Alone on the Wall. Alex Honnold with David Roberts. W.W. Norton, 2015. 248 pages. Hardcover, $26.95.Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last eight years, you’ve seen video evidence of Alex Honnold’s perhaps otherwise unbelievable free s...
Too Close to God: Selected Mountain Tales. Jeff Long. Imaginary Mountain Surveyors (Canada), 2015. 290 pages. Paperback, $19.95.For four decades Jeff Long has been on lead, moving climbing fiction from stock genres to serious and deep explorations...
Extreme Eiger: The Race to Climb the Direct Route Up the North Face of the Eiger. Peter and Leni Gillman. Simon & Schuster (U.K.), 2015. 394 pages. Paperback, $21.95.Arguably, the U.K.’s most significant climbing never occurred on British soil...
Supported by the German Alpine Club, Matthias Bohe, Harry Kirschenhofer, Philipp Moser, Chris Romeike, and I began our journey on July 14, aiming to explore side valleys of the Panmah Glacier. The approach from Askole took four days, following the...
My partner, Ralf Dujmovits, and I spent the months of June and July attempting two unclimbed 7,000m peaks, Gasherbrum VI and Praqpa Ri.After hiking more than 100km with our cook, liaison officer, several Balti porters, a few donkeys, eight chicken...
Yosemite in the Fifties: The Iron Age. Edited by Dean Fidelman and John Long. Patagonia Books, 2015. 176 pages. Hardcover, $60.Lavishly arranged and edited by Valley legends Dean Fidelman and John Long, Yosemite in the Fifties is a heady blend of ...
Climbing to Freedom: Climbs, Climbers and the Climbing Life. Dick Dorworth. Western Eye Press, 2015. 242 pages. Paperback, $15.95. Dick Dorworth’s book starts in the year 1972 with the title story, “Climbing to Freedom.” He’s freshly estranged fro...
In Some Lost Place: The First Ascent of Nanga Parbat's Mazeno Ridge. Sandy Allan. Vertebrate Publishing (U.K.), 2015. 185 Pages. Hardcover, £24. This book is a compelling and straightforward account of the epic, 18-day first ascent of the Mazeno R...
A Youth Wasted Climbing. David Chaundy-Smart. Rocky Mountain Books (Canada), 2015. 247 pages. Paperback, $20. In 1972 a boy stared out the back window of his parents’ car, straining for a last glimpse of his family’s sold-off farm before it vanish...
Just to the right of the Third Buttress of Hallett Peak and the nasty descent gully for Hallett’s western routes, a prominent fin leads to the headwall of Point 12,308’. No route had been published on this formation, which is shorter than Hallett’...
I had run up the route Godzilla (5.9) to put up a top-rope for my girlfriend and her family. At the last second her parents asked us to hang their rope instead of ours. I didn't think about it, but their rope was a 60m and mine was a 70m. I was cl...
AAC President Doug Walker was killed on December 31, 2015, by an avalanche on Granite Mountain in the Cascades. He was a climber, entrepreneur, philanthropist, devoted husband, and father. His death leaves a huge hole in many hearts.Doug was born ...
Mountain guide Bela Vadasz, of Truckee, California, passed away on September 15 at age 62. He is survived by Mimi Maki Vadasz, co-founder and director of Alpine Skills International, and his grown sons Tobin and Logan.Bela escaped the communist ta...
Doug Tompkins was my friend for almost 60 years. We first met while climbing in the Shawangunks of New York. He was only 15 and had either dropped out or been kicked out of school. In any case, he probably thought the teachers had nothing importan...
Robert T. Schaller Jr., M.D., died of pneumonia on December 7, 2014, in Kirkland, Washington, surrounded by family. He had delighted in his medical practice and in mountaineering. He was a leading pediatric surgeon in the Seattle area until arthri...
On April 1, Sheila Hollins and I (Mike Zarski) attempted a winter-conditions ascent of Mt. Whitney from Whitney Portal. Because I had injured my ankle the day before, we only reached Trail Crest by afternoon, so we decided to turn back and camp at...
In the evening of October 11, a 20-year-old solo climber was hit in the head by rockfall while rappelling the summit block of this 7,795-foot volcano. This caused her to fall about 15 feet and badly injure a knee. The climber was able to descend t...
On September 27 at 8:25 a.m., 911 received a call from a climber on the west face of Leaning Tower, reporting another climber’s fall. At the time, the injured lead climber was hanging unconscious 10 feet below Guano Ledge, after taking a lead fall...
My most recent expedition to Nepal was filled with great joy and success, but also with immense sorrow and tragedy. When we dance with the extremes of nature we feel incredibly alive, close to the divine. It’s these moments I hold dearest in my he...
In late March, Eythan Sontag and I (both from the U.S.) climbed a new route on the south face of the east summit of Hrútsfjallstindar (“Ram Mountain,” 1,875m) in Vatnajökull National Park. The Hrútsfjalls peaks are situated on a volcanic crater ri...