The west face of Goksøyra and the lines of (1) Midnattsol, (2) Winter in Norway like SummerT in Tatry, (3) Ice Forest, (4) Vertical Garden, and (5) No Wet, No Fun. Photo by Kacper Telieki Goksøyra (1,330m, 62°38'33.31"N, 8°8'41.59"E) lies clo...
Diamantfinner on the north face of “Moltbaertinden North.” Gerber Cucurell In the Kirkefjord area, on the island of Moskenesøya, Bernat Bilarrassa, Jordi Esteve, and I climbed a couple of new routes in May. We first tried the north face of Br...
Nora's Gully on the west face of Rulten. See AAJ 2010 for other routes to the right on this face. Luka Krajnc In AAJ 2019, Chris Wright (USA) reported new routes on Stortinden and Brettviktinden climbed with Jon Bracey (U.K.) and Luka Krajn...
Vaffelvika on the north side of Krikktindan. Photo by Chris Wright On March 17 a strong, young Lofoten local named Stian Bruvoll and I took advantage of a rare day off work to poke around the fjords. We had a million ideas, as usual, but as S...
On August 16, 1931, the legendary Norwegian mountaineer Arne Randers Heen, with his cousin Eirik Heen, became the first to climb any of the Trolltind summits directly from the Romsdalen, when the pair completed the 1,550m Fiva Route to Store Tro...
Bondit Peak (a.k.a. Bondid, formerly Muntin) is a prominent mountain of a little less than 6,000m situated near the head of the Bondit Glacier at 35°20'29.06"N, 76°16'27.59"E. The Bondit Valley rises southwest from the Kande Valley, which in tur...
In April 2018, a team of eight, mostly French, did a 150km ski tour going up the Nobande Sobande Glacier, across the Skam La (5,600m), and down to Snow Lake and the Biafo Glacier. On April 24, Hélias Millerioux and Léo Taillefer (both from France)...
Terzo Paradiso (700m, AI5 M5) on the south side of Gateway Ridge, Börgen Bay. The drop-off point was off the right side of the picture, while the pick-up point was off the left side. Photo by Marcello Sanguineti Gian Luca Cavalli, Manrico...
Calvarin Peak from the southwest with the approximate line climbed by the French team to make the first ascent. Photo by Manu Pellissier French guides Sam Beaugey and Manu Pellissier, with their client François Calvarin, left ALE's Union Glac...
Four climbers and two Moroccan Berber friends sat with feet dangling over a dizzying precipice, slaking our thirst with a Flag beer and finally resting our shredded hands. Mohammed’s beat box chanted melodic Berber tunes, which competed with the s...
In December I returned to Oman, where I had lived from 2008 until 2017, to reunite with my longtime climbing partner and first-ascent collaborator Jakob Oberhauser, who has been guiding in Oman since 2003 and has done untold new routes there. Al...
The first time I visited Oman was in 2011, together with the very strong "seniors" Sigi Brachmayer, Horst Fankhauser, Oswald Oelz, and Albert Precht. This climbing trip was really important to me for exploring and understanding the area. I retur...
When time off for climbing is limited, it makes sense to choose a destination with guaranteed good weather. With interesting culture and plenty of climbing potential, Oman fit the bill perfectly for our winter holidays. After familiarizing ours...
Not all of us have the good fortune of living close to paradise, and not all of us have the luck to be able to travel when we would like to. And so that leaves some of us no alternative but to adapt ourselves to the situation and travel when work ...
In eastern Sudan there lies a great collection of large granite domes situated above the town of Kassala with a few existing routes and plenty of impressive lines and potential first ascents (see AAJ 2014). Jonny Baker (U.K.) and I arrived in K...
In December I returned to Oman’s Western Hajar Mountains to climb long new routes, this time with Lee Burbery, also from New Zealand. We felt welcomed as always, and despite continued infrastructure development in Oman, the areas we visited rema...
It’s just a rock climb, right? That’s how it started out, anyway. In 2015, Hayden Kennedy and I planned a 10-day trip to Mt. Hooker with the goal of establishing an independent route up the large and imposing northeast face. We reeled in Jesse ...
Over the course of a year and a half, Brandon Adams established a new route on the Lost Brother that quickly became a favorite among high-end free climbers. Wayward Son (13 pitches, 5.12d or 5.11 A0) features three crux pitches of 5.12 through w...
In early summer, Chris Koppl and I hiked out to Little Yosemite Valley to check out new possibilities on some large walls that seemed to have a lot of potential. The first was the northwest face of Bunnell Point, approximately four trail miles e...
As we quietly enjoyed the waning warmth of the late fall sun on the summit of Half Dome, a breathtaking view of the sweeping valley leading toward El Cap stretched before us. After 10 years of climbing all sorts of routes, from Alaska to the Canad...