When I heard that Steve Wunsch had died, and how he had, until the end, kept his cancer private, an Irish song, “Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye” came to mind, and I realized that during all the time we traveled together, the climbs, the successes, the f...
Bob Swift began backpacking in the Boy Scouts and took up climbing with the Sierra Club as a teenager. There were practice climbs at Berkeley’s Cragmont and Indian Rocks, learning from the likes of David Brower and Richard Leonard, who had been cu...
Jess Fenton Roskelley was born in Spokane, Washington, on July 13, 1982. He graduated from Mt. Spokane High School in 2001 and attended the University of Montana for two years before embarking on an expedition to climb Everest with his father, Joh...
Dee Molenaar, an international mountaineering legend, geologist, and artist, passed away on January 19, 2020. He was 101. Throughout his life, Dee demonstrated great generosity, getting as much satisfaction from helping others achieve their mount...
Wayne Procter Merry passed away at home in Atlin, British Columbia, on October 30, 2019. He was 88. Wayne lived a consequential and deeply satisfying life as a trailblazer in a variety of arenas: big-wall climbing, national park administration, se...
For the millennial generation, those born between 1981 and 1996, there is no climber that systematically challenged and defined the standards and disciplines of mountain sports as David Lama did. When we lose exceptional people at much too young a...
Brad Gobright grew up in Orange County, California, along with his sister, Jill, three years his junior. His parents, Pam and Jim, who are avid hikers, brought the family to Lone Pine Lake in the Sierra Nevada when Gobright was 4, cementing his lo...
“You should come have dinner with my brother, John. He’s done some climbing,” Rick Evans said in a meeting one day. My brain didn’t make the connection between this guy who had “done some climbing” and the John Evans who was a hero of mine sinc...
Helmut Fritz Beckey, known as Helmy, was born in Seattle and died in Munich, Germany, at age 93. In his youth, he established first ascents and new routes throughout the Cascades and elsewhere. Helmy learned the basics of climbing as a member of ...
Hansjörg Auer was born February 18, 1984, and was raised on his family’s alpine farm in the Ötztal valley of Tirol, Austria. He grew up in an environment where climbing came naturally. Before he’d even reached the age of ten, he’d already su...
Max Didier (Chile), Austin Siadak, Ian Siadak (both USA), and I had met the year before in El Chaltén and talked about doing an expedition together. In February 2020, it happened: We got ambitious, formed a team of friends, and set out to explore ...
On January 18, 2020, Marine Israel (France), Jeffrey Buckley, August Uribe, and Oscar Uribe (USA), and I departed via the maritime vessel Alakush from Caleta María (Azopardo Bay) in Chile, headed for the eastern Cordillera Darwin. We sailed southw...
Sundance: Second Ascent and First Free Ascent Upon arrival in Cochamó in December 2019, I partnered up with local climber Diego Diazaguilera. Talking about potential climbs to free, he pointed out the route Sundance, which goes up the northwest f...
Dana Hawlish climbing the Cosmic Corner (5.12-) of La Pluma del Cóndor on Cerro Laguna. Brandon Hill In February, on a rainy day in Valle Trinidad, Billy Barghahn, Dana Hawlish, and I set out to look for a new line on this valley’s seldom-cli...
Cerro Picacho (1,883m, 44°54' 32.5"S, 72° 13' 11.8", labeled incorrectly as Cerro Puntiagudo on the IGM map) rises above dense forests along the Carretera Austral highway between Mañihuales and Villa Amengual. On January 31, 2019, Armando Montero ...
In the austral winter of 2016, I worked as a caretaker on a remote ranch in the Colonia Valley, outside of Cochrane. On bluebird days, I’d walk to the shores of Lago Colonia and look across at the Northern Patagonian Icefield. Cerro Arenales domin...
Our expedition to the Northern Patagonian Icefield in Chile’s Aysén region was comprised of a team of five: two French (Norbert Talazac and Pierrick Saint Martin) and three Argentines (Bruno Falco, Juan Falco, and Marcos Goldin). We put aside a mo...
During 2019, three different expeditions achieved new routes in the interesting climbing zone of Sosneado, located on the east flank of Cerro de los Pantanos, southeast of Cerro el Palomo (4,850m), along the Chile-Argentina border. Together, there...
Nico Favresse and I came to El Chaltén this past season without a plan. Other climbers, seemingly discontent with this explanation, would ask, “Are you keeping it a secret?” It seems to be in vogue to have a big project and focus all of your ene...
I left Italy at the end of January 2020 with two longtime partners, Matteo Bernasconi and Matteo Pasquetto, heading south for an annual visit to the mountains that, for me, are simply the most beautiful in the world. We had a clear goal in mind: a...