Photo-topo of the first ascent of Pik Ostryi (4,818m) by the east ridge. The team traversed over the summit and descended to the col below Pik Alexander Blok (5,239m, partially visible behind), then back east to the glacier. Photo: Oleneva Colle...
The Ashat Gorge is interesting not only for its natural beauty but also for its wall routes. The logistics are quite simple: Fly to Osh, get to Uzgu- rush by ground transport, say hello to Nurudin, load 265kg on five horses, pay the carriage for t...
In November 2020, Earl Lunceford and I climbed a 1,300’ new route on an unnamed wall in the Oak Creek drainage of Zion National Park. The wall is visible from the Zion Human History Museum, near the park’s south entrance. This wall is deeper into ...
In February 2020, on a rest-day hike into the Oak Creek drainage, I observed a striking splitter 1,000’ off the ground leading to the top of a west-facing wall south of Meridian Tower. I returned a week later with George Perkins. We arrived at the...
Between November 30 and December 5, Ky Hart and I completed the first ascent of the east face of the Altar of Sacrifice in Zion National Park. The pale monolith’s 2,230’ face is the centerpiece of the Towers of the Virgin, an impressive Navajo san...
The Towers of the Virgin are a series of jagged summits that loom above Oak Creek to create a gigantic sandstone amphitheater. Dan Stih and Ron Raimonde envisioned and executed the first traverse of these towers in 1998, climbing south to north ov...
When I went to Zion National Park for the first time, I intended to climb the Thunderbird Wall, on the north face of Timber Top Mesa (8,055’), in Kolob Canyons. I thought better of it after one glance at that monster face, and retreated to the mai...
"Our plane is approaching Kathmandu airport. Please fasten your seatbelts.” Rubbing my eyes and looking out the window of the plane, I saw the familiar but still exciting view of the Himalaya in morning light. A beautiful mountain with a clearly d...
My first thought, upon being violently shaken awake at 4:30 in the morning, is that I’m getting buried in an avalanche. My second thought is that I’m going to die. I press my hands against the nylon wall in front of me to brace myself as the tent ...
Our Swiss-Italian-French team headed to East Greenland in late July, planning to kayak to remote walls. Due to pandemic-related difficulties, we were a week late in reaching our starting point of Tasiilaq. Matteo Della Bordella, Symon Welfringer, ...
Formations of the Mythics Cirque: (A) Ataatap Tower (a.k.a. Daddy Tower); (B) Hidden Tower; (C) Siren Tower; and (D) Aurora Tower. Photo by Jean-Louis Wertz We didn’t know where we were going as we sailed out of Brittany, France, on July 8. T...
As a prologue, it should be noted that all three of us—Baqar Gelashvili, Giorgi Tepnadze, and I—feel grateful to have lived this adventure. The whole escapade felt like a return to a romantic era of mountaineering, yet in a natural, ecological sty...
LIKE MANY questionable ideas, the idea of traversing the Alaska Range originated in extreme boredom. In 2018, Michael Gardner and I showed up in Alaska to one of the bleakest forecasts I have ever seen. For 12 days, rain poured down in Talkeetna, ...
We have been sitting in a cab for more than 12 hours, and we still have another 12 to go before we reach Islamabad. It’s been three hours since darkness fell, hiding from view the gaping abyss to the side of the road. On the dash is a sticker that...
Top bivouac at around 6,000m during the first ascent of Korada North. The pyramid in the background is Drifika (6,447m). Photo by Tim Exley On August 28, Tim Exley, Tom Seccombe, and I made a one-day walk up the Nangma Valley to establish ba...
(A) Qtang Sar and route of first ascent. (B) Sakwa Sar and route of first ascent (Forever Young). (C) Subsummit of Gunj-e-Sar [named Yad Sar, 6,015m, and reached in 2017 via the line shown here, by Ross Davidson and Karim Hayat. (D) The south ...
I fell under the spell of the west face of Baruntse (7,152m) in 2001 during an expedition to attempt Kyashar, about 20km to the southwest. As I stared at the 1,300m face of interlacing snow, ice, and rock features, I began looking for lines of wea...
Over seven days in October, Matt Glenn and I climbed the northeast pillar of Tengkangpoche (6,487m; this formation has long been called the north pillar, but much of the climbing faces northeast). We acclimatized by sleeping progressively higher u...
From October 28–30, Nejc Marčič and I succeeded on the first ascent of the 1,700m northwest face of Chobutse (6,685m). The peak was first climbed in 1972 via the east ridge/face, approached from the north, by Germans Gustav and Klaus Harder, Pet...
An expedition to the Greater Ranges marks the end of the three-year cycle of the Spanish National Mountaineering Team. Here they gain experience with altitude and learn how to operate carefully and safely in remote ranges. Choosing the south side ...