In 2015, Juan Gabriel Estellano, Lilen Sosa, and I climbed a five-pitch route (see AAJ 2016) on high-quality granite on the ridge extending northeast from the summit of Jati Khollu (5,421m). Over the next eight years, Juan Gabriel and I discuss...
On April 17, Erik Olerud and I skied virtually the entire northwest ridge of Sajama (6,542m), Bolivia’s tallest peak, in excellent snow conditions. We descended approximately 1,000m on skis from the summit to about 5,450m (250m below the high camp...
More: Life on the Edge of Adventure and Motherhood, by Majka Burhardt (Pegasus Books, $27.95). Burhardt follows up on her two Ethiopia books with an epistolary memoir exploring the pursuit of risk in the face of responsibility for new children (tw...
During July 2024, our team of five Spaniards—Miguel A. Díaz, Alex Gonzalez, Indi Gutierrez, Jaume Peiró, and me, Manu Ponce—traveled to Angola in search of new big walls. Having many options to explore, in the end we decided to start in the Conda ...
A FINE LINE: SEARCHING FOR BALANCE AMONG MOUNTAINS By Graham Zimmerman (Mountaineers Books, 2023). Paperback, 224 pages, $19.95. Seventy pages into Graham Zimmerman’s memoir A Fine Line, the author and his partners, who are forging a new route in...
CLOSER TO THE EDGE: CLIMBING TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH By Leo Houlding (Headline Press, U.K., 2023). Paperback, 368 pages, £12.99. A friend and frequent climbing partner has complained to me about the narrowness of climbing literature: “I tried to...
THE ZEN OF CLIMBING By Francis Sanzaro (Saraband, 2023). Paperback, 216 pages, $14.95. Near the middle of The Zen of Climbing, Francis Sanzaro offers a succinct and gripping account of finding himself perched precariously on a ledge and staring d...
THE LIFER: ROCK CLIMBING ADVENTURES IN THE GUNKS AND BEYOND By Russ Clune (Di Angelo Publications, 2023). Paperback, 274 pages, $25. Many of us dream of dropping everything and heading to the crags to climb full-time. Few of us ultimately do. Ru...
TOM PATEY: ONE MAN'S LEGACY By Mike Dixon (Scottish Mountaineering Press, 2022). Hardcover, 464 pages, £30. In the mid-1970s, when I was new to climbing, none of my circle was buying hardcover books. Yet all of us knew the anecdote about Royal...
ROYAL ROBBINS: THE AMERICAN CLIMBER By David Smart. Foreword by John Long. (Mountaineers Books, 2023.) Paperback, 256 pages, $22.95. David Smart has done it again. His succession of biographies began with a memoir, followed by thorough treatmen...
On July 8, Jedrzej Jablonski (Poland) and Christian Junkar (USA) climbed a route up the southwest face of Aguja Nevada I (5,840m), reaching the plateau below the summit. The climbing began at 5,100m and consisted of 12 pitches of ice, mixed, and s...
Latok Thumb is a 6,380m rock tower with a precipitous southwest face. Its northeast flank drops to a high col on the south-southwest ridge of Latok II; the upper section of this ridge, approached via the southeast spur, was climbed by an Italian t...
Previously unreported is the possible first ascent of Honbrok (Honboro, 6,459m) on July 16, 2000, by Satoshi Hatsugai, Mori Hatsuyoshi, and Kumiko Suzuki from Japan. Prior to reaching Hushe, the three had acclimatized on the Deosai Plateau, a high...
In 2021, Takayasu Semba and Shinji Tamura attempted Bondit Peak via the northeast spur, retreating from 5,400m due to high avalanche danger (AAJ 2022). They returned to the same line in 2022, and this time almost reached the summit; later that sam...
In August, Dmitry Golovchenko and Sergey Nilov attempted the unclimbed southeast ridge of Gasherbrum IV (7,925m) in alpine style. Their plan was to descend the original route on the northeast ridge, climbed in 1958 by Walter Bonatti and Carlo Maur...
In the latter half of May, Sam Favret and Julien Herry (France) made a number of probable first ascents and ski descents from the Baltoro Glacier. On the 20th, from a base camp at Lhungka (4,100m) on the north bank of the Baltoro, at the entran...
On August 15, Antonin Borovka, Lukas Kroker, Jaroslav Musil, Josef Smrtka, and I, all Czech, arrived at the village of Patkhor. We set off for the Shteklozar Glacier, which is hard to reach, as in the upper parts of valley there is no path and one...
British alpinists Mick Fowler and Simon Yates attempted the northeast spur of Patkhor (6,083m), the highest peak in the Rushan Range, in mid-July. This unclimbed line had been the aim of Pete Dronkers and Spencer Gray (USA) in August 2017; they re...
An exceptionally heavy monsoon washed away many of the roads and bridges leading to the Kullu-Spiti area, where Takaaki Furuhata, Toshihiro Ueda, and Yasushi Yamanoi had hoped to make a first ascent on one of the Dibibokri peaks. A quick change of...
As with the other members of our expedition from South Tyrol (see reports here and here), heavy snowfall immediately after our arrival at base camp in the Rangtik Tokpo prompted Hannes Niederwolfsgruber and me to choose the steep, dry northwest fa...