Dragontail, Northwest Face. In early April John Wasson and I climbed a route on Dragontail to the right of Serpentine Arête. We started the climb on a thin ice smear, and the next four pitches were on good ice leading up to a big snowfield. At the...
California, El Capitan Peak. On December 2, David Gunn (19) and a group of twelve other teenage hikers embarked on an ascent of El Capitan Peak, a prominent landmark near Lakeside. During the ascent of a brushy scree slope one member of the party ...
Dharamsura (White Sail Peak), Ascent. A Japanese team led by Zennosuke Sakurazawa climbed Dharamsura (6445 m) by the east face on September 7. Summitters were Z. Sakurazawa, Yusuo Kurasawa, Tstuomu Aoki, Takashi Chiko, Masanobu Ouchi, Fatehchand a...
Summit Chief Mountain, Alpine Chicken. Alpine ice climbing in Washington is so suck. From time to time, however, the weather does conspire to create decent enough conditions to grovel one’s way up a face using crampons and ice tools. Such was the ...
ROCK AND SNOW AVALANCHEAlberta, Rocky Mountains, Mount KitchenerTwo climbers, both in their early twenties, were attempting the Grand Central Couloir on the north face of Mount Kitchener on August 22, 1982. Due to bad conditions, they decided to a...
HAPEAlaska, Mount McKinley, West ButtressAt 1245 on Mayl 1, George Payot (63), a member of the Denali French Expedition, approached the NPS 14,200-foot camp complaining of shortness of breath. Payot stated he first began experiencing respiratory p...
Silverstar Mountain, 1986. A new route was made in September 1986 on the northeast buttress and finally the east ridge. Dave Beckstead and I found interesting, sometimes very challenging climbing on the slabs and towers of this ridge. The route be...
Southwest Section. We had four main events in 2011, finishing strongly with a successful winter dinner. The Section enjoyed good climbing and friendship January 15-16 at Joshua Tree with the Southern California Mountaineers Association. Included w...
Nanda Devi East Ascent and Tragedy. An expedition of Indian paratroopers was led by Major Kiran I. Kumar. After reaching Base Camp at 16,250 feet in the Nanda Devi Sanctuary on September 7, they set up Camps I, II, III and IV on the southwest ridg...
Altitudes of Nepalese Peaks. The reader will notice that many of the altitudes of Nepalese peaks are different from what had previously been accepted. The new altitudes are those given the Editor by Dr. Harka Gurung and are based on the latest ava...
Haramosh. An Austrian expedition, led by Heinrich Roiss and including Rudi Ebner, Stefan Pauer, Dr. Franz Mandl, and Dr. Rudolf Hammerschlag, made the first ascent of Haramosh (24,270 feet), which had been attempted in 1957 by the Oxford Universit...
Chomolhari, Chamolhari Range. It was reported that a joint Japanese/Chinese expedition climbed Chomolhari (7326 m) on the Tibet/Bhutan border from the Tibetan side by a new route. Further details are lacking. (Yama Kei)
Jichu Drake, 1984. Our party consisted of Ataru Deguchi, Noboru Sudo, Keiichi Sudo, Masahiko Chigara, Takuo Kikuchi, Kenzo Shinmazu, Moriya Hara, Shoji Seki and me as leader. We made Base Camp on May 4, 1984 at 4500 meters by a glacial lake east o...
Makalu Winter Attempt. Our expedition was composed of Poles Andrzej Machnik, leader, Grzegorz Fliegel, Julian Kobowicz, Wojciech Jedlinski, Zbigniew Terlikowski and Dr. Krzysztof Witkowski, Thomaz Brandolin of Brazil and me from the United States....
LIGHTNINGUtah, Little Cottonwood CanyonA violent storm swept through Salt Lake Valley on July 8, and lightning struck two climbers in Little Cottonwood Canyon near Alta, killing one and critically injuring the other. Winds gusted to 60 knots, and ...
On March 15, Russell Page (22) was participating in a rappel training exercise near one of the access gullies, west of the Amphitheater. He was with a group of EMS/Firefighters from Forsyth Community College (NC) when he fell to the ground below.T...
Mount Logan Research. A glaciological expedition led by me spent 42 days, from June 1 to July 13, on Mount Logan, carrying out a snow-pit sampling traverse and resurveying the snow saddle (5320 meters) between Russell Peak and Prospectors’ Peak (5...
Brazil, new routes. Of the new routes added in Brazil in 2008, some of the most impressive were Raja Begun, South Face of Pedra do Fritz, and Sensação de Êxtase.The huge slab of Raja Begun (640m, 5.12a R) follows a line of good holds mixed with fr...
INADEQUATE EQUIPMENT AND CLOTHING, INEXPERIENCE, DARKNESS, EXPOSURENew Hampshire, Mount Washington, Damnation GullyOn a Tuesday morning in January, two ice climbers from Connecticut, Damian McDonald and Susanna Saarkangas (ages unknown), were resc...
La Esfinge, Variante Checa. In June we had the opportunity to attempt to open a big-wall variation on La Esfinge (5,350m). David Font, from Cataluña, Spain, a Mexican friend Emiliano Villanueva, one porter, and I joined as a team. We climbed the f...