Early July found Jon Griffin and me below Third Recess Peak in the Mono Recesses, a series of hanging valleys west of Mono Pass. Our friends Austin Siadak and Matt Van Biene had climbed a route to the left of the line Serving Detention (IV 5.10, H...
In mid-July, Jon Griffin, Gabriel Andres Mancilla Jipoulou, and I climbed two new routes in the Williamson Bowl of the Sierra Nevada. We first set our sights a prominent subpeak directly south of Mt. Tyndall (14,026’). We had dubbed this the First...
On August 6, under clear skies and with dreams of first ascents on remote peaks, Tess Ferguson, Anina Friedrich, Jessica Keil, and I flew into Alaska's Gates of the Arctic National Park. Wild and remote, with no roads or trails, it is one of the U...
The Direct Line (39 pitches, 5.13+), a.k.a. the Platinum Wall, is a brand-new, mostly independent free line on El Capitan. It begins just left of the Nose and continues up the steepening blankness, following a circuitous path of 22 technical slab ...
The first time I approached the Aeolian Wall on Mt. Wilson I quickly became enamored with the crack systems flanking the classic route Inti Watana (2,000’, IV 5.10c). This past season I convinced my friend Kyle to fly down to Vegas and meet me for...
When I arrived in Red Rock in early October, the temperatures were still quite warm and I had a difficult time locating consistent partners. So on off days I would venture out in the canyons with a pair of binoculars and a guidebook scouting new r...
IN THE FALL of 2017, many new climbs were established in the various steep canyons of the Wheeler Crest. In general, climbers were seeking out the cleanest slabs and crack lines, as well as the few remaining unclimbed formations. The routes are li...
In April, three new routes were established on the large formations bordering the Cartago Creek Gorge, west of Highway 395 near the town of Cartago. On the 21st, Brian Prince and I hiked heavy loads deep into the gorge to the previously unclimbed ...
On May 27, Myles Moser and I climbed a high-quality route on the left side of the Parisian Buttress, a prominent formation along the Meysan Lakes Trail out of Whitney Portal. Three pitches of golden, knob-studded face climbing protected by bolts g...
On May 4, Myles Moser and I started a new route on the sunny south face of the Stonehouse Buttress, to the right of the Chimney Route (IV 5.8, Faint-Rowell, 1974). This formation in the Tuttle Creek drainage has largely been ignored since early as...
On April 19, Myles Moser and I spotted an unclimbed snow and ice gully on the northeastern side of the Bastille Buttress, a 2,000’ granite monolith that juts from the north ridge of Lone Pine Peak. With binoculars, we could see sections of thin ic...
El Cap continued to see considerable free climbing attention this year from an international cast. In the fall, Barbara Zangerl (Austria) and Jacopo Larcher (Italy) returned to make the second free ascent of Magic Mushroom (VI 5.14a) in an 11-day ...
After sharing adventure climbing stories and pictures of chossy towers one night over dinner in the fall of 2015 with the legendary Richard Jensen, we envisioned a Fisher Towers climbing project that unexpectedly ended up spanning three trips over...
PROLIFIC Utah route developer Bill Ohran recalls ripping down a dirty desert road in the San Rafael Swell in the mid-’90s, blaring Henry Rollins in his Chevy Nova. Unable to find a climbing partner, but with a strong desire to disconnect from the ...
In July, Markus Gschwendt (Austria) and Anton Sharobayko (Russia) made a lengthy and unusual traverse of Pik Lenin (7,134m). Starting from the standard Camp 1 at 4,400m on the normal route up the north side of Lenin, the pair climbed the east face...
I had the idea to put up a route in honor of Kim Schmitz well before he died. I would often spot him around Jackson at climbing events, films, and competitions in which he could no longer compete. Only a few of us knew that the old guy watching th...
In July, Eric Wehrly and I headed up to Half Moon (7,960’) and its subpeaks near Washington Pass to attempt a new route. Due to short attention spans, we cut off early to Wallaby Peak and found some misadventure there on terrain that had likely be...
Morgan Zentler is a baller. Last year he finished the Bulger List, climbing all 100 of Washington’s highest peaks, and his suffering knew no bounds in his quest for completion. I’ve seen him pass out without a bug net or tent in a hideous swarm of...
Intending to have a nice, somewhat leisurely outing to complete my goal of climbing all the 12,000’ peaks in Montana, Elaine Kennedy and I set out to climb the prominent Beckey Couloir on the north face of Glacier Peak (12,340’) on August 17. [Edi...
In August and October, Ray Eckland, Giselle Fernandez, and I established a dozen new climbs in the Deer Lakes region, south of Mammoth (John Muir Wilderness). We enjoyed prime weather conditions that facilitated ground-up ascents on rest days betw...