Luka Lindič (Slovenia) and I arrived in El Chaltén in the middle of January and planned for a six-week visit. Since we’d both visited Patagonia a few times, we knew there was no point in having fixed goals, as Mother Nature sets the rules anyways....
From October 21–27, Argentines Ezequiel Dassie and Glauco Muratti made the first ascent of an interesting 5,000m peak in the remote northern section of the Cordón del Potrero Escondido. They began the expedition in Penitentes, at 2,400m on the ro...
Cerro de la Ramada (6,384m) had just two routes (both from the north via the Rio Colorado) prior to my ascent over March 24–26, 2019. The mountain is located in a glacial cirque about 10km southeast of Cerro Mercedario (6,720m) and about 100km nor...
This was the fourth consecutive season with fairly poor weather and conditions. After several anomalously dry seasons in a row, when climbing success in this area was quite straightforward, it has come as a bit of a shock to go back to the Patagon...
Starting in late October, the French climbers Laurent Bibolet, Antoine Cayrol, Emmanuel Chance, Merhal Desay, Gaylord Dugué, Julien Ravanello, and David Vigouroux made a 26-day expedition to the Cordillera de Darwin. Using the sailboat Podorange a...
Cerro Puño (2,108m) is an attractive summit at the top of the Colonia Valley, on the eastern flank of the Northern Patagonian Icefield (Campo de Hielo Norte). Puño Este (ca 2,050m), the eastern summit of the Puño massif, has been climbed by previo...
A few years ago, I took a picture of the south face of Volcán Palpana (6,023m). It was a distant photo in which no details were distinguished other than its verticality. This is something unusual in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, where the ...
The west face of Tengi Ragi Tau (6,938 meters). (1) Trinité. (2) Release the Kraken. Both routes were climbed in October 2019. Release the Kraken, the American route, was the first ascent of the west face and reached the summit of the peak. Phot...
Chashkin III, II, and I from the south, showing the approximate lines of (red line) Steeze Matters, the first ascent of Chashkin I (6,035m), and (blue line) the subsequent ski descent from the summit. Photo by Tico Gangulee In June I traveled...
IN BRIEF The 1993 classic Yankee Rock & Ice: A History of Climbing in the Northeastern United States (Stackpole, $19.95), by Laura and Guy Waterman, was published in a new edition in 2018, with four new chapters by Michael Wejchert and a for...
SOME STORIES: LESSONS FROM THE EDGE OF BUSINESS AND SPORT. Yvon Chouinard. Patagonia Books, 2019. Hardcover, 464 pages, $45. Sometimes a former ropemate makes good so spectacularly that all you can do is rock back on your heels and say, Thanks! ...
THE SHARP END OF LIFE: A MOTHER’S STORY. Dierdre Wolownick. Mountaineers Books, 2019. Hardcover, 256 pages, $24.95. In Dierdre Wolownick’s inspirational memoir, the journey from frazzled mother struggling through an emotionally abusive marriage ...
STARVATION SHORE: A NOVEL. Laura Waterman. The University of Wisconsin Press, 2019. Hardcover, 416 pages, $27.95. In Starvation Shore, Laura Waterman (no relation to reviewer) has turned her scholarly pen to a forgotten Arctic tragedy. In 1881,...
END OF THE ROPE: MOUNTAINS, MARRIAGE, AND MOTHERHOOD. Jan Redford. Random House (Canada), 2018. Hardcover, 302 pages, $26; paperback, $16.95. My two longstanding criteria for measuring a written work’s effectiveness are: When I get to the end of...
HANGDOG DAYS: CONFLICT, CHANGE, AND THE RACE FOR 5.14. Jeff Smoot. Mountaineers Books, 2019. Paperback, 320 pages, $21.95. One of the enduring phenomena in American climbing history has been clashes between the old guard and the new. While not e...
RISING: BECOMING THE FIRST NORTH AMERICAN WOMAN ON EVEREST. Sharon Wood. Mountaineers Books, 2019. Hardcover, 272 pages, $19.95. In 1986, Canadian alpinist and mountain guide Sharon Wood became the first North American woman to summit Everest. N...
PAUL PREUSS: LORD OF THE ABYSS. David Smart. Rocky Mountain Books (Canada), 2019. Hardcover, 247 pages, CAN $32. In 2014, as Alex Honnold and I were working on his memoir, Alone on the Wall, I laid a little trap for him. “So, Alex,” I said earne...
THE IMPOSSIBLE CLIMB: ALEX HONNOLD, EL CAPITAN, AND THE CLIMBING LIFE. Mark Synnott. Dutton, 2019. 416 pages, hardcover $28, paperback $18. If the quality of Mark Synnott’s book, The Impossible Climb, were on trial, I would be struck from the ju...
BLACK CAR BURNING. Helen Mort. Chatto & Windus (U.K.), 2019. Hardcover, 336 pages, £14.99. A crowded soccer stadium in 1989, a throng of fans so large that nearly 100 of them are crushed to death. The modern-day crag outside the northern Engl...
Bronwyn Hodgins on the summit of Thor Peak with the Weasel River far below. Photo by Jacob Cook I crouched on a rock ledge that was barely wider than a picnic bench and sloped disconcertingly toward the abyss. Both my hands supported our litt...