Erik Boomer paddling a waterfall on the river they nicknamed Teacup River. This section of the falls was visible on satellite imagery. Photo by Sarah McNair-Landry In late June, just before the sea ice starts to melt, Sarah McNair-Landry and...
The Hautes-Gorges-de-la-Rivière-Malbaie saw a lot of action during the 2021 season, encouraged by unusual weather and travel limitations due to a province-wide COVID-19 curfew. The holiday season saw some major downpours, which contributed to the...
An overview of routes on the north face of Mt. Temple (3,544m), showing the new line Stringing Up the Lights (1,200m, WI4+ M3+ R) in red. The original Elzinga-Miller (north ridge) is green, the modern Elzinga-Miller is yellow (many people who do...
Whether it was the late effects of the COVID-19 chill or a very smoky summer, 2021 was not the most active year in the Canadian Rockies. Nonetheless, there were some interesting climbs. On March 5, Alik Berg and Ian Welsted climbed a foamy, stick...
Among the skyline of giants around Lake Louise, Mt. Niblock (2,976m) had been hiding from me in plain sight all year, until finally I pulled my car over to take a closer look. Bands of black limestone shrouded the northern aspect of the mountain, ...
The 2021 ski season was really memorable, and I was fortunate to be able to turn my focus to big lines near home. Normally I would have committed to backcountry lodge guiding and ski film projects that take me to faraway locations, but last season...
An arctic outflow in February 2021 saw the Squamish River valley, northwest of town, icing up to produce some wonderful, if fleeting, ice conditions. Sam Eastman, Tim Emmett, and I headed up to kilometer 15 on the Squamish River Forest Service Roa...
During a week in March 2021 in Laponia (the Swedish part of Sápmi or Lapland), Johan Lindfors and I had great ice conditions and were able to put up five routes on Nieras (1,424m), one of the beautiful peaks of Stora Sjöfallet National Park. Wit...
As we packed gear late into the night in Mike Loch’s basement suite in Squamish we each had a moment of, “Wow that’s a lot of cams!” or “This is enough bolts, right?” We didn’t really know anything about what we were getting into except we were go...
On August 15, Harlin Brandvold, Duncan Pawson, and I loaded gear into a helicopter for a return trip to an isolated valley of glacier-clad granite walls in Foch-Gilttoyees Provincial Park. Having spotted the unnamed valley on Google Earth, and lac...
Alex Willis on pitch two of Hostis Humani Generis (1,100’, IV 5.12 R), Laurel Knob. Photo by Dylan Valvo In June, I climbed the Dike Hike–Monster Groove (5.11a; Brown-McDowell, 2012) on Laurel Knob—the tallest monolith east of the Mississipp...
The route line of Highwayman (350m, 13 pitches, 5.11 R), the free version of the first route on the northeast face of Chiefs Head, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. Maximilian Barlerin, Sebastian Barlerin, and Zack Fisher worked to free th...
Andrew Andraski following the new first pitch of Revelation that he and Will Fazio encountered on their second trip to the Vanquished Wall in October. In May, when they made their first attempt on the line, the snowline was 90’ higher, allowing ...
Noah McKelvin styling pitch seven on Drop the Mic (10 pitches, V 5.11- M8 R), on the Dark Side Wall off Camp Bird Mine Road, Ouray, Colorado. Photo by Jason Nelson / Visualadventures.com On November 21, Noah McKelvin, Phil Wortmann, and I com...
May 3, 2021. A friend and I were chatting in the kitchen when we got the message: an inReach SOS from Mason Stansfield and his girlfriend, Tessa. Soon came the news: Mason, 28, had died in a crevasse fall on the Eldridge Glacier in Denali National...
Nearing the end of the crux of pitch three, “The Intergalactic Hitman” pitch, which went free at 5.13a R. IN DECEMBER 2004, American climber Mike Anderson did the first free ascent of the Lowe Route on the striking north face of Angels Landin...
From November 1 to 3, Ky Hart and I climbed a new route on the west face of Bridge Mountain, which we dubbed For the Doggs. The route starts 300’ left of the popular ACL Arête (10 pitches, 5.10), established by Tyler Philips and Robbie Colbert in ...
In 2010 the late alpinist Yan Dongdong explored the southwestern end of the Nyachen Tanglha, where he made the first ascent of a peak named Dongxung (ca 6,100m), a few kilometers to the south of the town of Yangbajain (AAJ 2011). He wrote that he ...
In 2019 a group of trekkers visited the Kyzyl Asker area and posted pictures of unclimbed peaks that attracted the attention of Evgeny Murin, who had climbed the south pillar of Kyzyl Asker in 2018. In the summer of 2021, Murin, Anton Kulpin, Mikh...
In November 2020, Lu Haichuan, Song Yuancheng, Wan Cong, and Zhang Baolong climbed what they believed to be called Bijiashan, a rocky peak toward the north end of the Tatsienlu Massif [marked as 5,880m in Tamotsu Nakamura’s East of the Himalaya bo...