In October 2020, Timofey Ivanov and Alexander Zhigalov completed a new route up the northwest face of Pik Dinosaur (2,221m) in the Ergaki massif of the Western Sayan Mountains. The expedition required eight days, including a two-day approach and f...
On July 3, Neil Chelton, Maria Parkes, and I flew from Ottawa to Pangnirtung to start a seven-week expedition up the Weasel River in Auyuittuq National Park. After checking in with the park visitor center and learning all about the polar bears, we...
In 2019 and 2022, Korean expeditions attempted unnamed Peak ca 6,120m (35°28'48.74"N, 76°11'59.37"E) at the head of the Bukma Glacier. They found no previous record of attempts on this summit, though the Bukma Glacier had been visited in 2003 by K...
In August, Thomas Bukowski, Lindsey Hamm, filmmaker Lane Mathis, Sam Stuckey, and I were in the Charakusa Valley with the intent of opening long new rock routes. Our first objective was Farhod Brakk (a.k.a. Parhat Brakk, 5,300m), a soaring monoli...
The 2022 Narumi-Yokoyama attempt on the southwest ridge of K7. The duo’s high point is at the top of the Fortress. Photo by Genki Narumi. Kenji Sakamoto, Yusuke Sato, Satoru Tanaka, Katsutaka "Jumbo" Yokoyama, and I arrived at K7 base camp on...
On October 20, Rushad Nanavatty and I completed a likely new line, Lungta (820m, 70° ice), up the south face and southwest ridge of Langpo South (6,857m, 27°50'22.43"N, 88°12'5.57"E). This appears to be the second reported ascent of the peak. Aft...
In 2021, Liu Junfu and I were looking for a mountain on which we could climb a new route of moderate difficulty in a one-day push. We chose Yangmantai (5,666m, 31°11’58.31”N, 102°53’38.11”E). Viewed from the Changping Valley, Yangmantai is an eleg...
In 2008, three Chinese climbers made the first ascent of Xuanwu Feng (“Black Tortoise Peak,” 5,383m), situated at 31°7’14.93”N, 102°48’45.13”E, between Tan Shan (4,946m) and Angry Wife (5,005m). The climbers were Li Hongxue, a professional mountai...
Peak 5,324m lies in the far western sector of the Siguniang massif, at 31°11’22.242”N, 102°41’58.26”E, and is reached via the infrequently visited Jiesi Valley. On December 15, Wang Yongpeng, Wu Yunhe, Xu Gang, and Yang Sheng made a four-hour appr...
Wukuchu is a relatively recently climbed peak that lies around 35km southwest of the Minya Konka (Gongga Shan) group at 29°17’07.1”N, 101°41’24.2”E. It has two tops separated by a rocky col: Chu (west top, 5,526m) and Wuku (east top, 5,518m). A ba...
Climbing solo, Jost Kobusch (Germany) reached the summit of Denali on February 19, 2023. Kobusch made a single-push ascent from the standard 14,200’ camp on the West Buttress route to the 20,310’ summit via the Messner Couloir, believed to be the ...
In September I headed to Pakistan with Nigel Bassam, Ross Bell, Tom Bell, Karim Hayat, and Paul Winder. Karim provided the logistics through his Hunza-based company and also was a full climbing member of the team. The trip had been scheduled for 2...
In September, Cas van de Gevel, Frank Chargois, and I (all Dutch) traveled to the Djangart Range, where the hunters we hoped to hire to carry our equipment into the Djangart Valley were too busy hunting. We had to settle for a base camp in the Kai...
While reading Richard Rossiter’s guidebook to Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), I dug deep into the section on the park’s less-frequented side—west of the Continental Divide—and in particular, the two pages on Ptarmigan Mountain (12,324’) above...
In August, Alexey Kurochkin, Konstantin Markevich, and Evgeniy Yablokov climbed a new route on the southwest side of Pik Chocolate (3,650m), a granite spire along the ridgeline extending to the north of Pik Dalar. The area is accessed along the My...
Following successful trips in 2017 and 2018, with various new routes opened (see AAJ 2019), I returned to the Spitzkoppe in August 2022 for more of the same. This time I was joined by my partner, Vittoria Camisassi, on her first trip to Spitzkoppe...
The Mulanje Massif in southern Malawi, a sprawling network of forested peaks with myriad granite faces, whose highest summit rises to 3,002m, has seen a renewed burst of development in the past four years. The crown jewel, the two-tiered northwest...
Mt. Kenya (17,057’/5,199m), the second-highest peak on the African continent, has been all but forgotten in the annals of alpinism. Since 2000, only a few new routes have been established on the complex peak, with the most notable, put up by Germa...
As lifelong Kings River fishermen, Daniel Jeffcoach and I have visited the valley below Garlic Dome many times. Talking one day, we decided that a fisherman may be able to spend a lifetime in that valley and never have a problem with that great bu...
The first time I went to Upper Ala-Archa was not at all for mountaineering purposes. We had planned to spend about a week there to do some ski touring. But the idea of potential new ascents settled in my mind almost immediately. When I got home, ...