineering Club, lost his life in a snow avalanche on the highest peak of Mount Serra, at about 11,000 feet. A high camp...
The Wall of Clouds, Nassariit, and other shenanigans. From May 1 to June 18 Sam Beaugey, Martial Dumas, Jean-Yves Fredricksen, Yann Mimet, and David Ravanel (and later Jean-Noel Itzstein, for jumps) made their first visit to Baffin to climb, ski, ...
FALL ON ROCK, TRIP ON ROPECalifornia, Yosemite ValleyOn May 12,1985, Anthony Jankowski was seconding and Mark Sandefur (29) was leading the third pitch (5.10b) of Tightrope (III 5.11). He was about two to three meters above the third protection bo...
Mount Shackleton, North Face. Shackleton rises as a little known, but major Canadian Rocky peak out of the remote Clemenceau Ice Field south of Jasper. On its three temperate sides it resembles a huge and unappealing fortress with walls of unstabl...
Chris Larvin, Jonny Phillips, Rob Porter, and I, from Imperial College London, arrived at Constable Pynt in early August, only to find that much of our equipment and food, which we had freighted by sea, had not arrived. In fact, after investigatio...
EDWARD H. HILLIARD, JR.1922– 1970A lifetime of devotion to the mountains and to the preservation of wilderness came to an end on August 15, 1970, when Ed Hilliard was killed, with a climbing companion, near the summit of North Maroon Peak, Colorad...
Our plan was to open a new rock route in Greenland, as part of my seven big walls on seven continents project. Unfortunately, when Giuseppe A. Torre Balderas and I arrived at Nanortalik in July, we had only raised 55% of the budget. We left on the...
HAPE, ALLOWED TO DESCEND ALONE, POSSIBLE CO POISONINGAlaska, Mount McKinley, West ButtressThe 2008 Ulsam McKinley Expedition, led by Jeong Sang Kim (34) flew onto the glacier on May 1 and climbed to the 14,200-foot camp in eight days. The expediti...
Annapurna’s West-Northwest Spur, Attempt and Tragedy. Between Annapurna I and Varah Shikhar (Fang) lies a summit of over 7700 meters from which a prominent spur descends to the valley of the Miristi Khola. Our expedition, consisting of Michel Drap...
Mount Everest, Altitude Survey. In the spring of 1999, Boston’s Museum of Science, the National Geographic Society and a number of very generous individual donors fielded a scientific expedition to Mount Everest, with five basic objectives.To dete...
Acopan Tepui, Perdidos en Venezuela, and Piedra de Culimacare, Conio Crack. December 2007: Two weeks into the Venezuelan Amazon by bongo boat, Matt Othmer, Brazilian climbers Daniel Guimaraes and Eric Silvestrin, and I blazed a trail through dense...
Sickle Moon, South Face and Southeast Ridge, Brammah Massif, Kishtwar. Our expedition consisted of Corinne Pesenti, Véronique LaPlante, Félix Brunod, Claude Yard, Bernard Teiller, Hervé Spuytte and me as leader. From the roadhead at Putimahal just...
SLIP ON ICE-DISLOCATED SHOULDERWashington, Mount Rainier, Kautz GlacierOn June 30, Dallas Baker (27) sustained a dislocated shoulder while descending the upper ice pitch of the Kautz Glacier near 11,800 feet. He was facing the glacier slope with h...
Shkurigal Valley, Bashgal, Central Hindu Kush. Peter Ball, John Davies, Robert Junkison, Ali Kellas, Barry Smith and I had as aims a new route on a 6000-meter peak and first ascents of 5000-meter peaks in the Bashgal valley area. Base Camp was set...