Rolf Larson and I bushwhacked up Swamp Creek on September 4, aiming for a new route on the northeast face of 8,444' Tower Mountain, whose shattered rock is notorious for turning back adventurers. Only one known route has been established on this...
Artesonraju, Cordillera Blanca, and Jatunhuma and Ausangate, Cordillera Vilcanota. On April 30 the Germans Werner Kabl and Horst Caha made the fourth ascent of Artesonraju, climbing the north ridge. Then they went to the Cordillera Vilcanota where...
Mount Kitchener, North Face. Bob Beall, Brian Greenwood, Rob Wood and George Homer made a Grade V new direct route on the north face of Mount Kitchener in August. There were 30 leads of roped climbing after 500 feet of unroped climbing at the bott...
FALL ON ROCK, INADEQUATE PROTECTION, POOR TECHNIQUENew Hampshire, Cathedral Ledge, RecompenseOn June 28, Bayard Russel (26) and I (Rand McNally—48) were climbing Recompense (5.9). I was leading the first pitch and we were using a doublerope techni...
Central Andes. Four members of the mountain club of the Universidad de Chile placed a camp on the border pass of Piuquenes in early February. They made several ascents along the border ridge: Cerro Puente Alto (13,878 feet) February 8 by Carlos Ro...
Porong Ri, First Ascent and Tragedy. A 14-man Japanese expedition led by Torn Ito made the first ascent of Porong Ri (7294 meters, 23,898 feet), which is connected to Shishapangma by a ridge and lies some five miles to the northwest. Base Camp was...
Nevado Kayesh, Italian Route variation attempt. In June Guillermo Mejia and I set up a tent on the glacier, a half-hour from the bergschrund of Kayesh (5721m). We started up the German line, then followed the fixed Italian ropes (1973) until they ...
Vallunaraju, First Ascent of North Ridge. Beryl Howarth, Vicki Thompson, my wife Lucille and I set out on July 5 from camp in the Llaca valley and climbed along the base of the cliffs as they curved upwards, then broke out onto open moraine and ev...
Mt. Rainier climbers who break rules are fined. During a single week in August 1949, seven Oregon and Washington men were fined for attempting to scale Mt. Rainier without complying with all park regulations. One party, for example, was warned not...
FALL ON ROCKColorado, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Scenic JourneyOn May 17, Craig Smith (21) was leading the eighth pitch of the 13-pitch climb Scenic Journey (5.10+), when he wedged his hand into a crack in the rock face to gain a hold. The move...
Manaslu. A Yugoslavian expedition led by the late Aleš Kunaver had hoped to ascend the unclimbed south ridge of Manaslu, but instead they made the fourth ascent of the south face, first climbed by the Tiroleans in 1972. They established Base Camp ...
Forbidden Peak, Northwest Face. This very aesthetic alpine route combines a good short ice climb on the west face of the north ridge with the very enjoyable rock climbing of the upper north-ridge route. The ice face is composed of two sections div...
Third Pillar, East Edge of Mount Dana Plateau, Tuolumne, 1990. In September, 1988, Miguel Carmona and Eric Klosterman climbed the first three pitches of this line on the pillar, which is drawn on page 47 of Reid and Falkenstein’s Rock Climbs of Tu...
FALL ON ROCK, CLIMBING SOLO, NO HARD HAT, INEXPERIENCE British Columbia, Rocky Mountains, Mount WardleOn June 23, 1989, Ben (21) and his brother Uli (23) decided to make an attempt to climb Mount Wardle via the East Face. After completing a very d...
STRANDED – YOGI-PHOBIA, UNFAMILIAR WITH EQUIPMENTCalifornia, Yosemite, Half DomeJanet (32) spent May 9 hanging out at the base of Half Dome while her friends made an ascent of the Regular NW Face route. They had camped there the night before and h...
Shivling. A British Royal Air Force expedition made the second ascent of the southeast ridge of Shivling. The expedition, of which I was the leader, 22 strong and both climbers and trekkers, spent four weeks based on the Gangotri Glacier. The summ...
Koh-i-Parshui Attempt. On our approach to the central Hindu Kush this year, our roadhead was Barikot, giving us two extra days march per traverse up and down. The local languages are baffling even to our interpreter; Barikot is Pashtu, but higher ...
Bandarpunch II West and Kala Nag. The Ruinsara Youth Expedition was organized to train young climbers between the ages of 16 and 21 and expose them to high-altitude climbing. From the roadhead at Sankri we trekked through Dapsa and up the Ruinsara...
Hunter, Moonflower Buttress. Bill Belcourt and I made the fourth ascent to the summit of Mug Stumps’ Moonflower Buttress route on Mount Hunter. Starting on June 1, we spent five days on the ascent and two on the descent of the west ridge, all in g...
HAFE and HACE, ASCENDING TOO FASTAlaska, Mount McKinley, West ButtressAfter a rapid ascent to 14,200 foot camp on the West Buttress, a member of the “Polish Female Denali 2010” expedition, Zygmunt Berdychowski (49), began experiencing signs and sy...