Yume Muztagh, first ascent. At 11:05 a.m. on August 1 all four members of our expedition succeeded in making the first ascent of an unnamed 6,345m peak in the Kun Lun Mountains. Although our average age was 61, all participated in every aspect of ...
Everest Ascents and Tragedy. It was a difficult year on the north side of Everest in the spring of 1994, with a total of six climbers who reached the summit and three deaths. Five of our team members got to the top, but tragically one died. The co...
Oregon, Mt. Hood. On June 25, a regularly scheduled Mazama climbing party of several ropes successfully climbed Mt. Hood by way of the Sunshine Route. Climbing conditions were good, the weather was excellent. The descent was made by way of the Coo...
STRANDED, RAPPEL FAILURE, FAILURE TO FOLLOW ROUTE, INEXPERIENCECalifornia, Yosemite ValleyOn April 3, 1980, at 1 p.m., Rangers Rohrbach, Dill, Cowan and Patterson were dispatched to Rixon’s Pinnacle to investigate cries for help. We met with Fred ...
Jeff Lowe on the EigerDavid Roberts*CLIMBING HARD ALL DAY, Jeff Lowe had forced an intensely complicated route through a wilderness of false leads and deadends, but darkness caught him short of the ledge he had hoped to reach. He had no choice but...
Arizona, Camelback Mt. On 22 December, Peter Sandberg (28), his wife Nancy (27), and A1 Dutton (38), drove to Camelback Mt. in Phoenix where they planned to do a 200-foot rock climb called the Icebox. Sandberg climbed the first 60 feet of the clim...
The Height of Mount LoganWalter A. WoodALTHOUGH Mount Logan is visible from the coastal fringe and from far off-shore in the Gulf of Alaska, its giant stature—indeed its very existence—was recognized only in 1890 when I. C. Russell saw the mountai...
Vampire Peaks, Various Ascents. On July 17, John Young, David Coleman, Cogie Reed, Harrison Shull, and I were dropped off in the Vampire Peaks for 27 days. The Vampire Peaks lie roughly 15 miles away from the Cirque of the Unclimbables in the sout...
Haystack, Southeast Face, West Face, Deep Lake Area, Wind River Range. In late August beautiful weather allowed Donna McBain and me to add two new routes to this rock-climbing haven. On August 27 we climbed a route in the middle of the 400-foot fa...
Deep South Section. The principal Section activity was the organization by Frank Nederhand and me of the 2011 Cordillera Blanca Environmental Expedition. Frank, John All, Clinton Lewis, and Brett Overcash from this Section and 13 other dedicated e...
Scrambles on Bear Creek Spire, Sierra Nevada(First Ascent from the East)Norman ClydePERHAPS the least known of the finer peaks of the southern Sierra Nevada of California is Bear Creek Spire. Although only a moderately impressive peak when seen fr...
Mt. Fay, Sans Blitz. Barry Blanchard, Rolando Garibotti, and I skied 17 kilometers into Consolation Lakes on April 13, hauling our packs on sleds and fretting over the two sets of ski tracks in front of us. There had been much talk about climbing ...
P. Jim Ratz 1952-2005Jim Ratz reached an extraordinary number of people with his wisdom and deep friendship. In the weeks after his death in a climbing accident in Sinks Canyon, Wyoming, it became clear that the depth and frequency of communicatio...
Makalu, Southeast Ridge Attempt. Our light-weight expedition attempted the southeast ridge of Makalu without resorting to artificial oxygen or high- altitude porters. We were Renny Jackson, Scott Thorburn, Chas Macquarie, Peter Hollis, Peter Athan...
Juneau Icefield, ski traverse. As a mechanical engineering undergraduate, I studied glacial mechanics on the southern portion the Juneau Icefield of southeast Alaska and northwest British Columbia with Dr. Maynard M. Miller’s Glaciological Institu...
Mike Strassman 1960–2007Mike Strassman, prolific first ascentionist, writer, and video maker was found dead at home in Lone Pine on July 1. He was 47 years old. Mike was best known for directing the 1988 video Moving Over Stone. But as his friends...
In the College Glacier region, numerous 8,000' peaks (the highest peaks in the Delta Mountains south of the Denali Fault) make for good late-April/early-May weekend outings with a small rack of pins and pickets for glacier travel. With various Fai...
Madame Butterfly, Attempt. On August 16, five of us arrived in Islamabad, capital of Pakistan, and hired a car to take us to the Chinese border. After changing vehicles at the Kunjerab Pass, we arrived in Kashgar, Xinjang Province, China, on Augus...
Yalung Kang from the North and Tragedy. Our Slovene expedition had as its objective the first ascent of Yalung Kang from the north. There were several possibilities. The most attractive but the least sure and most dangerous was to follow the north...
FALL ON ROCK, FAILURE TO FOLLOW ROUTE, PROTECTION PULLED OUT, INEXPERIENCEWisconsin, Devil's Lake State Park, ResurrectionA climber set out to do a classic route—Resurrection (5.9). Tom was a competent gym climber at 5.10+, but he had no experienc...