The Brenva Face of Mt. Blanc in 1933The good condition of the ice climbs during most of the 1933 campaign made this climb rather popular. On July 25th the writer left Courmayeur in the afternoon with Evaristo Croux to spend the night at the Pavili...
Everest Super Couloir Attempt. Robert Anderson, Harry Kent, Chris Reveley, Jay Smith, Paul Teare and I as leader failed in our alpine-style bid on Everest’s Super Couloir (Japanese-Hombein Couloirs). To our great disappointment, the window of favo...
Nanga Parbat Attempt via the Mazeno Ridge. The west ridge of Nanga Parbat is about eight miles long from the Mazeno Pass. It is the longest ridge of any of the 8000ers and remains unclimbed. Although Nanga Parbat is very popular, there has been su...
Mount Deborah, West Face. During late April and May of 1980 Charlie Sassara, Robert Frank and I attempted Mount Deborah’s northwest ridge. After reaching 10,000 feet, we were turned back by extremely sugary snow on a knife-edge. It was during the ...
FALL ON ROCK, CLIMBING UNROPED, INEXPERIENCEUtah, Wasatch Mountains, Mount OlympusOn June 29, Michael Fox and two companions were hiking in the North Fork, below Mount Olympus. Along the way, they encountered a rock buttress that Michael decided t...
Medicine for Mountaineering. Edited by James A. Wilkerson, M.D. The Mountaineers, Seattle, Washington, 1992. 416 pages, line drawings. $16.95.It is unusual for the layman to find books on how to recognize and manage medical problems, let alone boo...
FALL ON ICE, INADEQUATE BELAY, EXCEEDING ABILITIESColorado, Rocky Mountain National Park, ThatchtopOn November 6, at 1300, Chris Chierello (29) was leading the Snake Route (I, WI4) on Thatchtop North Face, and was belayed by Mark Keating (21). Chi...
Western Kokshaal-Too, first ascent of “Tombstone Tower.” Fermented horse milk is a delicacy not to be missed. Especially if accompanied by freshly beheaded, blood-boiled lamb, goat yogurt, and yak butter on homemade fry-bread. The boiled goat head...
JarjinjaboNew routes, old worlds; and other epiphanies from the Tibetan borderlands.Edited by Peter AthansIt felt like jumping off the edge of the world. Where China’s Sichuan Province and Tibet meet in the Tibetan Borderlands, the ranges appear w...
CEREBRAL EDEMA, FROSTBITE, INADEQUATE EQUIPMENT (FOOD), BAD WEATHER, SLIP ON ICEAlaska, Mt. McKinleyOn June 8, 1980, Simon McCartney (24) and Jack Roberts began a climb on the Southwest Face of Mt. McKinley from the northeast fork of the Kahiltna ...
Mts. Hubbard, Kennedy, South Kennedy, and Alverstone, Various Activity. On June 22, Kurt Gloyer of Gulf Air Taxi flew Douglas Bonoff, Doug Zimmerman, and I to the 2580-meter level on the Cathedral Glacier in Kluane National Park from Yakutat. Two ...
George Sainsbury, 1925–2011George Ross Sainsbury, AAC board member, chairman of Seattle Mountain Rescue, and charter member of Olympia Mountain Rescue, passed away in Bakersfield, California, on March 13, 2011, while returning from a bird-watching...
Recent Ascents in the Selkirk Range. During the last 25 years there have been only six brief reports of new routes in the Selkirk Range published in the AAJ. Based on this publication history, readers might easily conclude that there is little act...
Robert F. Kamps 1931-2005Having lived this long, I’ve found the most important measure of our climbing days is not what grades or climbs we achieve, but what we get from it all down deep, especially our times with others. On these counts, my frien...
West Temple, How the West Was Won. In April I teamed up with the Greer brothers, Jared and Brody, to attempt the previously unclimbed 2,000'+ west face of West Temple. We started with the path of least resistance in the center of the face, followi...
THIS story really begins in the winter of 1942, back in the “good old days” when the 10th Mountain Division was a single battalion of enthusiastic volunteers. These were the days of Mt. Rainier, the experimental, glee club days. Back then, and alw...
Charles Fredrick Kroger 1946–2007 “I’ve been thinking, Clay. Maybe I don’t have much time left, so what should I do? Try to find a cure for pancreatic cancer? I don’t think I could do as well as lots of other people trying to solve that problem. B...
Laurel Knob was purchased by the Carolina Climbers Coalition in 2006, which opened the cliff to legal first ascent activity. It is a beautiful granite dome hosting primarily slab climbing with some vertical sections. At the top it rounds off, as m...
Mt. Talchako, Northeast Ridge. In the last week of July, Fred Beckey (2003 Subaru), Drew Brayshaw (Chilliwack, B.C.), James Nakagami (Woodinville, WA), and I (Redmond, WA) flew from Hagensborg, B.C., with Richard Lapointe of West Coast Helicopters...
HEART ATTACKWashington, Mount RainierIn early August, Lawrence “Laury” Minard (51), a Seattle native who had moved to London to edit and write for Forbes Global Magazine, collapsed and died around 12,000 feet up Mount Rainier during a guided climb...