P 20,970, Kiar Nalla, Kishtwar Himal. Our expedition made the first ascent of P 20,970, previously unclimbed and unnamed, during September and October. The mountain is the highest of several unclimbed peaks on the north side of the Kiar Nalla. We ...
Devils Tower. In May Layton Kor and I did a new route which we called the Vulture on the left portion of Devils Tower west face. The route ascends a long dihedral. The first 140-foot lead goes free to a small belay stance under an overhang. The ne...
San Pedro and Other Peaks, Northern Andes. The Federación de Andinismo de Chile held its Ninth National Convention between Sept. 16 and 23, 1978 in the high mountain area east of Calama, near the Chilean-Bolivian border. During the convention, the...
Mt. Hunter, Moonflower Buttress, fast ascent. From May 16 to 19 Doug Chabot and I climbed The Moonflower Buttress, to the summit, in a record “fast and heavy” 83-hour round trip. Our strategy included jugging difficult pitches and hauling, among o...
Falak Sar. Wolfgang Stefan, J. Griffiths and two Germans climbed Falak Sar, a third ascent, and the lower of the Batin Peaks (c. 18,700 feet).
Brammah, Kashmiri Himalaya. A group of Cambridge University students, Charles Clarke, leader; Simon Brown, Lieutenant Henry Day, Michael Tugendhat, Dilsher Singh Virk and Henry Edmundson, left Kishtwar in mid-July on a four-day trek to the Brammah...
Trisul. Trisul (23,360 feet) was climbed by a ladies’ expedition led by Dr. (Miss) Meena Agrawal and sponsored by the Climbers Club, Bombay. The leader and Sherpas Passang Lakhpa, Nima Tenzing and Nima Dorje reached the summit on June 4. Trisul wa...
Squamish Squaw, Right Wing Route. On June 24 and 25 Scott Davis, Al Givler and I made the first ascent of the Squaw via the crack system running through the main dihedral of the west face. Our first problem was locating the beginning of the dihedr...
Pico Bolívar, West-Northwest Rib, Sierra Nevada de Mérida, 1985. In a 13-day round trip from Britain, Jan Solvov and I were able to make the first complete ascent of the west-northwest rib of Pico Bolívar (5007 meters, 16,427 feet), the country’s ...
Nez Perce, First Winter Ascent. David George and George Lowe made the first winter ascent of this peak in February. Our original objective was the traverse from Nez Perce to the Middle Teton, but a foot of new snow during the day of the climb prov...
Colorado Mountain Club. All groups of the club report an active year. Unfortunately, some of the scheduled trips were curtailed and even cancelled by the unusually wet year in Colorado. This was particularly true on the Labor Day week-end when the...
From February 23-27, 1997, Alexander Ruchkin and Andrey Puchinin established the North Face Direct route (6A A3 +, 900m) on the north face of Free Korea Peak (4740m). The route takes a direct line up a weakness in the wall between the Bezzubkin an...
TAM Sur, Cordillera Huayhuash. On August 8 Hidalgo Arbaiza, Rómulo Carascal, Julián Velásquez, Federico Livia, and Victorino Basilio of the Club de Andinismo Cordillera Huayhuash of Chiquián climbed TAM Sur (18,192 feet) by its northeast ridge.Joh...
Salcantay, North Face, Cordillera Vilcabamba. From June 19 to 21, Peruvian Alberto Callupe and I made a new route on the north face of Salcantay. We approached in three days from Mollepata to the north side of Paso Palcay. The southeast and the ea...
FALL ON ROCK, INADEQUATE BELAYCalifornia, Yosemite ValleyOn October 20, 1985, about 1000, Ken Byers (41) was leading Catchy (5. lOd) on the Cookie Cliff. J. Farmer was at base on bottom belay using a Sticht plate. At 1130, Byers reached the “crux”...
Nanga Parbat, Rupal Buttress Attempt. Our expedition was composed of Yannick Seigneur, leader, Jean Afanassieff, Bernard Prud’homme, French, Bernd Neubaur, Michael Hoffmann, Rainier Pickl, Siegfried Wirth, Thomas Nuber, Germans and me, Swiss. We t...
Utah: Salt Lake City. (Although not a mountaineering accidebt, this is reported because of its tragic lesson.) On a graduation picnic, in the late spring of 1949, Glen Daw (17) fell to his death from a cliff on Storm Mountain, in Big Cottonwood Ca...
La Huasteca still has many walls to explore, and this 500m south-facing wall of limestone, just 15 minutes from Monterrey, had two routes and an unfinished project. David Tirado (Mexico), my wife Marisol Monterrubio (Mexico), and I started with...
HAPE, CE, ASCENDING TOO FASTAlaska, Mount McKinleyDuring May and early June, members of three separate foreign climbing teams were diagnosed as having High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE).Victor Grosley and Thomas Jannik (46), Yugoslavian climbers...
Pumori Attempt. Six climbers of Korean ancestry, although two are American citizens and one a Canadian, were led by Kim Ki-Hwan. They attempted the first-ascent route on the northeast ridge. After a three-week struggle on the east face, they gave ...