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 ...
YearTotal Number of Reported AccidentsNumber of Deaths1947 15111948 28151949 1791950 3081951 1841952 35141953 25121954 3181955 3461956 46101957 45171958 32111959 3716
North Chasm View Wall, The Pig Series. The Pig Series is comprised of two routes, No Pig Deal (V 5.11+ R) and No Pig Left (V 5.12 C1), that ascend the western end of the North Chasm View Wall in the Black Canyon. Mike Pennings and I descended the ...
Denali’s West Rib Solo in WinterDavid StaeheliHOPING TO CLIMB DENALI’S SOUTH Face solo in the style of its first winter ascent (AAJ, 1983, pages 93-97), my pilot friend Paul Claus set me down on the southeast fork of the Kahiltna Glacier on Februa...
Muztagh Ata (7,546m), south ridge. On August 24 Valery Shamalo and I from St. Petersburg reached the main summit of Muztagh Ata via the south ridge. As we were well acclimatized after our ascent of Koskulak and had previous experience on the Kalax...
CheckmateA change in strategy brings success on the northwest face of Tengkangpoche in NepalUeli SteckWe had climbed light and fast, but not fast enough. On April 10, we started up Tengkangpoche’s northwest face. With our meagre rack—three Camalot...
ARTHUR OLIVER WHEELERMay 1st, 1860 - March 20th, 1945As rugged in character as the mountains he surveyed, few have been so completely identified with mountains and mountaineering as Arthur Oliver Wheeler, who led the strenuous life of a mountain t...