After establishing Ikigai (18 pitches, 5.12a) on the Bubbs Creek Wall with my friends Dave Meyer and Marec Serlin in 2020, I returned to the pristine granite of the 2,000’ east face in the spring of 2021. I wanted to check out a golden-brown shiel...
Looking south from the summit of Mt. Clarence King early on the second day of the King Spur Traverse (VI 5.8). In the foreground, crisply silhouetted, is the remainder of the route, first running straight away from the camera over Mt. Cotter and...
Castle Domes, a cluster of granite formations set above a beautiful meadow in the Upper Woods Creek valley, is perhaps best known for the Southeast Arête (1,100’, IV 5.10 PG-13) on Upper Castle Dome, a striking line established by Vitaliy Musiyen...
Langille Peak rises wide and tall over the Middle Fork of the Kings River in the northeastern portion of Kings Canyon National Park. Its broad eastern face, viewed as you come down the hill from Bishop Pass, just begs to be climbed. Just around th...
Less than an hour and a half from the Big Pine Creek South Fork trailhead in the John Muir Wilderness, the Green Gendarme is a prominent 800’ buttress of dark green rock, sitting like a sentinel guarding the entrance to the Middle Palisade Group. ...
In mid-June, Aivaras Sajus and I approached the northeast face of Mt. Jepson (13,390’) via the South Fork of Big Pine Creek in search of an adventure. We chose a line up a triangular pillar on the left side of the face. After a snow slope with a ’...
The east-northeast face of Trapezoid Peak, showing (1) Puff the Magic Dragon (5.12b), (2) Shield of Dreams (5.13b), (3) Harvest Time (5.12c), (4) Rasta Root (5.12b), (5) Man on the Flying Trapezoid (5.12-), (6) Don’t Be a Square (5.10-), and (7)...
In early 2022, a flurry of long new ice and mixed routes were climbed on the Wheeler Crest. An unusually heavy and wet December snowpack, followed by a long warm and dry spell, had transformed this rugged desert mountainside into a winter climber’...
Dmitry Pavlenko and Svetlana Pavlenko climbed a new route up the north face of Pik Svobodnaya Koreya (“Free Korea Peak,” 4,740m) in September. The two fixed some ropes at the start on September 15 and then, carrying a portaledge, climbed six pitch...
On October 17, Chen Chujun, Liu Junfu, and Tong Haijun (China) arrived at a base camp below Mt. Grosvenor and Jiazi, and the next day they went up to 5,000m to acclimatize and scope out the west face of Jiazi, returning to base camp the same day. ...
San’ao Snow Mountain (31°54’44.88”N, 102°51’2.06”E) is around 20km southwest of the town of Luhuazhen and comprises three main summits: Ao Tai Ji (“The Father,” 5,286m), Ao Tai Mei (“The Mother,” 5,257m), and Ao Tai Na (“The Child,” 5,210m). In th...
Inspired by a British expedition to the Gunj-e-Dur Valley in 2017 (AAJ 2018), Rob Reynolds and I planned to return to the region to explore the little-visited Second East Gunj-e-Dur Valley. We aimed to make the first ascent of one of the numerous ...
Do you want to attempt an unclimbed 6,000m mountain? You would think climbers would be queuing up to say “yes,” but, unfortunately, finding a partner can be difficult. My regular partner is in a new relationship and said, “Getting permission from ...
Rajesh Gadgil, Dilip Lagu, Ashish Prabhu, Rajendra Shinde, and I, all from the Himalayan Club, left Leh on July 22 and drove to Rongdo village (3,300m) in the Nubra Valley. From there we trekked to the sulphur springs at the entrance to the Chhurn...
Kim Chang-ho, who died in 2018 at the base of Gurja Himal in Nepal, was perhaps the most accomplished mountaineer from Korea, noted for high altitude ascents such as a south-north traverse of Nanga Parbat, Everest sea-to-summit without oxygen...
The hat trick of new grade Xs climbed ground-up and onsight by Greg Boswell and Guy Robertson during the 2016 season was a landmark for Scottish winter climbing (see AAJ 2016). These two continued to set the pace the following four seasons with ch...
Cerro Cabaray (5,869m, 19°8'45"S, 68°41'53”W) is a remote extinct volcano in the department of Oruro. Rising very close to the Chilean border, it is the highest of a chain of volcanoes in western Bolivia and northeastern Chile; it belongs to the s...
In July 2019, Ben White and I (Australia) made a ground-up first ascent of a route in the middle of the northwest face of Gran Muralla (ca 5,100m). Dirt-clogged cracks made progress painfully slow, and we used aid on 75 percent of the route. We sp...
On August 10, Colorado-based climber Madaleine Sorkin became the first woman, and fifth person overall, to free climb the massive 5.14b crux of the Dunn-Westbay Direct (Caldwell-Mills, 2013), the hardest route up the Diamond, the storied wall high...
In January 1978, an expedition led by Jack Heffernan from New York climbed the Polish Glacier route on the northeast face of Aconcagua (6,960m), completing the first known ascent of this route by an American team. Five members reached the summit: ...