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...

Churen Himal. An expedition of Tokyo University was led by Dr. Makoto Takahashi. They attempted both the east and west peaks of Churen Himal (both peaks 24,184 feet). Camp V on the east ridge was set up on May 10 at 20,700 feet and Camp V on the w...

FALL INTO CREVASSE, FAILURE TO FOLLOW ROUTE, INADEQUATE CLOTHING Washington, Mount RainierOn August 8, 1987, Larry Weathur (42) was climbing on a rope of four team members at the 2900-meter level of the Emmons Glacier, just below Camp Schurman. Ra...

Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Dobbs Hartshorne and I approached the range in July 1972 in three days via San Sebastián from the southwest to Lago Naboba, the site of our Base Camp. This route is superior to the usual, southeast approach, via Atanq...

Cerro San Juan, 1991. This high peak lies northwest of Cerro Alma Negra, in the Mercedario group. Silvia Tejada, Humberto Campodónico, Luis Gómez, Mauricio Manzi, Manuel Maurín, Iván Nobre and Fabián Olivieri from the city of San Juan placed camp ...

FALL ON ICE, COMBING ALONE AND UNROPED, INADEQUATE EQUIPMENT Colorado, Rocky Mountain National ParkOn September 24, 1989, John Ashby (38) was attempting an unroped solo ascent of thinly iced Alexander’s Chimney (5.5) on the East Face of Longs Peak...

Colorado—Red Rocks Park, Ship Rock: On October 10, 1953, Ronald Hedge (19) attempted to climb the steep face of Ship Rock in Red Rocks Park. When he was up about 65 feet, he lost his footing and fell to his death on the rocks below.Source: Newspap...

Mountain of the Sun, West Face, “Tao of Light,” Zion National Park. Paul Turecki and I climbed a new big-wall route on the 2000-foot unclimbed west face of the Mountain of the Sun in the main Zion Canyon. Our route took the crack line on the edge ...

Colorado, Mt. Thorodin. On 10 June Joseph Willoughby (20) and Garris Flebbe, both moderately experienced climbers, saw a storm approaching while on a technical climb of the West Face of Mt. Thorodin and began their retreat. Willoughby was rappelli...

FALL ON ROCK, UNROPEDAlberta, Rocky Mountains, Grotto CanyonOn the evening of August 8,1993, Bow Valley Ambulance in Canmore was called about a climbing accident in Grotto Canyon. They notified Kananaskis Central District, who dispatched rangers t...

Nanda Devi, attempt and tragedy. A 16-member team led by Mohammed Mamun Rashid had major plans to climb the 7434m East Peak and traverse to the Main summit. Approaching during the autumn via the usual route from the east, they had set up base camp...