Dharamsura. An Indian ladies’ expedition climbed Dharamsura (21,- 165 feet) on October 3. Roma Sen Gupta, leader, Bani Bose, Maitreyee Mitra, Chhanda Bhattacherjee, Rachana Das, Sati Patra, two Sherpas: Nawang Tsering and Karma, and three high-alt...
Brazos Cliffs, White Couloir Route. This spectacular quartzite face rises some 2000 feet above the Brazos River in northern New Mexico. Several routes have been pioneered by George Bell and others, but large sections of the five-mile-long cliffs r...
California, Yosemite National Park, Unicorn Peak. On 21 July Tom Luden (16) and a companion had completed short rock climbing routes on Unicorn Peak and Northeast side of Echo Ridge to its summit. The two boys then attempted a high traverse of the...
Explorer’s Club of Pittsburgh. The club had another active year with membership growing to over 150. In addition to vertical caving and rock-climbing programs, the ECP sponsored two foreign expeditions to Nanga Parbat and to the Santa Marta range ...
Panwali Dwar, Southeast Ridge, and Vasuki Parbat, East Face. The four-man Japanese Ritsumeikan University party was composed of Keisuke Nakae, leader, Takeshi Kobayashi, Masahiro Nomura and Hiroshi Nomura. We set up Base Camp at 12,000 feet on the...
Cannon Mountain, Direct start to VMC Direct. This variation was first made by Steve Arsenault and me on June 7 and 8. We made a hammock bivouac after four pitches where the route merged with the normal VMC Direct. The route starts 30 feet north of...
FALL ON ROCK, FAULTY USE OF BELAY DEVICEOntario, Milton, Rattlesnake PointOn April 27, 1985, a climber (30) with some experience was leading a pitch, belayed by someone (25-30) who had never climbed before. He found the pitch too difficult, fell, ...
FALL ON ROCK, UNROPED, CLIMBING ALONE Quebec, Mont Saint HilaireOn September 6, a hiker made a macabre discovery at the foot of the northern slopes of Mont Saint Hilaire. A body rested among the rocks at the foot of a 250 metre high cliff near the...
Rataban. A 16-member Indo-New Zealand team was led by Lieutenant Colonel Balwant Singh Sandhu and Graeme Dingle. They set up Base Camp on August 23 at the head of the Valley of Flowers. On September 2 Raymond John Button and Captain Lakha Singh re...
Thalay Sagar Attempt. “Third time lucky” didn’t work in 1982 on Thalay Sagar’s north flank. We got to within 350 feet of the summit on June 26 but had to retreat because of a slight mishap. In excellent conditions we reached our previous high poin...
Balloon Dome, Northeast Face. Pouring over topographic maps one boring wet weekend a few winters ago, I became curious about the tightly woven contours on a feature adjacent to the upper San Joaquin River titled Balloon Dome. If those delicate bro...
Cordillera Darwin Traverse. Eight students of the Universidad Austral of Punta Arenas accomplished in February, 1983 the first complete traverse of the Cordillera Darwin, the principal and by far the most complex mountain massif in the Chilean por...
Simians. The fall of 1969 started with the usual introductory rock climbing sessions at Portland Arch, Indiana, and Devils Lake, Wisconsin. A number of enthusiastic beginners joined the ranks with the “old timers”, and 10 Simians spent Thanksgivin...
Chamlang, West Ridge. We got to Base Camp on September 22 with 13 Japanese and three Sherpa members. The approach was difficult in the unpopulated area and because of rain. The unclimbed west ridge looked deceptively easy. On September 26 we estab...
Peaks in the Ausangate Group, Cordillera Vilcanota. I took part in a German Alpine Club expedition to Peru, where we managed to climb six 5000-meter peaks: Saliojla (17,517 feet) on June 7 by Wolf, Faber, Heil, Prokoph, Rösier, Stix, Ströhlein, Se...
Candameña Canyon, Macuchi, Raramurí Lenguaje. To further the evolution of climbing, our team of six Mexican guys (Diego Delmar Garza, Pablo Fortes González, Marcos Madrazo Rodríguez, Daniel Castillo Migues, Julio Taba- res Fernández, and I) opened...
Amin Brakk, West Face, Sol Solet. Spaniards Sílvia Vidal, Miquel Puigdomènech and Pep Masip traveled to the Pakistan Karakoram, where, from July 8-August 8, they put up the route Sol Solet (“Sun, Little Sun”) (VII 6c+ A5 60° ice, 1650m) on the wes...
“Felix qui potuit.…" What seems to have been the most widely reported Alpine ascent in 1950 was made by a cat. “C’est un chat comme tous les autres chats,” writes “Z.” in La Cordée (March 1951), “un matou de 8 mois, noir et blanc, assez fort pour...
Appalachian Mountain Club. One of the highlights of this year’s activities was the ascent of the West Buttress of Mount McKinley by two groups: a party of five including one woman led by Reed Markley, and a party of seven including two women led b...
Manaslu, East Ridge. Ursula Huber, BedaFuster, Richard Ott, Barbara Wille, Ueli Stahel, Pierre André Levet and I started our approach from Gorkha with 54 porters on March 25. We ascended to Base Camp at 4500 meters with 24 porters from Sama on Apr...