Located west of Mendoza, the Cordón del Plata offers easy access for climbers and a great training ground for nearby Aconcagua. Cerro Vallecitos (5,475m) is one of the highest and most climbed peaks in the range, with an easy ascent via the normal...
Donald MacPherson Wallace Jr., of Northfield, Vermont, passed away on Sunday, Nov. 18, 2018, after a short illness. His daughters Beth and Meg and his longtime companion, Mary Bellinzier, were with him until the end. He was an extraordinarily dedi...
As the fifth and youngest child of Curtiss Gilbert and Anne Seely from Yakima, Washington, Bruce grew up learning the apple farming business from his dad and older siblings. In 1946, as the leader of Boy Scout Troop 9, his father drove 18 boys 10,...
On November 26, 2018, Roberts (Bob) Walker French died at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was a scholar, teacher, mountaineer, poet, and mentor to many. He will be greatly missed.Bob was born in New York City in 1935, to John and Rhoda Walker...
Robert “Bob” Mayo Failing was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the son of Joseph Henry Failing, M.D., and Virginia Mayo Neely. He attended Starr Commonwealth School in Albion, Michigan, graduating in 1946 at age 17. He moved to Murphy, North Carolina,...
Looking east-northeast from Churau to (A) Rongla Kangri, (B) Rongla south top, (C) Peak 6,265m, and (D) Koji La. The long glacier on the left flows to the Tibetan Plateau.A CONFLUENCE of circumstances led to my three partners for a mini-expediti...
THE IDEA of a new line on the southeast face of Pumori (7,161m) had been in my mind since 2015, when I had a chance to study the face in person. I tried it in 2017 with Vlad Capusan (AAJ 2018), but we were defeated by poor weather and avalanches. ...
In October, Antonin Cecchini, Laurent Thévenot, Aurélien Vaissière, and I arrived in the Khumbu for a month's climbing. We made base camp at Dzongla (4,800m) and from there acclimatized by trekking, bouldering, and spending five days climbing up a...
IN OCTOBER 2017, Jesus Ibarz and Pablo Ruiz were part of a Spanish Alpine Team expedition to the Rolwaling, led by Mikel Zabalza. They decided to return independently in October 2018 and brought along Edu Recio. The goal of this trip was the uncli...
FOLLOWING A TIP from Czech mountaineer Martin Otta, Marek Holecěk and Jan Smolen attempted Kyajo Ri (6,151m) from the west in the spring of 2017. Approaching via the village of Landen (4,400m) in the valley of the Bhote Kosi, the two climbed 700m ...
INNER RANGES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF MOUNTAIN THOUGHTS AND MOUNTAIN PEOPLE Geoff Powter. Rocky Mountain Books, 2018. Paperback, 330 pages, $22 Canadian.In this masterpiece of mountain writing, Geoff Powter describes his journeys to the crags of western C...
CHASING DENALI: THE SOURDOUGHS, CHEECHAKOS, AND FRAUDS BEHIND THE MOST UNBELIEVABLE FEAT IN MOUNTAINEERING Jonathan Waterman. Lyons Press, 2018. Hardcover, 184 pages, $24.95In the early 1900s, the town of Fairbanks still bore many of the character...
THE ANDES: THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF MOUNTAINEERING IN SOUTH AMERICA. Evelio A. Echevarria. Joseph Reidhead & Co., 2018. Paperback, 840 pages, $64.50.If you’re a longtime fan of this journal, Evelio Echevarria is a name you’ve likely read dozens...
The climbs featured in the AAJ don’t happen in a vacuum—they are part of the broader evolution of climbing performance. The following achievements in 2018 provide additional context for the big-wall and mountaineering ascents documented in the 201...
FAR NORTHWESTERN NEPAL has, until recently, been the area of the country—and indeed of the Himalaya in general—least explored by mountaineers, with the exception of parts of Bhutan and of Arunachal Pradesh (Assam Himalaya) in India. From the weste...
On October 6, a 25-year-old female was climbing a route at Bruise Brothers wall in Muir Valley. Approximately 15 feet up the route, she was bitten by a copperhead snake after placing her hand within a crack. Venom was received from the bite, resul...
Philippe Batoux, Aymeric Clouet, and Michel Coranotte spent 10 days of February in Sognefjord, staying in the centrally situated Flam. The conditions were perfect, with lots of ice—all the known lines were in, and some new lines had appeared. The ...
THERE ARE MOMENTS in life when one simply knows something special is happening. There’s a tug at the heartstrings, a charge to the air, and a preciousness to each passing second that reminds us we are lucky to be there. The winter of 2017–2018 in ...
FOULA is the most remote inhabited island off the coast ofBritain, and in Roman times was known as Ultima Thule—the most northern land. Despite being part of the U.K., it takes more time for me to reach it from my home in North Wales than to go to...
OVER THREE WEEKS in July and August 2017, Yuji Hirayama (Japan), Cedar Wright (USA), and I traveled to the Faroe Islands with hopes of climbing Cape Enniberg. Located at the northern tip of the island of Viðoy, it had one the tallest unclimbed sea...