Less than two weeks prior to completing the first ascent of the 4,600-foot north face of Mt. Neacola (5.10 A2 M6), a trio of New Hampshire-based climbers were nearly killed in an avalanche. On April 1, I (31), Ryan Driscoll (34), and Justin Guari...
In June 2021, I led a group from Iskanderkul lake to Sarytag village, then west and south to the Mura Valley, leading off the Zambar Valley. The Mura Valley, located in the Hissar (a.k.a. Gissar) Range, has a small glacier with a beautiful lake, a...
Several unnamed peaks line the Nangma Valley, one of which Jonathan Schaffer and I attempted to climb in August. [This mountain, at approximately 35°21’58.82”N, 76°29’24.54”E, is labeled Peak 19, 5,007m, on Jerzy Wala’s orographic map of the K6 Gr...
Our trip in June to attempt unclimbed Biarchedi I (6,810m, 35°40'22.22"N, 76°24'20.83"E) can be summed up in two words: bad weather. One day after Ralf Dujmovits and I reached base camp, after a trek under clear blue skies, the weather turned for ...
To acclimatize for our main objective, Takayasu Semba and I first attempted Laila Peak. We arrived in early June to find the temperature—and consequently the avalanche danger—far too high. We turned around at 5,400m. After moving by vehicle to Ka...
From mid-July to late August, Martin Sieberer (Austria) and I attempted to reach unclimbed Praqpa Ri Central (7,156m, 35°49'47.30"N, 76°25'57.09"E) to the west of K2. However, even while approaching the mountain we noticed “monsoon-like” weather, ...
Uli Biaho Gallery seen from the Trango Glacier. For the line of the 2014 Ecuadorian route, see AAJ 2015. Four other routes have been climbed close to the left arête of this wall. Photo by Marcin Tomaszewski As young boys we lived and breathed...
Hélias Millerioux and Patrick Wagnon (both from France) completed the first known alpine-style ascent of the rarely climbed southwest ridge of Rakaposhi (7,788m), summiting on July 26. This was the route used on the first ascent of the mountain in...
The head of Mistake Creek in the Earl Mountains is seldom visited in winter, at least not by climbers. It’s a cold and dark place, but when I first ventured there in the winter of 2020, to climb the south face of Pyramid Peak (2,295m, AAJ 2021), m...
The summer of early 2021 was highlighted by a series of adventurous trips into remote areas of the southern ranges. In January, Leonard Brockerhoff, Ed Cromwell, Nick Kowalski, and Ben Mangan made the long trek into the Garden of Allah, via the L...
My partner Mike (46) and I, Tiffany Hauck (50), convened on the morning of June 13. Our sights were set on Wind Ridge (4 pitches, 5.7). We had climbed on the route a month earlier but ended up missing a good portion of the ridge. We wanted to bag ...
On August 26, two climbers fell over 100 feet from Wind Ridge (4 pitches, 5.7). Climber 1 was in his 20s and survived with severe injuries. Climber 2 was in his 30s. He sustained fatal injuries. The pair had climbed the first pitch of Tigger (5.6...
From January 25 to 27, 2022, David Bacci, Matteo Della Bordella, and Matteo “Giga” De Zaiacomo (all from Italy) climbed a 1,200-meter line up the east and north faces of Cerro Torre. The climb, which they called Brothers in Arms, was the culminati...
In 2013, Nicolas Benedetti and I attempted the north face of Cerro Torre for the first time. We did not have a clear strategy nor much information. We reached the north face via the American Torre Egger route [the 1976 route, which began up the ea...
On August 20, Fiona Tummon (Dutch/Irish, resident in Switzerland) and I, with a driver, left La Paz at 5 a.m. Before reaching the little village of Peñas, we took the road to Laguna Khara Khota and then over the Paso Mullu, which crosses the Cordi...
The climate continues changing. Weather patterns in Patagonia are strongly influenced by the north-south location of the low-pressure belt surrounding Antarctica. From 1980 on, this belt has trended southward—more pronounced during the summer—whic...
In March 2022, Alexis Rojas and I managed to finish a route on the far right side of Cerro Capicúa, which I had started one year ago with the help of Isidora Montesinos and Benjamin Lira. In all, the route took me 11 days spread across these vario...
The Torres del Brujo (34°42'10"S, 70°22'22"W) comprise a little-visited area of granite spires near the terminus of Glaciar Universidad (ca 3,000m), 50km east of San Fernando, Chile. [Editor’s note: See AAJ 1999, 2005, 2008, and 2010 for more back...
In late July 2021, Nicolás Gutierrez, Rodrigo Diaz, and I climbed a new variation on the elegant southeast face of Cerro San Francisco (4,345m; 33°44' 52"S, 70°5' 17"W), located in Monumento Natural El Morado, just southwest of Cerro Morado (4,647...
We started thinking about Cerro Catedral after seeing its 1,000m east face from Trono Blanco in 2019. Over January 18–19, 2022, we ventured to open the first route on the north face of this jewel. [The north face is accessed from Valle del Francés...