Climbing Around Durango, 1983-1984. The years 1983 and 1984 were very active ones for Durango climbers. Near the Watch Crystal, John Duran and Tim Kuss did Sweeney’s Special (5.12b) and Free Base (5.12a), two extreme crack climbs. Craig Lombard an...

East Kahiltna Peak, D.S. and F.J. Carl Tobin and I flew into the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier. We skied to the East Fork, where we spent from May 3 to 12 exploring climbs. May 5 was clear and, despite our being tired from the ski to the ...

FALL ON ROCK, INADEQUATE PROTECTIONCalifornia, Yosemite ValleyOn July 22, 1982, Thomas Kirkley (22) fell while climbing above the Devil’s Bathtub behind the Ahwanee Hotel. He was two meters above a fixed piton which he had not tested adequately. T...

Caraz III, South Face. On June 28, Haroon Khesghi and I climbed the south face of Caraz III (5720 meters, 18,767 feet). We started in a couloir that runs up just to the right of the summit. The climb was similar in length and difficulty to the sou...

FALL ON SNOW, INADEQUATE EQUIPMENT AND CLOTHING, CLIMBING UNROPED, WEATHER British Columbia, Purcell Mountains, South Howser-Pigeon ColOn August 2, 1984, two climbers were caught in a thunderstorm on South Howser Tower, and were forced to retreat....

STRAINED BACKAlaska, Mount McKinley, West ButtressOn the afternoon of June 2, an RMI guided group was ascending below the fixed lines around 15,000 feet when assistant guide Ryan Sorsdahl (24) twisted awkwardly and felt something “pop” in his lowe...

Masherbrum attempt. Our expedition was conceived as a fairly light-weight, semi-alpine-style attempt to climb the north face and west ridge of Masherbrum (7821 meters, 25,660 feet) with a small group of friends. We were Chas Macquarie, Eric Reynol...

Illimani Group, Traverse. British La Paz residents Yossi Brain and Peter Grosset teamed up with visiting Italians Alessandro Bianchi (Club Alpino Italiano-ULE Genova) and Marcello Sanguineti (CAI Chiavari) to attempt the full five-peak traverse of...

EXPOSURE, WEATHERYukon, Kluane National Park, Mount Logan, King TrenchAn eight-member team from North Shore Rescue set out on May 7 to climb Mount Logan in the Yukon, Canada’s highest peak at 5,959 meters (19,541 feet), to celebrate the 40th anniv...

Annapurna III, Southeast Pillar Attempt and Tragedy. Our team of Jon Tinker, Rob Uttley, Trevor Pilling and me reached Base Camp on September 5. The walk-in to the upper Seti Khola was awkward and in places dangerous. We were only the second exped...

Ganesh IV Tragedy. No one knows the results of the first Polish attempt on Ganesh IV. Leader Karol Sopicki, Boguslaw Janczala and Krzysztof Przystal disappeared into the fog blanketing the mountain on November 5 and were never seen again. When the...

Bhagirathi III, West Face, New Route. Alexander Odintsov, Igor Potankin, Yuri Koshelenko, Vladimir Kachkov, Andrey Lukin, Ivan Samoilenko, and Lioudmila Krestina (doctor) arrived at the Bhagirathi Base Camp in Nandanvan on August 25. The expeditio...

Tilitso Attempt. Swiss climbers, Bruno Zaugg and Marco Battaglia, climbed for only two days on Tilitso’s northeast spur, carrying supplies up from Base Camp to 5800 meters. On October 3, they decided that the snow conditions were too unsafe to con...

Mowich Face. Rising steeply in a nearly smooth wall of ice and incipient rock-ridges, about two miles across and 4000 feet high, the northwest face of Mount Rainier directly above the heads of North Mowich and Edmunds glaciers has long discouraged...

Mount Chaval, North Ridge. Jim McCarthy, Phil Leatherman, Paula Kregel and I climbed Mount Chaval’s north ridge in mid-August. Well-broken but solid granite rock offered a pleasant alpine scramble with two pitches of harder climbing on the steepes...

Aguja de la Silla, East Spur, and Aguja Bífida, North Face. On February 21, Swiss Peter Lüthi and Argentine Horacio Bresba made the first ascent of the Aguja de la Silla (2978 meters, 9770 feet) by its eastern spur. They approached via the Paso Su...

Banner Peak, East Face. On August 9 and 10, Arne Myrabo and I climbed what we believe to be a new route on the east face of Banner Peak. No evidence of a previous ascent was discovered. The route starts about 200 feet to the right of the east-face...

FALL ON APPROACH ROCK, CLIMBING UNROPED Washington, North CascadesOn March 22, 1986, Ulrich Ganz (46), Juan Esteban Lira (33) and I (Mark Dale [31])hiked up Thunder Creek in the North Cascades with the intent of climbing Primus Peak in two days. A...

Caucasus: The projects of two Swiss climbers, Messrs. Mägglin and Heglin, came to an abrupt end with their disappearance on July 26th, 1931, together with two Russians, while they were attempting the first ascent of the Misses Tau. Their sleeping-...

FALL ON ROCK ON DESCENT—AFTER FREEING RAPPEL ROPE, LOSS OF CONCENTRATION, UNROPED Colorado, International WallOn June 25, 1988, a 175 meter route was completed on a granite wall (International Wall) approximately one half mile west of Shoshone Dam...