Latok III Attempt. After losing ten days to lost luggage, Phil Powers and I attempted the unclimbed west face of Latok III (6950 meters, 22,802 feet). On July 30 and again on July 31, we climbed the 500-meter-high snow gully on the left side of th...
AVALANCHEWyoming, Grand Teton National Park, South TetonOn February 22 at 1120, Wray Landon (31) was caught in an avalanche and carried to his death while skiing near the summit of the South Teton. Landon was skiing with partners Nathan Brown (32)...
Haji Brakk, attempt on west face. From June 28 to July 17 the small Polish expedition of Jerzy Stefanski and I climbed in the Charakusa Valley. We acclimatized with a night at 5,000m and an ascent of Sulo Peak (ca 5,950m) by its southwest couloir,...
Kullu Eiger, second ascent, new route, west face to south face. In the autumn Oscar Pérez and I went to the Kullu Eiger, because our agent in India showed us a picture of the north face and an article written by the Scottish expedition that reache...
American Rock: Region, Rock and Culture in American Climbing. Don Mellor. Woodstock, Vermont: The Countryman Press, 2001.303 pages. $28.Don Mellor lays it out straight in his introduction to American Rock: “This is a book about American rock climb...
Kangze’gyai (ca 5,800m), west face. Kangze’gyai (a.k.a.Tuanjiefeng), the highest peak in the Qilian Mountains, is located in Tianjun County within the Haixi Autonomous Prefecture of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. From the town of Xining it t...
JOHN DENISON BALDWIN 1902-1946“Dan” Baldwin, who died in Sydney, Australia, on 26 September 1946, was the first president of the Harvard Mountaineering Club, in the winter of 1924-1925. Until recently he had been a member of the American Alpine Cl...
Caraz II, South Face. It was reported that, during the summer of 1997, Britons A1 Coull, Mark Kendrick and Muir Morton established the Superduper Couloir (TD, ice/mixed 80-90°, 500m), a fairly direct central line on the south face of Caraz II (602...
La Cresta, Central Andes. Luis Fernando Toro, from Manizales, and I did on December 29, 1980 the second ascent of La Cresta, 5100 meters (16,733 feet) by my altimeter. This peak in the Huila group, was first climbed by Sergio Gaviria and two Spani...
The Narrows, Freak Show, and Sheer Lunacy, First Free Ascent. In the spring, I climbed a new seven-pitch route called the Freak Show, located in the mouth of the Narrows, about a ten-minute walk up the paved path from the Temple of Sinawava. The r...
Wyoming, Grand Teton National Park, Symmetry Spire. On July 7, Bill Byrd of the Exum Mountaineering concession was guiding Joe Roundtree (23) and Jerry Kelly (21) on the Southwest Ridge. They had completed about two thirds of the Ridge and Byrd wa...
Chandra Parbat and Indradhanush, Attempts. An 11-member Indian team from Dimdoot, Calcutta, led by Debasish Kanji, attempted these peaks in the Gangotri area during the months of May and June. They established their last camp at 6100 meters on the...
The Blob, Plan 9. In August, Erik Wolfe and I battled our way into the remote Crescent Creek Basin of the Southern Pickets to climb the south face (IV 5.10) of The Blob (a.k.a. The Rake). Our route, the only one on the face, took a prominent, clea...
Sawtooths, Mt. Cramer, North Face. Last year while climbing other remote routes in the Sawtooths, I caught a fleeting view of this overlooked face and was awestruck. We had to get a closer inspection. In mid- August Jimmy Watts and I took the boat...
Rock ’n Road: Rock Climbing Areas in North America. Tim Toula. Chockstone Press, Evergreen, Colorado, 1994. $30.00.Comment: This includes lists of climbing stores, guidebooks, gyms, guide services, boot repair outfits. This is either the world’s l...
Mawson Peak, Heard Island, South Indian Ocean. An Austrian expedition led by Dr. Ross Vining and William Blunt made the second ascent of Mawson Peak, the highest point (2745 meters, 9005 feet) of an active volcano called Big Ben. Heard Island is u...
Dharamsura and P 19,500. Twelve climbers from Calcutta, led by Sailendra Nath Bhattacharya, established Base Camp at 13,500 feet at Samsi. On June 24 Pulak Majumdar, Asoke Sarkar, Tara Chand and Nirat Ram climbed the difficult southeast ridge of D...
Cerro Torre, East Face, 1986. A nine-man Slovene expedition led by Stane Klemenc has completed what must be one of the most difficult climbs anywhere. Janez Jeglic, Silvo Karo, Franc Knez, Pavle Kozjek, Peter Podgomik and Matjaž Fištrovec complete...
Gaurishankar Attempt. Six Poles led by Tadeusz Preysner made an unsuccessful attempt on the south face of Gaurishankar but were driven back by avalanche danger. Four climbers reached 19,700 feet on April 22.Michael J. Cheney, Himalayan Club, and E...
Ascents in the Cordillera de la Totora. This big but little-known range in San Juan has many unclimbed peaks. There were some ascents in the late 1970s, including the highest peak, Cerro de la Totora (5770m). Some years ago, a Spanish team climbed...