Great Trango Tower, Korean Fantasy, Previously Unreported. From June 21-August 19, 1997, expedition members Sang-Jo Lee (leader), Youn-Jung Shin (f), Choi Seung-Chol and Hyung- Jin Kim established a variation to the Norwegian Buttress Route on the...
Lhotse Shar Attempt. Spaniards Josema Casimiro, Joaquín Goñi, Jorge Corominas and Mikel Otermin, led by Mari Abrego, failed to climb the southeast ridge of Lhotse Shar. From the time they established Base Camp in the last days of March, they were ...
Churen Himal West Attempt. A team of four Northern Irishmen attempted Churen Himal West by its southwest face. From Camp I, on May 4 leader Dawson Stelfox and Martin Manson reached the team’s high point of 21,500 feet while the other two members, ...
Elqui Valley and Los Corrales Valley, first ascents. In the upper Elqui Valley and on the Chilean-Argentinean border east of the town of Vicuna there seems to be a number of unclimbed mountains, all rising above very arid plains and valleys. The f...
Peak North of Mount Tyr. From July 14 to 19, Walter Obergolser, Reinhard Siller, Claus Obrist, Karl Hofer and I climbed a difficult new route of 17 pitches on the peak north of Mount Tyr (VI, 5.7 to 5.12a, A0). We ascended the north face of the bu...
Unnamed Peak (6248 m), first ascent. This peak lies southeast of Ramjak on the opposite side of the valley and was climbed for the first time on August 15 by Indians, Nitin Gandhi, Paresh Rathod, and Sudhir Raut. These three set up base camp at Ch...
Kamet Attempt and Abi Gamin, 1989. Ours was the first joint Indian-Netherlands expedition. We were Indians N.D. Sherpa, overall leader, Wangchuk Sherpa, Shiromanu Singh, Ramesh Chand Kapoor, Purmal Singh Dharmashaktu and Netherlanders Frans Tasela...
Zebak Area. Two other Polish expeditions were in the Zebak area. The Krakow Academic Alpine Club Expedition was led by Marian Bala. On July 27 S. Jaworski and M. Rusinow climbed Kohe Ratkhut (c. 19,160 feet; Wala-Zebak 217) and Rakhe Har, East and...
Aguja Guillaumet, All-Woman Ascent. In 1994, Argentines Marcela Antonucci and Patricia Malatesta made the first all-woman ascent of the Argentine route on the northwest spur of the Aguja Guillaumet, which was first climbed in 1965 by José Luis Fon...
P 4810, 1000 Years of Russian Christianity, Piramidalny and Other Peaks, Pamir Alai, Kirgizia. Tierry Schmitter, Matthijs van Hasselt, Hans Lanters and I climbed many peaks during our five-week stay in the Asan region. Together with our hosts from...
Redgarden Wall, Le Void, Eldorado Canyon. Le Void, a spectacular and long-standing aid climb, was done all-free late this August. The ascent involved substantial difficulties, most notably the previously freed 5.11 section and a leaning hand crack...
Kalanka, north face attempt. This 2,000-meter face has only a single route, climbed by a Czechoslovakian team using fixed ropes in 1977 during the mountain’s second ascent. Several teams have failed to climb the north buttress, a line in the middl...
Fluted Peak, Karcha Nala. K.V. Mohan led an expedition to this peak (6159 meters, 20,207 feet). Mohan reached the summit on August 20 with porters Moti and Vijay.Harish Kapadia, Editor, Himalayan Journal
MICHAEL KOSHUTA1956-1990On this fall morning in Colorado, I get up to light the wood stove and fix a cup of coffee. I sit down to a view out the window of hillsides sprinkled with the colors of autumn, the pines and the newly whitened peaks. The h...
Howser Spire: New Routes. On 23 July 1946 F. D. Ayres, J. C. Oberlin, Edward Little and D. M. Woods climbed Howser Spire (10,950 ft.) by a new route. From a bivouac at the foot of the W. ridge of Pigeon Spire, they left at 5.30 a. m.; and they mad...
El Capitan, Heavy Metal and Tinker Toys. In August, Boulos Ayad, Tyson Hausdoerffer and I managed to establish an 11-pitch new route on the southeast face of El Capitan that we named Heavy Metal and Tinker Toys (VI 5.10 PDH). The route joins Atlan...
Beware the FutureRobert HoranIN THE EARLY 1980s, Boulder, Colorado area standards for free climbing began to rise. Now, well into the 80s, the standards have sky-rocketed. Once again, Boulder’s free climbers are among the country’s leaders of diff...
Cerro Almirante Nieto, West Face. Ben Webster (Canada) and Sergio Echevarría (Chile) climbed the west face of Cerro Almirante Nieto in November, 1996, in six hours without a rope. It was a hard hike on snow and rocks. They spent four days in base ...
HENRY IVES BALDWIN1896-1992Henry Baldwin was bom in Saranac Lake, N.Y. and brought up in the Adirondacks, where he was one of the founders of the Adirondack Mountain Club. He was one of the early enthusiastic skiers, learning and perfecting the te...
Climbing with a friend is great. Climbing with four friends even better. We inevitably come away tired from cranking and laughing. Jean-Baptiste Assier’s black belt in judo allowed us to enter nightclubs without worrying about our safet...