Keeler Needle, East Face. In September 1973 John Weiland and I made a new route on the east face of Keeler Needle. We started on the right side of the face and climbed six pitches all free except for 30 feet up into the base of the huge red dihedr...
New Yosemite Routes. Eric Kohl added four new routes to Yosemite’s walls in 1993. In April, he soloed Indecision Time (VI, 5.7, A4), just east of the Ribbon Falls amphitheater. The eight-pitch route climbs the center of the Hourglass formation and...
Snow Creek Wall. A direct route up the 900-foot Snow Creek Wall near Leavenworth was completed by Fred Beckey and Ron Niccoli in two days of climbing. The upper section was featured by a 300-foot solitary crack on a flawless wall that required the...
Everest Post-Monsoon Ascents by a Mexican, Japanese and Koreans. On October 13, Mexican Carlos Carsolio, leader of a four-man team, reached the summit of Everest by the South Col route. That same day and by the same route, Japanese Toichiro Mitani...
Mount Nelson, East Ridge, Southern Purcells. The east ridge of Mount Nelson is the most direct route to the summit starting from Paradise Mine. On June 23 Hans Gyr and I left the mine, followed the ridge and traversed along the southern slopes of ...
Gangapurna Attempts. There were two unsuccessful expeditions to Gangapuma (7455 meters, 24,457 feet) in the post-monsoon period. Eight Spaniards were led by Francisco José Palacios. After getting to 5900 meters on the north face on October 17, the...
FALLING ROCK, DISLODGED ON RAPPEL Wisconsin, Devil’s Lake State ParkOn September 14, 1988, Kelly Hill (20) fractured his ankle when he dislodged a rock while rappelling from West Bluff. (Source: Devil’s Lake State Park)(Editor’s Note: Our thanks t...
The Needles, Southwest Face of Witch, The Witch Doctor. In June Mike Grabor, Rick Ridgeway and I climbed this improbable-looking route. The southwest face is distinguished by a prominent bomb-bay chimney on the upper-half. Our route, however, stay...
STRANDED, CLIMBING ALONE, FREE SOLO CLIMBING, OFF ROUTE, INADEQUATE EQUIPMENTColorado, First FlatironLate in the afternoon on December 10 Xavier Rojas (20) became stranded while free soloing the Direct (Standard) East Face (5.6), a six- pitch rout...
Nanga Parbat Attempts. Few of the expeditions to Nanga Parbat this year were successful. Among those which did not get to the summit were parties made up of British and Swedes led by Michael Scott, Germans under the leadership of Fritz Schreinmose...
Cho Oyu ski descent and discussion of 8,000-meter ski descents. Fewer than 40 people have skied from an elevation of 8,000m or greater. In 1978 Nicolas Jaeger and Jean Afanassieff quietly made tracks into history when they strapped their skis to t...
Little Johannesburg, Plumline Buttress. Unnamed on maps, this 7945-foot monolith sits directly across the valley from Easy Pass, just inside the boundary of North Cascade National Park. On August 21 Steve Costie, Chris Martenson, Ken Small and I m...
Nanga Parbat Climbed by Bulgarians. An expedition of five Bulgarians led by Minko Zankovski climbed the normal route on the Diamir Face of Nanga Parbat. Camps were established at 4800, 6000, 6700 and 7400 meters. After setting up Camp IV on August...
Silicon Tower, Verita Ridge. On a long one-day trek in September, 1961 into Goat Lakes, Louis Stur, Jim Ball and I climbed the west face of Silicon Tower, the very prominent tower in the lowest point of Verita Ridge, north of Warbonnet Peak. Later...
Pinnacles in Little Slide Canyon. In July, Joe Kiskis and I trudged to the head of Little Slide Canyon from Twin Lakes. Originally interested in something of greater magnitude, we were diverted by the lure of the beautiful pinnacles sprouting from...
Fitz Roy. On February 28 Alan and Adrian Burgess and I climbed Fitz Roy via the American route; this was the third time on that route and the ninth ascent. We had difficulty in digging a snow cave in the usual place near Terray's route but found a...
Altar Group, Ecuadorian Ascents. On December 3, 1978, six Ecuadorian climbers of the Agrupación de Montaña P. Leiva made the third ascent of Monja Grande (c. 5300 meters, 17,400 feet), which had been ascended twice in 1968 by Californians. The Ecu...
The Ice Cream Cone, Southwest Face. Known by local Matanuska Valley residents as The Ice Cream Cone (8,675') and by Anchorage locals as the Sky Buster, this peak was climbed in April by Carl Oswald, Chris Flowers and Matt Porter. Some tenacious sc...
Trinity Dome and Gauntlet Peak. In August Tim Donnelly, Stan Grossman, Ken Hunter, Larry Lempert and I traveled to the area east of the Pangnirtung Pass on Baffin’s Cumberland Peninsula. During six days of continuous clear weather, we approached t...
Chacraraju Este. French climbers Nicole Mazuir and Philippe Modéré climbed Chacraraju Este in August. They followed the route first climbed by Brewer and Richey in 1978 and probably made the second complete ascent of the route. (Japanese in 1979 r...