FALL ON ROCK, INADEQUATE PROTECTIONCalifornia, Yosemite Valley, El CapitanOn the morning of May 26 Thaddeus Josephson (20) and I, (Ben Mathews— 26) were starting our fourth day on Sunkist (VI 5.9 A4) on El Cap. Thaddeus polished off pitch 14, the ...
Baffin Island: Big Past, Bigger FutureEugene FisherERIK THE RED WAS BOOTED OUT of Iceland in 986 AD for, as one historian dryly puts it, “twice taking human life without reasonable cause.” Before long, this violent exile was in the real estate bus...
Nanda Ghunti, Garbwal. Nanda Ghunti (20,700 feet) was climbed for the second time by an Indian expedition which attacked it from the Rishi gorge north of the peak. On October 22, 1960 the leader, Sukumar Roy, Dilip Banerjee, and the Sherpas Ang Ts...
Between November 26, 1998-January 5, 1999, Paolo Cavagnetto* and Lorenzo Nettuno (Italy) and Nigel Topping and I (U.K.) traversed on skis with pulkas a ca. 200 kilometer, north-south route (mostly following the route of Shipton’s 1963 expedition) ...
Canyonlands National Park. This preserve of 527 square miles is in the heart of the Colorado Plateau. Most of the region is remote and inaccessible to all but the most diligent wilderness explorer. Although climbing continues to gain in popularity...
Late Have I Loved Thee, by Ethel Mannin. 350 pages. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1948. Price, $3.00.There have been so few novels in English dealing extensively with climbing that it is always interesting when one is found. Miss Mannin’s theme w...
Akuliarusinguaq Peninsula, first ascents and Bylot Island (Baffin), traverses and first ascents. After our successful first ascent of the North Wall of Sanderson’s Hope in 2000, we wintered the boat in Aasiaat, West Greenland, and the crew for 200...
Climbing Ban in the Navajo Reservation, New Mexico and Arizona. Dr. Earnest C. Anderson of the Los Alamos Mountaineers has forwarded us the following letter, pointing out that the Navajo’s policy has now been changed and that an absolute and uncon...
Over 45 days from early July through mid- August, Sean Villanueva, Stephane Hanssens, Olivier Favresse, and I had an awesome trip to Baffin Island. We hiked ca 600km, ferrying loads for only two weeks of climbing; it seems ridiculous, but the cl...
A Climber’s Guide to the Coastal Ranges of British Columbia by Dick Culbert (British Columbia Mountaineering Club). Alpine Club of Canada, 1965. Illustrations, sketch maps, route sketches and 8 area maps in separate envelope. $3.50.This badly need...
South Greenland, Ice Cap first ascents. Scottish mountaineers, Douglas Campbell and Malcolm Thorburn, had visited the ice cap northeast of Narssarssuaq in 1997 and 1999. In order to save the additional costs and hassle of bringing pulks into the r...
Jonathan Wakefield and I arrived at Kluane Lake on May 16 and were able to fly within one and a half hours. We intended to make first ascents of peaks around the head of the Walsh-Denis Glacier confluence in Kluane National Park’s icefields. Mt...
In the Zone: Epic Survival Stories From the Mountaineering World. Peter Potterfield. The Mountaineers: Seattle, 1996. Photographs. 270 pages. $22.95.Two of the three tales from In the Zone are of a most compelling kind—the sagas of those victims o...
Ama Dablam, Winter Attempt. Japanese led by Tsutomu Dobashi on the north ridge of Ama Dablam in the winter of 1984-5 got to 6600 meters before being forced to quit.Elizabeth Hawley
Nanda DeviCharles S. Houston And there she was!Cresting the ragged rocks, casually scatteredBy some huge force, we gapedStar-struck across the flowered fieldsTo where the Goddess rose.Like some vast sculpture madeBy powers not conceived by man,The...
Apu Wall, Pararasapac Inti. In summer 2006 Odín Pérez noticed a big unclimbed granite wall in the Quebrada Ishinca. Back in Mexico he showed me pictures, and I was committed to climbing it.We arrived in Huaraz on July 17 and soon established base ...
Nandakhat and Bauljuri. After an approach march complicated by heavy rains which had washed out a bridge over the Pindari River, Dr. Deepak Kulkami, Milind Pathak, Dr. Suhas Mate, Dr. Deepak Rokade, Vishwas Kunte, Anil Chavas, Vishwas Dixit, Ulhas...
The Mazamas. The Climbing Committee took a very positive stand on educating and upgrading its climbing leaders and members this year. The Basic Climbing School enrolled 270 people and graduated 163 in a course consisting of four lectures, three fi...
Traprock. Ken Nichols: The American Alpine Club. 1983, 479 pages, black-and-white photographs, sketches, maps. $19.25.In the beginning there were no guidebooks. And lo this was good. Wind and rock and sky and man were free with one another. And la...
At the end of April, Luka Krajnc, Alenka Lukic, Miha and Milena Praprotnik, and my wife Tanja and I, accompanied by Moroccan climber Jonathan, traveled to Taghia village, situated in an incredible canyon landscape of the High Atlas. Snowy peaks, g...