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Thwarted on Nuptse
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I’ve just recently returned to the US from my second trip to the Nepalese Himalaya. In late September I met up with Ueli Steck in Kathmandu, and the next day we flew to the Khumbu region. Our plan was an alpine-style attempt on the southeast buttress of Nuptse East, the line named “Moonlight Sonata” by its first ascentionists, Valeri Babanov and Yuri Koshelenko. In addition to Nuptse, we had procured permits for Lobuche East and Cholatse, for nice acclimatization options.
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Tom Frost: How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything
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When climbing historian Steve Grossman describes Tom Frost, he calls him a “visionary who redefined climbing style; an engineer who helped revolutionize climbing equipment; an artist whose iconic photography documented the most celebrated first ascents on Yosemite’s big walls; and a conservationist who led the international effort to save historic Camp 4.” Filmmaker Tom Seawell, who worked with Frost on several projects over the years at Frost’s lighting business Chimera, recognizes the similarities between how he managed the company and its employees and how he treats his climbing partners.
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Skiy Detray’s Social Media Guest Postings October 26-November 1
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Between October 26-November 1, Alpinist contributor Skiy DeTray posted his photos, video and stories on our Instagram, Facebook and Twitter pages as part of our Alpinist Community project. His notable ascents are included in several NewsWires and web features, including: Teams Smoke Speed Records on El Cap, Video: Speed Ascent of El Cap’s Zenyatta Mondatta (video produced by Detray’s cousin Dave Coy), Lion in Winter: Mt. Temple’s North Face and Berg and DeTray Author Illusions of the Raven.
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Marc-Andre Leclerc’s Social Media Guest Postings October 19-25
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Between October 19-25, Alpinist contributor Marc-Andre Leclerc posted his photos and stories on our Instagram, Facebook and Twitter pages as part of our Alpinist Community project. His notable ascents are included in several NewsWires, including: Solo Triple Linkup on Slesse in Alpine Ninja-Cat Stylee Mountain, Speed Soloing the Chief, Marc-Andre Leclerc Solos Cerro Torre’s Corkscrew Route and Soloists Visit Patagonia in Winter.
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Carl Battreall’s Social Media Guest Postings October 12-18
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Six months ago we posted a slideshow on Alpinists.com by Carl Battreall called “A Collection of Climbed and Unclimbed Alaska Peaks.” His shot of the Citadel, in the Neacola Range, was inspiration for the namesake film by Posing Productions documenting Matt Helliker and Jon Bracey’s new route up the peak’s Northwest Ridge.
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Chris Marshall’s Social Media Guest Postings October 5-11
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Between October 5 and 11, 2015, AMGA Certified Ski Guide and AMGA/IFMGA Aspirant Mountain Guide Christopher Marshall posted his photos and stories on our social media pages as part of our Alpinist Community project. We noticed Marshall’s work when he started tagging us on Instagram. Marshall calls this collection of images “a reflection of the greater shared experience [captured] during dusk and dawn’s golden hour.”
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Birth, Sickness, Old Age, Death: Chapter 1
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MY BODY IS FALLING APART at the joints. My last surgeon peeled a frayed mess of cartilage off my left humerus as he fixed a torn labrum. The bones of my shoulder socket grind on each other every time I do thumbs-down hand jams.
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Birth, Sickness, Old Age, Death: Chapter 2
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Death? That wasn’t something I was ready to contemplate. Pain was forcing me out of bed at 2, 3 or 4 a.m. I couldn’t sleep. I felt like a driver in a car skidding out of control. I kept hitting the brakes, but the car just accelerated.
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Paul McSorley’s Social Media Guest Postings: September 28 to October 4
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Between September 28 and October 4, 2015, Alpinist contributor Paul McSorley posted his photos and stories on our Instagram, Facebook and Twitter pages as part of our Alpinist Community project. McSorley has been featured on our website and his image appears in A Season in Patagonia in Alpinist 0. Below is a compilation of his work from that week. McSorley calls this collection of seven photos “lines that have changed my perspective.”
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International Team Completes Mt. Waddington Project
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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.
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Searching for Light in the Dark Arts
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Jeff Shapiro reflects on wingsuit flight after the death of his friends Sean “Stanley” Leary, Dean Potter and Graham Hunt. See the tribute to the three men in Alpinist 51 (on newsstands now and available online) or read the feature here–Ed.
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Clint Helander’s Social Media Guest Postings September 21-27
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Between September 21 and 27, 2015, Alpinist contributor Clint Helander posted his photos and stories on our Instagram, Facebook and Twitter pages as part of our Alpinist Community project. Helander has been featured on our website and his words appear in Alpinist 32, The Relentless Raven, Alpinist 46, Local Hero: Mark Westman, and Alpinist 49, The Question: The Direct East Face of Golgotha.
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Craig Muderlak’s Social Media Guest Postings September 14-20
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Between September 14 and 20, 2015, Alpinist contributor Craig Muderlak posted his art, photos and stories on our Instagram, Facebook and Twitter pages as part of our Alpinist Community project. Muderlak’s artwork has been featured on both our website and in Alpinist 50 and 51. This web feature is a compilation of his work from that week.
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Into the Shadow Chapter 1
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STARS FLICKER IN A SLOW-SPINNING SKY. Old snow crackles. The moraine–a rubble-strewn lunar surface–creaks under our feet. A yellow moon lights our path. Ice gleams. Houseman and I are creeping like thieves. We’re scared the mountain might hear our approach.
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Into the Shadow Chapter 2
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THE BEDROOM WAS DARK. Ten minutes, just ten more minutes. I curled the covers over my head. How do you prepare yourself? Soon I’d get up and make the daily prison commute. Ten heavy steel doors would open and close with a clunk as sharp as a cork pulled: ten inmates escorted to the gymnasium.
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Photographer Jason Gebauer: The Silent Observer
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We caught up with photographer Jason Gebauer when he was passing through Winter Park, Colo., while scouting landscape to shoot this coming winter. A resident of Golden, Colo., Gebauer is on the road two months a year but gets out climbing and photographing about three days a week. “I mostly shoot climbing and climbing lifestyle, but I’ve been getting into skiing and ski mountaineering,” he tells us.
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Dru Part II–1983: La Voie Lesueur, First Winter Ascent
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THE CLANGOR OF OUR SKI BOOTS on steel stairs broke the winter silence atop the Grands Montets. I turned, my gaze riveted on the North Face of the Drus: “It’s there,” I told my climbing partner Thierry Renault. “Yes, yes, yes,” he murmured in the Frank Zappa style of talking he favored at the time. The wall rose from depths of shadow, silver-streaked and foreboding. The Voie Lesueur formed an almost continuous line of iceand snow-lined chimneys and gullies spiraling from right to left, terminating atop the Grand Dru.
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Mountain Profile: The Aiguille du Dru Part II (1955-2015)
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“It seemed built to perpetuate our dreams”–thus Guido Magnone described the Aiguille du Dru in The West Face. Ian Parnell relives the history of a peak poised between mountaineering fantasies and environmental realities. Royal Robbins, Claude Remy, Andy Parkin and Jerome Sullivan share dispatches from the past to the future.
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Between the Lines
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IN A BRICK HOUSE in the tree-lined village of Hildenborough, England, a Tibetan woman listened to her British husband translate books and newspapers, so she could hear how foreign writers depicted her homeland. It was the early twentieth century, in the midst of the first British attempts on Everest.
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Smith and Kadatz: Free Climbing on Baffin Island
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“I believe that in Hell, they make you posthole,” Anna Smith told Alpinist, recalling the conditions she and her climbing partner, Michelle Kadatz, endured while shuttling a loads to one of Baffin Island’s big wall routes during July.
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What the Heart, Only, Sees
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February 20, 2015: I lay awake in a small cave, high above the Torre Valley in Patagonia. Storms echoed across the giant arena of granite spires, hidden in the night. I listened for avalanches and rockfall, but the deep rumble of rain eclipsed all sound. A cold fog hovered over my face.
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Patience and the Dragon: Fitz Roy
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Going Home
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One after the other, their toes compress then release from the cliff’s edge. Shoulders hunch forward, chins are tucked in. Toes are pointed. Legs are spread apart, holding their wingsuits open. Streaked granite surrounds them: El Capitan, the 3,000-foot wall they’ve climbed for years, its golden polish framed by ponderosa pines. Rushing air fills their ears. They thread a channel that opens toward the Cathedral Spires across the valley floor. The orange sky feels thick, heavy.
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The City and the Blade Chapter 4
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IN MARCH OF 2011, while skiing in the Tetons, Renan fell off a small cliff. His doctors said he was lucky: although he’d fractured his skull and two vertebrae, and severed a major vertebral artery, his mental acuity would not be compromised. Maybe, as Mugs might say, Ganesh, the mover of obstacles in the Hindu religion, had helped us out. But Renan would have to wear a neck brace for twelve weeks.
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The City and the Blade Chapter 3
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SOME WESTERNERS ARE DRIVEN to explore the “unknown,” believing that we will discover bliss in uncharted regions, whether we define it as riches, science or self-discovery. To the Hindus of the Gangotri, the known features of the landscape already form part of a sacred, present reality–one that can be seen, touched, heard, tasted and felt.
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The City and the Blade Chapter 2
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IN THE YEARS AFTER MUGS’ DEATH, I climbed in the style he’d imprinted on me, venturing into places where nature was still in power, where everything became simple because no falling was allowed. A new partner, Alex Lowe, joined me on expeditions to Central Asia and Antarctica. In my memory, now, it’s hard to fix a single image of him, for he was always moving, drinking coffee, bouncing on his toes. Like all his friends, I found myself caught up in that endless stream of energy, bewildered by what I could achieve while he cheered me on.
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The City and the Blade Chapter 1
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Mugs had tried the Shark’s Fin in 1986 and 1988 with various partners. He was turned back by an avalanche, a shoulder injury and heavy snow. When speaking of the peak, his voice dropped to a reverential whisper. On the back wall of his van, he tacked a tattered cover of Mountain with a photo of the Shark’s Fin framed perfectly against a blue sky. He covered the image with a weatherworn prayer flag, only sharing it with his closest friends.
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Fun Times at the 22nd Annual Lander International Climbers’ Festival
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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.
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There and Back Again: Chapter Two
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After being kidnapped in Kyrgyzstan I suffered from nightmares and loads of mistrust in the world. I went to see a therapist a few times to try and rid my sleep of nightmares, but my therapy and focus on mental healing stopped there. I felt that therapy was a sign of weakness, and that I should be tougher than that.
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Meru: Documentary Reveals Honor and Obsession among Himalaya Big Wall Climbers
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It’s over and they know it. Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk are 7,000 miles from home, 20,000 feet above sea level and a mere 300 feet below the summit of Meru Central (6310m), the middle summit of Meru Peak, in India.
