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Remembering Tim Auger
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Tim Auger died on August 9, 2018, in Banff, Alberta, at age 72. The following story is an excerpt from a feature by Brandon Pullan titled “Homage” that appeared in Alpinist 42. Auger was an influential Canadian climber who served Parks Canada for approximately three decades. One of his most famous first ascents was the University Wall on the Chief at Squamish with Dan Tate, Glenn Woodsworth and Hamish Mutch in 1965-66.
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A2: The Highest Mountain in the World (1819)
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In this Mountain Profile essay from Alpinist 62, Stewart Weaver documents the early mapping of Nanda Devi and the initial belief that it was the highest mountain in the world.
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A retrospective on the second winter ascent of Nanga Parbat, the heroic rescue and the logistical and financial challenges of helicopter operations in Pakistan
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Elisabeth Revol and Tomek Mackiewicz completed the second winter ascent of Nanga Parbat in alpine style on January 25, but they got into trouble on the descent as a storm was building. What unfolded over the next several days became a demonstration of heroism and solidarity in the international mountain community, as people from different nations worked together to try to help the stranded climbers. It also raised questions about modern rescues in remote mountains–about the limits of possibilities; about best practices in a digital and increasingly technological age; and about disparities between which groups of people receive the most…
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‘End of the Rope’: Courage and Humor on the Cliffs and on the Ground
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Jan Redford’s new memoir, “End of the Rope: Mountains, Marriage, and Motherhood,” takes the reader on her journey of rebelling against her family and society’s expectations, navigating relationships and loss on her own terms and pursuing the potential she knows she has despite obstacles. It’s the work of a vulnerable and hard-earned courage, open to trial and error on a climb as well as on the ground.
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Responsibility is a Gift: OR trade show provides a glimpse of outdoor industry’s impacts and influence
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As the Summer Outdoor Retailer trade show heats up in Denver, Emma Murray and Sara Aranda take a look back at the winter trade show that was held in January and some of the events since then to consider how the outdoor industry is addressing environmental, social and political issues.
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1939: The Eye of the Storm
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In this Mountain Profile essay from Alpinist 62, Julia Pulwicki translates Janusz Klarner’s account of the first ascent of Nanda Devi East in 1939 by Klarner’s Polish team. This essay is part of an extensive two-part feature by Pete Takeda that includes other essays by various authors as well as this one.
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Sentinels of the Alpine
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Katherine Indermaur considers her connection to alpine environments and the history represented by the lodgepole pine.
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To Look the Bear in the Eye; The Life of Yasushi Yamanoi
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In this story from Alpinist 62, Sartaj Ghuman chronicles the adventures of Yasushi Yamanoi. At 53 years old, Yamanoi has survived multiple epics in the mountains. He remains a talented climber despite lost fingers and toes, broken teeth and bones and other severe injuries. He is on the long list for the 2018 Piolets d’Or for a first ascent he did last year with Takaaki Furuhata of a 5970-meter peak in India’s Zanskar Range. Ghuman was their liaison officer and, after meeting Yamanoi, he wanted to write about the low-key man who has been making significant high-altitude first ascents for…
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Full Circle: how and why Sunny Stroeer became the first woman (and third person) to finish Aconcagua’s 360 Route in a solo push
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Sunny Stroeer became the first woman (and third person) to complete Aconcagua’s 360 Route in a solo push last February. For this story, Emma Murray asked Stroeer how she went from being a student who rarely ventured outside town–even when Stroeer lived in Switzerland’s “outdoor capital of the world”–to an ambitious outdoor athlete, and what motivates her to keep pushing her limits.
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A dusty box of golden memories: photos from the life of Kim Schmitz (1946-2016)
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Savannah Cummins befriended the legendary alpinist Kim Schmitz in recent years when they were living in Jackson, Wyoming. Schmitz gave Cummins a box of old photos shortly before he died in a one-car accident in September 2016 at age 70. Rick Ridgeway, John Roskelley and Jack Tackle assisted in identifying some of the images, and in honor of Kim’s memory, we share some of his collection with you now.
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Adventures on the Turtle’s Back
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In this story from Alpinist 62, “Adventures on the Turtle’s Back,” Joe Whittle, an enrolled tribal member of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma and a descendent of the Delaware Nation, spends time in canyons and mountains that Indigenous people call home. Kanim Moses-Conner, Bobby Fossek, Len Necefer, Mia Ritter-Whittle and Brosnan Spencer join him on a shared journey to connect with the land and their Native American heritage in the Wal’wa-maXs, Oregon.
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The Mountain of Data
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In this Sharp End story from Alpinist 62, Editor-in-Chief Katie Ives contextualizes some of the life and work of the great Himalayan chronicler Elizabeth Hawley, who died January 26, 2018, at age 94. During her lifetime, Hawley became an icon for her fact-checking and record-keeping, aspects of journalism that remain as important as ever today.
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A collection of letters
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Selected letters to the editor from Alpinist 59, 61 and 62.
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Under Pulse
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In this Off Belay story from Alpinist 61, Jerry Auld imagines a close encounter with the gears of a massive mechanical system lurching under the surface of a glacier. The tale was inspired by some of his glacier travel in which he once fell into a crevasse and from a 2013 ski circumnavigation of Mt. Logan in Canada’s Kluane National Park. He writes, “When you are in the palm of such a setting, it is hard to not feel the importance of keeping these environments working. I wanted to tell that story–to visualize a wounded Earth that is starting to…
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Tom Higgins (1944-2018) remembers the 1976 first ascent of a Pinnacles classic
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Tom Higgins, an influential climber and writer, passed at age 73 on March 21. In his memory, we present a story in which he recounts the 1976 first ascent of Shake and Bake, a classic three-pitch 5.10a R in Pinnacles National Park, California.
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The Mountain of Diamonds
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In this Sharp End story from Alpinist 61, Editor-in-Chief Katie Ives ponders the legend of the “mountain of diamonds” in nineteenth-century American history and the obsession with the idea of hidden riches: “How quickly visions of distant summits turn into longings for conquest, exploitation and gain. But if an imaginary peak is a creation of desire, its elusiveness might also hint at more insubstantial or transcendent things.”
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Pressure Lift
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In this story from Alpinist 61, Cole Taylor recounts his solo journey of sailing north along the Pacific coast from Washington, navigating miles of crevassed glaciers and pulling off the second ascent of the North Pillar of Devils Thumb (Taalkhunaxhk’u Shaa) with borrowed gear, 40 years after it was first done by Bob Plumb and Dave Stutzman.
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Marc-Andre Leclerc Remembered
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Brette Harrington, Luka Lindic, Sonnie Trotter, Bernadette McDonald, Tom Livingstone and others recount the impressive climbing career and profound life of beloved Canadian alpinist Marc-Andre Leclerc.
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A Short Stretch of Fred’s Road
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In this story from Alpinist 61, Douglas McCarty recalls his adventures on the road with Fred Beckey, which started in 1972 when McCarty and a friend hopped a freight train from Montana to Seattle, where the 17-year-olds subsequently met Beckey. Since then, McCarty joined the legendary mountaineer on trips to Alaska, China, Kenya, Mexico and Tanzania, with urban bivies at public parks in between.
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On Becoming a Mountain Steward
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In this unabridged version of a Climbing Life story from Alpinist 61, Laura Waterman retraces the path and climbs that inspired her to become involved in conservation work with her husband, Guy Waterman, in New England’s Presidential Range during the 1970s. Laura Waterman outlines the environmental challenges the area has faced in the past and now faces again in the form of a new hotel that is being proposed by the Cog Railway near the summit of Mt. Washington (Agiocochook).
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Remembering Ryan Johnson
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Clint Helander remembers the life and prolific climbing career of his friend Ryan Johnson, who went missing and is presumed dead along with Marc-Andre Leclerc after the pair climbed a new route on the north face of the Main Mendenhall Tower in Alaska in early March.
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Local Hero: Lopsang Tshering Sherpa
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In this Local Hero story from the latest issue, Alpinist 61, Kapil Bisht interviews Lopsang Tshering Sherpa, who began his storied career as an expedition worker in 1959 as a kitchen helper on the 1959 international women’s Cho Oyu expedition; three years later he was among those bridging the gap for Lionel Terray and the first ascent of Jannu.
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The Prow
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Alex McKiernan suffered a spinal cord injury from a car crash in 2014 and he has slowly regained some use of his legs since then. In this story from Alpinist 60, he details the path of his recovery, and how he climbed a Yosemite big wall in 2016.
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Glimpses of Higher Worlds: Bernadette McDonald’s ‘Art of Freedom’
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“‘Art of Freedom,’ is a brilliant work of insight, not only into the life of the great alpinist, but also about the questions that compel us to the mountains in the first place,” writes Alpinist Associate Editor Paula Wright in her feature about Bernadette McDonald’s award-winning biography, “Art of Freedom: The Life and Climbs of Voytek Kurtyka.”
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Totality from a Mountaintop
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In this letter to the editor from Alpinist 60, Christopher Elliott describes the solar eclipse that occurred on August 21, 2017, and the fleeting “moment of totality” that he and his fellow observers experienced from the top of a mountain.
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Auden in the Brooks Range
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In 1969, a young David Roberts buzzes the doorbell at the apartment of W. H. Auden, his literary hero, in hopes of inspiring the aging poet to journey with him to Alaska’s Brooks Range.
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The Force of the Soul: Hugues Beauzile
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In this feature from Alpinist 60, James Edward Mills recounts the story of Hugues Beauzile, the son of a Haitian immigrant who became one of the most promising young alpinists in France before his death on the South Face of Aconcagua 1995.
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The Raven at the Door
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In this Full Value story from Alpinist 60, David Stevenson gets caught in a storm returning from a hut trip in Alaska and suffers a heart attack, forcing him and his partner to spend a cold night in a shallow snow cave. In the aftermath he discovers a new significance to a haunting experience that happened decades earlier in his childhood home.
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Still Distant Temple: Zoroaster, Grand Canyon
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In this On Belay story that first appeared in Alpinist 60, Jeff Snyder writes of completing a first free ascent of the Southeast Face of Zoroaster Temple (III 5.11+ R, 520′) in the Grand Canyon with Zach Harrison and Blake McCord. The climbing was dangerous and crumbly in a hot desert, but Snyder discovers an appeal that is rooted far deeper than the cacti that pioneering climbers once slung for protection on the Temple’s first documented ascent in 1958.
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Strange Days: A look back on the previous 11 months surrounding Bears Ears National Monument and a glance at the future
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Alpinist Digital Editor Derek Franz documents the 11-month saga over Bears Ears National Monument, which was recently reduced by 85 percent of its original size by President Donald Trump, along with Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument, which was reduced by half of its 1.9 million acres. A series of lawsuits that are expected to reach the US Supreme Court and voracious action by groups including the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, Utah Dine Bikeyah, Access Fund, Friends of Cedar Mesa and many others provides a glimmer of hope for those who would prefer to see the monuments remain intact.
