International team completes line on the highest mountain wholly within British Columbia, Mt. Waddington. From August 18 to 19, Paul McSorley, Ines Papert and Mayan Smith-Gobat completed a two-day ascent of Mt. Waddington’s Southwest Buttress to reach its Northwest Summit (4000m). Two parties had previously attempted their 20-pitch 800-meter route, rated 5.11+ WI3 M5 ED1.
The Lander International Climbers’ Festival, which celebrated its twenty-second anniversary from July 8 to July 12, is the modern-day equivalent of the Rocky Mountain Rendezvous–but for climbers. Here, at City Park, by a river still lined with cottonwoods, the itinerant climbers pitched a city of colorful tents, while their iron horses lined the narrow street beside the river.
On April 16, several days after his partner Thomas Bubendorfer experienced foot problems and the pair aborted an attempt on Cerro Torre, Austrian alpinist Markus Pucher made the first ascent, solo, of the remote West Face of Cerro Marconi Sur. The 8,150-foot (2484-meter) peak is the high point of a jagged ridge in the Cordon Marconi range northwest of Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre on the eastern edge of the Patagonia Icecap.
Senja Island, the second largest island in Norway, is a spectacular and pristine land that faces the open Norwegian Sea on the country’s ragged northwest coast. The coastal region, with its fickle winter weather, is perfect for mixed climbing protected by trad gear.
Stewart Green pens an elegy for Eric Bjornstad (1934–2014), author of Desert Rock, climber of sandstone spires and lover of open spaces.
