The Gold Wall. Tom Fender and I climbed a new route near the Ribbon Fall amphitheater in May. It lies on the steep wall just left of the entrance to the amphitheater. The climb began in the center of the face. The first two leads were all aid, wit...
Mount Peskett. East of Mount Murchison a number of summits, only some of which have been climbed, rise to over 10,000 feet. Late in July we entered by way of Spreading Creek, turning southeast up its second tributary to camp at timberline above th...
Pisco, Cordillera Blanca. The Englishmen Alfred Gregory and Harry Stembridge climbed Pisco and another peak of about 18,000 feet northwest of Chacraraju, described as "one of the long ridges at the back of Chacraraju”.
Istor-o-Nal. The Japan Women’s West Asian Expedition climbed in Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. The ladies were Kyoko Sato, leader, Setsuko Watanabe, Hisae Izumi and Hiroko Ashiya. After climbing various peaks, including Ararat and Demavend, they left ...
Attempt on Bandako and Upper Munjan Valley. Our group, Harold Mellor, Chris George, John Wilson, Brian Serff, Jim Murray and myself as leader, left Britain on July 10 to travel overland. In Kabul permission was granted for the expedition to visit ...
Rasac, South Face. Our United Kingdom-New Zealand expedition, Julie- Ann Clyma, Martin Hair, David Hood and I, left the Cordillera Blanca to establish Base Camp on June 8 in the Cordillera Huayhuash on Jahuacocha at 5050 meters. Hair and I decided...
Mounts Gibson, Wates, McCoubrey, Above Steele Glacier. In early July John Tuthill, Jim Santos, Merry Farnum, Cathy Putnam and Chip Morgan, led by Tom Lyman with Jürg Hofer and me as whippers-in, were dropped by helicopter on the east side of the S...
Tirich Mir. On August 10 Jon Dasler, Dennis Olmstead, John Smolich and Allen Webb reached the summit of Tirich Mir (7708 meters, 25,260 feet) via the Upper Tirich Glacier and west saddle. They were supported by Lath Flanagan, Tom Gordon, Terry Jon...
Alaska Coast Range. On 16 June 1949 Fred Ayres, a member of a party of climbers organized by Fred Beckey, of Seattle, slipped and broke his ankle on a steep, glacier-scoured rock slope about 1100 feet above the waters of Twin Glacier Lake in the T...
Ama Dablam Attempt. The British twins, Alan and Adrian Burgess, and American Craig Ballenger attempted to climb the south ridge, the normal route, on Ama Dablam in winter. They reached a high point of 6400 meters on December 16 and then gave up in...
Moose’s Tooth, South Summit. Dave Lunn, Dave O’Neil and I were flown by Cliff Hudson to the Ruth Glacier just west of the Moose’s Tooth. We then skirted the broken east edge of the Ruth by going south (right) and then northeast before ascending th...
Suli Top, Eastern Kumaon. An Indian expedition led by Rama Kant Mahadik successfully climbed Suli Top (6300 meters, 20,670 feet). They ascended an icefall which had three steps to reach the north col. After a four-day storm they completed this fir...
K2 Attempt and Broad Peak Ascent. On July 16, Oscar Cadiach, Gabriel Gutiérrez, Xavier Pérez, Anton Ricard, Jaume Torm, Enric Hernández, Jordi Canals, Carles Valles, Lluis Gómez, Toni Arbonés, Joan Gelabert and I were all in Base Camp along with J...
Kangchungtse or Makalu II Attempt. Our commercial expedition started on a really bad note. Britons Mark Miller, the original leader, Victor Radvills, who was going to be the third guide, were both killed in the Pakistani International Airlines cra...
From June 14 to 18, Jim Donini and I did a new route on Mount Bradley’s southeast buttress from a base camp in the Ruth Gorge. The route, dubbed the Bourbon Bottle Route (in retaliation for Andreas Orgler’s Wine Bottle Route on Mount Dickey, and a...
Dhaulagiri, Ascents, Attemps and Tragedies in the Post-Monsoon. There were eight expeditions in the fall to Dhaulagiri (8167 meters, 26,795 feet), all of them on the standard northeast ridge. An International party led by Italian Marco Berti until...
In 2008, during an expedition to the Minya Konka Range (AAJ 2009, pp 350-352), Sébastien Moatti and I climbed a nameless summit of 5,200m in the Tshiburongi Valley north of Riuchi Gongga. While making this ascent, I noticed a towering granit...
LOSS OF CONTROL—VOLUNTARY GLISSADE, NO HARD HATWashington, Mount StuartOn the morning of June 25, Gordon Rieker (31) and Chuck Buzzard (40) left their base camp at 0315 and headed up Ulrich’s Couloir, a narrow gully leading to the summit of Mount ...
Dougal Haston: The Philosophy of Risk. Jeff Connor. Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 2002. 225 pages. Paperback. $15.00.Jeff Connor is a seasoned journalist and author whose book on wild men of the Creag Dhu was well received. In researching this book ...
Elena Parga and I spent a week in Kathmandu, waiting for the plane to Lukla. As far as Island Peak base camp the trail was full of tents and people, but then it was another world—nobody, only mountains. Beyond Lhotse Shar base camp we were forced ...