At approximately 4:30 a.m. on July 25, Climber 1 and Climber 2 (both age 25) departed the Lupine Meadows Trailhead with plans to climb the Dike Route on the Middle Teton. At approximately 4 p.m. they reached the top of the Dike Pinnacle and decide...
One thing that can be said about the Great White North’s preeminent crag is that it’s no longer a locals-only hang. Over the past decade the place has completely blown up. Where once we only saw clunkers rattle in from no farther than Oregon and...
For some years I have been captivated by the many big walls in Basaseachi Falls National Park. At 2,700’, El Gigante is the biggest vertical wall in Mexico, and then there’s Piedra Bolada, with the highest seasonal waterfall (1,500’), and Basaseac...
In January 2015, Dave Anderson, Matt Hartman, Jared Spaulding, and Szu-ting Yi traveled to the Avellano Towers. They first made an attempt on the east face of South Avellano Tower, climbing approximately 400m of the 800m wall, with difficulties up...
Alpine Warriors. Bernadette McDonald. Rocky Mountain Books, 2015. 335 pages. Hardcover, $30.Any follower of modern climbing in the Himalaya will know of the exploits—bold, inspirational, occasionally shameful—of Slovenian climbers. The names Štrem...
In early 2016, Ines Papert (Germany), Thomas Senf (Switzerland), and Mayan Smith-Gobat (New Zealand) repeated Riders on the Storm (1,300m, 7c A3, Albert-Arnold-Bätz-Dittrich-Güllich, 1991) on the east face of the Central Tower of Paine. Papert and...
On January 9, 2016, I arrived in the British Camp in the French Valley of Torres del Paine with my wife, Heather Baer. We were intent on repeating the normal route on Aleta del Tiburón (Shark’s Fin), but information on the climb is scarce and the ...
Ogling photos at home in Colorado, on the plane ride down to Patagonia, and even from a vantage point at Niponino camp, Max Barlerin was doing his best to convince Mike Lukens and me there was a new line to try on Fitz Roy. Just one day back from ...
El Chaltén is a vast playground where the possibilities for new routes are still infinite. So when Dani Ascaso and Santi Padrós showed up at the hostel where Jerôme Sullivan and I were staying and told us they had the exact same plan as us for a...
Although there were hardly any accidents in the area this past season, one of the incidents unfortunately resulted in the death of Argentine climber Iñaki Cousirrat. He was hit by rockfall while attempting a route on the east face of Cerro Fit...
Jason Thompson and I received a Mugs Stump Award and a Lyman Spitzer Cutting Edge Award to attempt the unclimbed south face of Hathi Parbat (6,727m). Unfortunately, because of its proximity to the Chinese border, a permit was denied, and instead w...
In August, Struan Chisholm, Sam Newmark, Calum McLellan, and I arrived in Leh and headed to a maze of unclimbed peaks brought to light by the 2009 Kyoto Zanskar expedition (AAJ 2012). We arrived with 10kg of homemade flapjacks, some iced-tea powde...
In August and September, a team comprising Felix Criado, Adrian Legarra, Txus Lizarraga, Ekaitz Maiz, and Alex Txikon (all Spain), together with Daniele Nardi (Italy), climbed a new line up a pillar on the northwest ridge of Thalay Sagar (6,904m),...
Cerro San Lorenzo’s southwest face, showing: (A) Cumbre Buscaini. (1) Haba-tar. (2) Buscaini-Metzeltin Route. Photo: Groupe Militaire de Haute MontagneMany climbers throughout the years have turned their eyes to one of the...
The east face and main summit of San Lorenzo. (1) No Fiesta, the 2015 Slovenian line, with a high point at the junction with the Sudafricana Route on the east ridge at about 3,450m. (2) Sudafricana Route (1986) to summit. Photo by Rolando Garibott...
In November, my partner Domen Petrovčič and I, along with Rok Kurnčič, Boštjan Mikuž, and Dejan Koren (all Slovenian), decided to go to Cerro San Lorenzo. Our main objective was, until our arrival, a new route on the east face. The planned time fo...
In September 2015, Pedro Binfa and Marcelo Mascareño climbed a new route in winter up the south face of Cerro Sahne Nuss. The climb contained steep snow, ice, drytooling, and some aid, taking a prominent right-angling gash to the summit ridge, whi...
On June 22, 2015, French alpinist and Bolivian resident Anne Bialek, accompanied by Bolivian UIAGM guides Hugo Ayaviri Quispe and Rolando Tarqui Choque, made the second known female ascent of the south face, via Directa Boliviana, an important var...
For the last four decades the Shyok Valley has been closed to trekkers and mountaineers, due to its proximity to the Line of Control with China. Also, the Shyok River is in spate from July to September, and movement up the valley impractical. Howe...
On June 21, after 18 months of planning, Andrew Basford, Katie Farrell, Matthew Fuller, Steve Hutton, Katie McKay, Dan Slome, and I left London for the East Karakoram, our aim to summit an unclimbed 6,000er via the largely unexplored upper southea...