Gaugiri, first ascent. Jim Frush (then-president of the AAC) and I went exploring for an obscure 6,110m (20,046') peak called Gaugiri, which is in the Upper Mustang district northeast of the Annapurna massif on the Tibetan border.We had an idea of...
Latok I North Ridge Attempt. Our objective was to make the first ascent, alpine-style, of the 2500-meter-high north ridge of Latok I (7145 meters, 23,452 feet), so nearly climbed in 1978 by Jim Donini, Mike Kennedy, Jeff Lowe and George Lowe. (See...
Pukajirka CentralLeigh N. OrtenburgerTHE Cordillera Blanca continues to attract climbers from all nations of the world. On this, my seventh trip to this splendid range, I was impressed by the progressive changes in the region, while the peaks are ...
From 2007-2010 there were four ascents of Noshaq, the highest mountain in Afghanistan and second highest in the Hindu Kush. In the autumn of 2007 Iranians Mehdi Amidi and Azim Qeychi-Saz became only the second group of climbers to reach the summit...
Northwest Face of Kichatna SpireJames D. Bridwell and Andrew Embick, M.D.EMBICK: FIXATION IS NOT logical or rational but mine had grown stronger over almost two years, for an ice-encrusted, storm-beset granite tooth in the Alaska Range. The entice...
Shingu Charpa, north ridge, attempts and deception. In July, sitting in the gorgeous Nangma Valley base camp, I hacked up nasty chunks of something laced with blood, stricken with who-knows-what. My ultra-strong and ultra-capable partner, Josh Wha...
FALL ON SNOW, UNABLE TO SELF-ARREST, INEXPERIENCEDWyoming, Grand Teton National Park, Mount TeewinotOn July 10, 1992, at 1050, a victim slipped and fell while attempting an ascent of the east face of Teewinot. She and her partner were at the 11,80...
Gaurishankar’s West FaceWyman CulbrethFROM A DUSTY bus window I watched the landscape pass by, then turned to see the Sherpas fast asleep. They were understandably tired from the last few weeks of hectic preparation; we were all relieved finally t...
CHARLES “CHUCK” WADE COMSTOCK1960-2000Let’s just split right here, Roman. I got a stove and a cook pot, you got a stove and a cook pot. We both got shovels...just take your rope and we’ll go our separate ways!”We stood on the edge, double nines fl...
The Mount Everest MapsIn the November 1988 issue of the National Geographic the most accurate map of Mount Everest (1:50,000) ever produced was published as a supplement. Also, in that same issue the map was described in an article “Surveying the ...
Early Days in the Canadian RockiesWalter D. WilcoxIT is strange how some impressions retain their vivid and beauti- ful character throughout one’s life, while others that might seem of equal interest pass from memory all too soon. I can never forg...
The Great Days, Walter Bonatti, Translated by Geoffrey Sutton, Victor Gollancz, Ltd., London, 1974, photos, clothbound, 184 pages.Last spring, as several climbers and a slew of Balti porters trudged up the Baltoro Glacier high in the Karakoram, a ...
Ama Dablam (6,814m), west face, partial new route, Free Tibet. Ashild Tomassen (Norway) and we arrived in Nepal at the start of the Nepalese New Year, 2065, and on April 14 took a flight to Lukla. Four days later we, already breathless, were at Am...
Mount Kenya, Diamond Couloir, Chouinard Variation, Solo. In May, Wade McKoy and I traveled to Mount Kenya, where I wanted to snowboard the Diamond Couloir. Due to icy conditions I aborted that idea and soloed the Chouinard Variation in three and o...
Climbing Free: My Life in the Vertical World. Lynn Hill with Greg Child. Foreword by John Long. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002. Hardcover. $24.95.It has often been said that climbing can be a metaphor for life, but few books have given such thoughtf...
On the Origin of MountainsIn Garrison’s History of Medicine one reads of Ibn Sina or Avicenna (980–1037), called “the Prince of Physicians,” a convivial Omarian spirit, eminently successful in practice as courtphysician and vizier to different cal...
The southeast ridge of Annapurna III is a saw-tooth monolith cutting straight through the heart of a cirque of mountains so remote and difficult to access that few have seen them. The ridge is mesmerising, and the history and hearsay behind the no...
New Routes on Mount WaddingtonRichard C. HoustonCLOSER and closer we came, until at last the sturdy Norseman’s pontoons scraped the water and then, with a billowy splash, came to rest on Ghost Lake, deep in the coastal mountains of British Columbi...
Noshaq and peaks above the Wakhan Corridor. The fourth Polish Hindu Kush Expedition was made up of Dr. Roman Sledziewski, leader, and his wife Ewa, Marian Bala, Maciej Baranowski and his wife Danuta, Andrzej Heinrich, Maciej Kozlowski, Andrzej Mró...
FALL ON ROCK, INADEQUATE PROTECTION New Hampshire, Cathedral Ledge, Rook of SolemnityOn August 15, a husband and wife team were climbing The Book of Solemnity on Cathedral. The leader crossed the crux traverse (5.9+) in the second lead without pla...