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...
THE HIGH SIERRA OF CALIFORNIABY Professor Joseph N. Le ConteI. General Features of the Sierra Nevada THE Sierra Nevada forms a part of the western bulwark of that great continental plateau upon which is built the North American Cordillera, Though ...
Wyoming, Grand Teton National Park, Symmetry Spire (3)—On August 29, Sven Wihrheim (21) and Elwynn Taylor (18) attempted to climb the Durrance Ridge. They began the first lead at 1:30 p.m.Elwynn Taylor had anchored himself to a rock nubbin and was...
FALL ON ICE California, Mt. San JacintoAt 8 a.m. on April 28, 1979, a party of 13 left the parking area at the base of Snow Creek and climbed to the bivouac site, about the 7,400-foot level. The camp was reached by all at 5 p.m. We camped comforta...
FALL ON ROCK, EQUIPMENT FAILURE–CARABINER BROKECalifornia, Lover's LeapGear worries were far from our minds on a beautiful June morning when Tom Stargaard and I were heading off to Lovers Leap for a day of climbing. The recent cover photo on Climb...
Cragging in the KarakoramRobert Warren, UnaffiliatedSEVERAL YEARS AGO, Max Kendall and I spent a miserable time on Denali. Throughout the climb, all I could think about was climbing beautiful Yosemite granite in warm sunshine. I enjoyed the advent...
Condoriri Region, Cordillera Real. My wife Irene and I left La Paz on August 17. From a point 20 kilometers from the end of the road north of Lake Tuni, we made our way up the valley which runs due south from Condoriri and reached Base Camp in 3½ ...
British Everest Expedition, 1951. Early in 1951 the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club received permission from the Government of Nepal to send an expedition to the S. side of Mt. Everest. Mr. Eric Shipton was selected to lead the part...
Mount Tiedemann and Other Peaks, Radiant Glacier, Coast Range. On July 16, Joe Firey, Dave Knudson, Michael Martin, Frank de Saussure, Hansueli Hösli and I flew by helicopter to a 7100-foot Base Camp on the Radiant Glacier from Buff Lake. In a day...
AVALANCHEAlberta, Rocky Mountains, Mount ThompsonOn Sunday, February 22, 1981, a party of three set out to climb Mount Thompson from the Peyto Glacier, using the Peter Whyte Hut as a base. One party member left ahead of the other two and crossed i...
FALL ON ICE, HARNESS CAME OFF-NOT BUCKLED CORRECTLY AND NOT CUPPED IN TO LEG YOKESQuebec, Gatineau Park, Cabin Creek FallsOn January 15, R.P. (48) began to climb Cabin Creek Falls, a water ice Grade 2 or 3 climb, depending on the line taken. He wa...
Polish-American Climbing Exchange. During late August and early September Mark Norden and I spent most of a month in Poland as guests of the Polish Alpine Club, or more specifically, The High Mountain Club of Zakopane, a local affiliate of the nat...