On June 6, Daniel Barton and I landed at the 5,600’ level of the northwest fork of the Coffee Glacier, and over the course of a week established new routes on both Coffee and Mocha spires. I had previously completed the first ascents of each for...
On July 4, Gabe Hayden and I made a speed ascent on the Mendenhall Towers classic Solva Buttress (1,250’, 5.8) We started at the West Glacier trailhead, north of Juneau, and took off for the 15-mile glacier hike to the base of the towers. We climb...
On September 5, Evan Hartung, Mike Miller, Ben Still, and I flew by helicopter to the base of the Shark’s Tooth, an appealing peak north of Juneau that Matt Callahan and I had climbed for its first ascent in 2018 (see AAJ 2019). While Mike and B...
Between 2012 and 2020, I teamed up with several partners, including the late Ryan Johnson, to complete three long ice routes on the committing Suicide Wall, comprising the eastern wall of the Suicide Basin, a tributary of the lower Mendenhall Gl...
On September 11, Simon Frez-Albrecht and I flew into the Witches Cauldron below the Stikine Icecap. A day and a half of carrying backbreaking loads up 4,000’ through the Witches Cauldron icefall had us at the base of the Devils Thumb. We climbed...
Toward the end of a long summer of perpetually attempting to align busy schedules, weather, and transportation, on August 8, Jonathan Koenig, Tristan O’Donoghue, and I flew with Temsco Helicopters to what’s known as the Hotel Glacier, south of N...
On May 27, following a two-week period of heavy rain, a pair of experienced (>20 years each) climbers planned to do the popular route Break on Through (5.10a) on the Circus Wall of Sentinel Buttress. The route begins from a ledge approximately ...
Kanamo (The White Lady, 5,974m, 32°22'11.24"N, 78°5'12.06"E) lies to the northeast of Kibber, once dubbed the highest inhabited village in the world reached by road. (Various altitudes, to 4,270m, are cited.) It lies in the heart of Spiti, a regio...
Influenced by performance ascents made by international mountaineers, certain Indian athletes are now making impressive speed ascents on their own peaks. In 2016, Indian ultra-marathon runner Kieren D’Souza moved to Manali in order to concentrate ...
The Ladakh Mountain Guides Association (LMGA) organized an expedition in September 2018 to the Skitmang region of southeast Ladakh, about 140km from Leh. Our objective was unclimbed Peak 6,364m. Participants were Dorje Angchuk, Kunga Dorje, Tsewan...
The north face of Pik Simagina. (1) Aquadiskotheque (5A, 2021). (2) Belinski Route (5B, 1969). (3) Polivoi (5B, 1969). (4) Rodikov Route (4B, 1990). Just visible to the right is the left edge of the north face of Pik Free Korea. Photo by Alexey ...
Looking northwest from the glacier west of Jankho Laya in 1996. From left to right, Jakoceri, Chachacomani, and the various summits of the Tres Marias. Photo by Angela Goodacre Donini AAJ 2020 contained an account of several climbs on and nea...
Sarah McNair-Landry on pitch two of Ijiraaq, a.k.a. Shapeshifter (5.10). Photo by Erik Boomer With travel restrictions across the globe, Sarah McNair-Landry and I focused our attention on backyard adventures. Luckily, our backyard is Baffin I...
The southeast face of Pik Ural East: (1) 2020 Nilov Route (5B), (2) 1982 Ivanov Route (5B), and (3) 1986 Makarov Route (5B). Photo by Dmitry Golovchenko The Bezengi area is the highest region in the Caucasus, with six of the range’s eight 5,0...
In separate incidents, two climbers fell to their deaths from Kelso Ridge, a popular 3rd-class scramble up 14,267-foot Torreys Peak, west of Denver. An experienced 71-year-old alpinist was reported missing on July 16 after he failed to return from...
Looking northeast up the access valley to (A) Lamo-she, (B) Peak 5,624m, and (C) Peak ca 5,600m. Photo by Yuikeung Ho In October, Siyuan “Azuo” Huang and I explored some new alpine routes in Sichuan. We began in the Tatsienlu Massif, whic...
The east face of Pico Italia with the 2019 Ecuadorian-Australian route Día Libre. Photo by Seb Pelletti While completing part of our IFMGA aspirant guide course, Aldo Coral (Ecuador) and I spotted an unclimbed line on the east face of Pic...
On November 23, I (male, age 34) began a proposed three-day traverse of the White Mountains from White Mountain Peak to Boundary Peak. The traverse, which consists of 20+ miles of ridgeline over 12,000 feet, is mostly easy walking on tundra, thoug...
Snow Lotus from the top camp at 4,900m. The route climbs into the bowl below the face in shadow, then up to the left of the sunlit snow dome to reach the skyline, which is followed back left to the upper north ridge a little short of the summi...
The north ridge of Falak Sar in profile, see from the approach to the west. Photo by Ahmed Mujtaba A Pakistani team made one of the few successful ascents in the country during 2020 when they climbed a significant new approach to the nor...