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...
FALL ON ROCK, WEATHERCalifornia, Tuolumne Meadows, Daff DomeOn July 29, Hope Wolf (28), an instructor for the Yosemite Mountaineering School, was leading a group of six clients back from a day’s climbing at Daff Dome when they were caught by a mid...
Roca Grande de la Junta, Cerro Virgen, New Route. Catalans Joanfra Farreras, Xavier Teixidó, Josep Maria Esquirol, Pau Barrios and Manel Solís, with the collaboration of Guillem Barrios, climbed a new route on Roca Grande de la Junta in the early ...
Washington, Mt. Rainier. On the morning of September 10, a party consisting of Elmer Post (39), David Post (19) and James Bartram (19) attempted to make a one day hike to Camp Muir from Paradise and return. The weather at Paradise during the day w...
Sarah and Tony Whitehouse returned to the Hermelndal to finish their line attempted in 2007 (see AAJ 2008), left of Rapakivi Road on the east face of Tininnertuup IV. The pair used fixed ropes, and after climbing the first three pitches of Rapakiv...
FALL ON SNOW–LOSS OF CONTROL ON VOLUNTARY GLISSADE, IMPROPER CLOTHINGCalifornia, Mount BaldyOn April 16, veteran California mountaineer and author Robert (R.J.) Secor (48), glissaded out of control 1,200 vertical feet from near the summit of Mount...