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2012 American Alpine Club Benefit Dinner
Abruzzi was a duke. Cassin was a steel worker. Perry-Smith came from family money. Heckmair was a gardener. The climbing community has always spanned the gap between those with the independent wealth to travel and climb, and those who have forsaken everything else for the mountains. I cannot claim to be as destitute as Heckmair…
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Mammut Trion Guide 45L: Not Like Climbing With A Backboard
I have often struggled to find an alpine pack for one- or two-night trips. A pack of this size needs to be comfortable enough to carry up to about forty pounds of gear while hiking into a high camp, yet trim and lithe enough to use for technical climbing on summit bids. Mammut has found…
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C.A.M.P. Cassin X-All Mountain: Light, Aggressive and Home-Depot Orange
There are only so many ways of describing an ice tool. Attributes worth discussing are shaft clearance, pick angle and spike pointy-ness–the X-All Mountain excels at all of them. But in reality, biomechanics have a lot to do with matching a user to their perfect tool. And the X-All Mountain feels like a custom tool…
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Exploring The Alps
It is more intuitive to pursue “the new” in remote and unexplored mountains, as opposed to a well-known range. “It is often difficult to be alone in the Alps,” Barmasse writes, citing the proliferation of guided climbing, staffed huts and ski lifts that bring vacationers to nearly all peaks. Barmasse wanted to experience the “authentic…
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Exploring The Alps – Mont Blanc
The second ascent of Barmasse’s project was a new route on Mont Blanc, established with Basque brothers Iker and Eneko Pou, with which Barmasse wanted to “point out the great value of a roped party and the pleasure of sharing mountaineering with friends.”
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Exploring the Alps – Matterhorn
On March 8, 2011, Herve Barmasse began the first installment of his project–a new, solo route up the south face of Picco Muzio, a subpeak on the Furggen Ridge of the Matterhorn. His chosen line, a 700-meter overhanging pillar, had never been explored before, though many other routes cover the face. After two days of…
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Exploring The Alps – Monte Rosa
On September 30, 2011, Italian climbers Marco and Herve Barmasse, a father and son from Northern Italy, established a new route on the southeast face of Signalkuppe (4554m), a peak in the Monte Rosa massif. The 800-m route (ED) signifies the end of Herve Barmasse’s “Exploring the Alps” project, in which he put up new…
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Grivel Monte Bianco: The Pleasure of Wood
With it’s classic design, neutral angle blade and abnormally large spike, it seems as though this axe was well designed for meandering through low-angle snowfields thinking about the late greats and golden ages – but nothing more.
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Ice Revolution
My main climbing partners were John Bragg, John Bouchard and Henry Barber…” Rick Wilcox narrates the ice climbing revolution of the Northeast in the 1960s and 1970s. Created by Sarah Garlick and Jim Surette.
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