Shingu Charpa, north ridge, attempts and deception. In July, sitting in the gorgeous Nangma Valley base camp, I hacked up nasty chunks of something laced with blood, stricken with who-knows-what. My ultra-strong and ultra-capable partner, Josh Wha...
FALL ON SNOW, UNABLE TO SELF-ARREST, INEXPERIENCEDWyoming, Grand Teton National Park, Mount TeewinotOn July 10, 1992, at 1050, a victim slipped and fell while attempting an ascent of the east face of Teewinot. She and her partner were at the 11,80...
Gaurishankar’s West FaceWyman CulbrethFROM A DUSTY bus window I watched the landscape pass by, then turned to see the Sherpas fast asleep. They were understandably tired from the last few weeks of hectic preparation; we were all relieved finally t...
CHARLES “CHUCK” WADE COMSTOCK1960-2000Let’s just split right here, Roman. I got a stove and a cook pot, you got a stove and a cook pot. We both got shovels...just take your rope and we’ll go our separate ways!”We stood on the edge, double nines fl...
The Mount Everest MapsIn the November 1988 issue of the National Geographic the most accurate map of Mount Everest (1:50,000) ever produced was published as a supplement. Also, in that same issue the map was described in an article “Surveying the ...
Early Days in the Canadian RockiesWalter D. WilcoxIT is strange how some impressions retain their vivid and beauti- ful character throughout one’s life, while others that might seem of equal interest pass from memory all too soon. I can never forg...
The Great Days, Walter Bonatti, Translated by Geoffrey Sutton, Victor Gollancz, Ltd., London, 1974, photos, clothbound, 184 pages.Last spring, as several climbers and a slew of Balti porters trudged up the Baltoro Glacier high in the Karakoram, a ...
Ama Dablam (6,814m), west face, partial new route, Free Tibet. Ashild Tomassen (Norway) and we arrived in Nepal at the start of the Nepalese New Year, 2065, and on April 14 took a flight to Lukla. Four days later we, already breathless, were at Am...
Mount Kenya, Diamond Couloir, Chouinard Variation, Solo. In May, Wade McKoy and I traveled to Mount Kenya, where I wanted to snowboard the Diamond Couloir. Due to icy conditions I aborted that idea and soloed the Chouinard Variation in three and o...
Climbing Free: My Life in the Vertical World. Lynn Hill with Greg Child. Foreword by John Long. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002. Hardcover. $24.95.It has often been said that climbing can be a metaphor for life, but few books have given such thoughtf...
On the Origin of MountainsIn Garrison’s History of Medicine one reads of Ibn Sina or Avicenna (980–1037), called “the Prince of Physicians,” a convivial Omarian spirit, eminently successful in practice as courtphysician and vizier to different cal...
The southeast ridge of Annapurna III is a saw-tooth monolith cutting straight through the heart of a cirque of mountains so remote and difficult to access that few have seen them. The ridge is mesmerising, and the history and hearsay behind the no...
New Routes on Mount WaddingtonRichard C. HoustonCLOSER and closer we came, until at last the sturdy Norseman’s pontoons scraped the water and then, with a billowy splash, came to rest on Ghost Lake, deep in the coastal mountains of British Columbi...
Noshaq and peaks above the Wakhan Corridor. The fourth Polish Hindu Kush Expedition was made up of Dr. Roman Sledziewski, leader, and his wife Ewa, Marian Bala, Maciej Baranowski and his wife Danuta, Andrzej Heinrich, Maciej Kozlowski, Andrzej Mró...
FALL ON ROCK, INADEQUATE PROTECTION New Hampshire, Cathedral Ledge, Rook of SolemnityOn August 15, a husband and wife team were climbing The Book of Solemnity on Cathedral. The leader crossed the crux traverse (5.9+) in the second lead without pla...
THE HIGH SIERRA OF CALIFORNIABY Professor Joseph N. Le ConteI. General Features of the Sierra Nevada THE Sierra Nevada forms a part of the western bulwark of that great continental plateau upon which is built the North American Cordillera, Though ...
Wyoming, Grand Teton National Park, Symmetry Spire (3)—On August 29, Sven Wihrheim (21) and Elwynn Taylor (18) attempted to climb the Durrance Ridge. They began the first lead at 1:30 p.m.Elwynn Taylor had anchored himself to a rock nubbin and was...
FALL ON ICE California, Mt. San JacintoAt 8 a.m. on April 28, 1979, a party of 13 left the parking area at the base of Snow Creek and climbed to the bivouac site, about the 7,400-foot level. The camp was reached by all at 5 p.m. We camped comforta...
FALL ON ROCK, EQUIPMENT FAILURE–CARABINER BROKECalifornia, Lover's LeapGear worries were far from our minds on a beautiful June morning when Tom Stargaard and I were heading off to Lovers Leap for a day of climbing. The recent cover photo on Climb...
Cragging in the KarakoramRobert Warren, UnaffiliatedSEVERAL YEARS AGO, Max Kendall and I spent a miserable time on Denali. Throughout the climb, all I could think about was climbing beautiful Yosemite granite in warm sunshine. I enjoyed the advent...