The Fifth Column, Yodel This. In the summer of 1995, I noticed a beautiful wall just over the Garnet Canyon trail. That evening I consulted the pink bible, otherwise known as the Ortenburger/Jackson Climber’s Guide to the Tetons, and found that th...
Trango Nameless Tower. On August 13, Cho Dukkyu, Cho Chonghwan, So Hoyoung and I completed the ascent of the Slovene route on the Nameless Tower. The other two members of our expedition were leader Sunwoo Choongok and Kim Cheol. After driving to A...
Kangtega Attempt. Four Swiss led by Hans Rauner attempted the southeast face of Kangtega (6779 meters, 22,241 feet). They reached a high point of 6600 meters on December 1.Elizabeth Hawley
In October Dave Turnbull and I, with Graham Desroy and Jonny Ratcliffe, visited West Nepal. Graham and Jonny’s activity is recorded below. Dave and I made the first ascent of a mountain called Gojung. Formerly referred to as Mugu Chuli, this summi...
INADEQUATE WATER, FATIGUE, LOSS OF GEAR, UNABLE TO CONTINUE CLIMBINGCalifornia, Yosemite Valley, El CapitanOn July 3, Japanese climber Hideki Inaba (33) began a solo climb of Cosmos (VI 5.9 A4). He had chosen it because he thought it was a beautif...
K2, Amical Alpin Expedition and the Death of Steve Untch. Our international expedition included New Zealander Rob Hall. Finn Veikka Gustafsson, Frenchmen Dr. Philippe Arvis and Alain Roussey, and Germans Henning Paschke, Rodja Ratteit, Axel Schlön...
EXCEEDING ABILITIES - OFF ROUTE, INADEQUATE EQUIPMENT AND WATER, HYPOTHERMIA, FROSTBITEAlaska, Mount McKinleyOn May 3, the Densan party from Great Britain arrived at Kahiltna basecamp, 7,200 feet on the Kahiltna Glacier. The three members of this ...
Solitude on K2Pierre Beghin, Groupe de Haute MontagneIT WAS ON THE SOUTH FACE OF Lhotse that I really got to know Christophe Profit. In October of 1990, we lived together on that forbidding wall during an adventure of the kind we both love: a simp...
Dawa Peak, Snotty’s Gully, second ascent; Phari Lapcha, The End of the Beginning, first ascent. Halvor Dannevig and I traveled to the upper Khumbu, hoping to find interesting climbing on “not too high” peaks. We consider how we do it to be more im...
Front Range Section. As a result of the AAC Sections Committee’s work, the Central Rockies Section was divided into smaller, more locally focused sections. One of them is the Front Range Section, composed of the eastern half of Colorado and the so...
Prusik Peak, 1984. My brother Ted, Dan Nordstrom and I made a free climb west of the Stanley-Burgner route on August 13, 1984. The climb begins under a triangular overhang in the large dihedral system left of the south-face chimney. Three rope-len...
Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest. Wade Davis. Knopf, 2011. 672 pages. Black & white photos. Hardcover. $32.50.I begin with a confession. Opening Wade Davis’s Into the Silence for the first time, I found it ...
The Fin, Earth, Wind, and Choss, New Route. On May 7, Russel Mitrovich, Mike Libecki, and I, plus expedition camera crew Peter Mallamo and John Middendorf, departed from Clyde River on a 120-mile dogsled journey over the frozen Baffin Bay. We hire...
Mountain Rescue—Chamonix Mt. Blanc: A Season with the World’s Busiest Mountain Rescue Service. Anne Sauvy. Translated by Sue Harper. London: Baton Wicks, 2005. 300 pages. Softcover. £14.99. $34.95.Anyone who has climbed very much in Chamonix recog...
Castle Peak, Herrington-Hirst. Inspired by tales of steep, clean granite and impressed with the attention given to Castle Peak by the likes of Fred Beckey and Alan Kearney, I recruited Peter Hirst into joining me for Castle’s north face, which is ...
Number of Accidents ReportedTotal Persons InvolvedInjuredFatalitiesUSACANUSACANUSACANUSACAN195115221131952313517131953242712121954314131819553439286195646725413195745532818195832392311195942256231019219604746412378194196149961144510144196271190164...
In late June, Steve Bosque and I completed a 13-pitch independent line on the west face of Liberty Cap. The route follows a long crack system that shoots straight through a huge, white scar, the wall’s most prominent feature. Steve and his...
The Sikkim HimalayaROBERT H. T. DODSONSikkim is a tiny, semi-autonomous state, ruled by a Maharajah and enclosing within its borders some of the highest and most spectacular parts of the Himalaya. It is a rectangle, approximately 60 miles from nor...
Cuchillo, New Route. In July, Jeff Newsom and Chris Gardei (U.S.) gained Cuchillo’s (5655m) west ridge via the fourth snow and ice gully from the east (60-65°). The pair were forced down off the ridge on to the other side of the mountain. They the...
The Minaret, Reinhold Pussycat; Flattop Peak, Sibling Rivalry. On July 28 Bruce Miller and I completed the first ascent of the west face of The Minaret in 18 hours round trip from the East Creek Basin. Reinhold Pussycat (V 5.10+ A2) follows a natu...