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An Interview with David Roberts
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Now facing Stage IV throat cancer, David Roberts reflects on his climbing and writing careers in this interview with Michael Wejchert. Roberts is one of the most prolific American climbing authors and has a climbing resume to match his list of titles.
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On the Nose with Hans Florine and Jayme Moye
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On the Nose chronicles Hans Florine’s “lifelong obsession” with the most iconic route on El Capitan. Herein, we interview Florine and co-author Jayme Moye about their new book documenting Florine’s pursuit of the Nose speed record.
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Our Eiger Drama
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In a letter to the editor, longtime Alpinist reader Tad Welch examines our looming environmental crisis from the perspective of a roped team braving the odds on the Eiger Nordwand. He writes, “As we enter what may be one of the darkest times of our country’s history, I feel an obligation to subject my most basic values to the utmost scrutiny…. I must never put my rope mates in harm’s way because I expect the mountain to become benign–when history proves otherwise–simply because I think it will. Off the hill, I am roped to more than a close friend or…
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The Glass Mountain: A Fable
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During the nineteenth century, Jim Bridger was well known for tall tales about the ranges of the American West. Herein, the modern climbing writer Jeff Long retells Bridger’s attempt on “Glass Mountain,” examining the aspirations and consequences of frontier mythology.
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Jeff Long: The Story Behind “The Glass Mountain”
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An interview with climber and New York Times best-selling author Jeff Long on his story “The Glass Mountain,” published in Alpinist 54.
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The Precarious World–The Sharp End, Alpinist 57
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At a time when the word precarious is used increasingly to describe many aspects of our current existence, Katie Ives reflects on the differences between confronting risk in the mountains and responding to much vaster political and ecological uncertainties in the US and the world. “I think now, especially with climate change, we are without a doubt living in a precarious world,” climber and environmental advocate Laura Waterman tells her. “We have to make the right decisions, ethically, as best we can.”
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Diving into the Unknown
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Four friends spend 10 days doing first ascents in the Purcell Wilderness, British Columbia, and for some it was their first time doing a first ascent.
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Talking Environmentalism at the Summer Outdoor Retailer 2016
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At the 2016 Summer Outdoor Retailer trade show, Erin Monahan wonders how far leaders in the outdoor gear industry are really willing to take their commitment to the environment.
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After the Expedition
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In this work of short fiction from Alpinist 18, Stevenson weaves a tale about a driftless climbing guide balancing his successes “against an unwritten page of his climbing resume, against the darkness.”
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Axe of Contrition
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Stevenson contemplates the axe of God in this Climbing Life story from Alpinist 20.
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Lives of the Volcano Poets
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The author climbs after the volcano poets. This piece originally appeared in Alpinist 40.
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The Adventure Gap and Narratives of Inclusion: James Edward Mills talks about why the face of outdoor adventure must change
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Brad Rassler interviews author James Edward Mills about current events and the disparity of opportunities for minorities to try outdoor activities like climbing.
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Poetry Feature: Experiencing Ice
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In this poetry feature, writer and adventurer Manasseh Franklin shares work from Experiencing Ice, a series of images and poems about glaciers and “vastness to ponder.”
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The Country of Winter: Nitassinan, Quebec
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Pete Takeda ventures into some of the vast realms of ice, and the countries within countries of Nitassinan and northeastern Quebec.
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Beyond the Guide: White Mountains, New Hampshire
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For years, Alan Cattabriga has roamed the White Mountains of New Hampshire, exploring the spaces between the contour lines of maps and creating long, arabesque-like enchainments of classic ice routes. Herein, a tale from one of the East Coast’s most imaginative wanderers.
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Nakamura unveils hidden mountains of southern Tibet
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Eighty-two-year-old Japanese mountaineer Tamotsu “Tom” Nakamura has been exploring and documenting the seldom-visited regions of Tibet for the last 25 years. In this feature he shares photographs of southern Tibet’s “hidden” mountains.
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Beyond the Dusk: El Hermano, Andes, Chile
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After the death of her brother Michael in June 2012, Suzanne Ybarra noticed a reference to a mysterious “El Hermano” amid his files, along with photos of a massive unclimbed wall. In 2014 one of Michael’s friends, Libby Sauter, organized an expedition to make the first ascent and complete his dream.
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Freedom in the Hills
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For decades, female alpinists have made extraordinary ascents from remote big walls to storm-swept peaks. In an article from Alpinist 52 (Winter 2015), Charlotte Austin explored some of the lingering barriers of the past and the growing potential for the future.
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Book Review: Simon McCartney’s ‘The Bond’
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Rick Accomazzo reviews Simon McCartney’s book, The Bond. Published earlier this year, The Bond received the 2016 Banff Mountain and Wilderness Literature Non-Fiction Award, as well as the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature.
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The Vision of Andrew Boyd
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Drew Copeland considers how Andrew Boyd has quietly influenced the Squamish climbing scene in the last twenty years with his bold first free ascents and visionary lines.
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The Shining Mountains
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Popular books recount the early days of Canadian mountaineering as a story of epic discoveries. In this story from Alpinist 50, historians Zac Robinson and Stephen Slemon examine what often gets left out: the extent to which the “explorers” relied on the prior geographic knowledge of Indigenous guides.
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Buffalo Soldiers in the Cavalryman’s Paradise
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Yosemite National Park Ranger Shelton Johnson explores “the pitch of the wild” for the Buffalo Soldiers on patrol in Yosemite at the turn of the twentieth century.
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Lauret Savoy’s Trace: Exploring Landscapes of Exclusion and Inclusion in American History
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Alpinist Editor-in-chief Katie Ives describes some of the reasons Lauret Savoy’s 2015 book, Trace: Memory, History, Race and the American Landscape has become deeply relevant today: “Much of prior mountain literature, all too often, has been solipsistic and exclusionary. More than ever, we need writers like Lauret Savoy, who can help us see our shared land for it has been, what it is, and the many possible futures of what it can be. In a world in which so much seems starkly uncertain, there are much greater risks to all peoples than the individual and self-chosen ones that climbers face.…
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A Backyard Big Wall Expedition
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A group of Idaho climbers venture into the Canadian wilderness to complete the first ascent of a route on Wall Tower (9,560′) that was abandoned by Fred Beckey Carl Dietrich and Bill Ruch. They called their line The White Tiger (VI 5.11 A3, 1,600′).
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The Glaciers Are Retreating: Southern Alps, New Zealand
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In a story from Alpinist 38 (Spring 2012), Paul Hersey explores a landscape at the edge of loss on the fleeting ice fields of New Zealand’s Westland Tai Poutini National Park.
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Local Hero: Stephen Shobe
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James Edward Mills writes about one of his climbing heroes, Stephen Shobe, a mountain guide and member of Expedition Denali, a group that continues to promote diversity in outdoor education.
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Seeking Space – The Climbing Life
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An unexpected encounter on a hillside in New Mexico leads Jane Jackson to reconsider the environmental impacts of climbers and the conservation of public lands.
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Local Hero: Hanniah Tariq
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Vanessa Beucher writes about Pakistani activist Hanniah Tariq, founder of High Altitude Sustainability Pakistan, an organization dedicated to the well-being of expedition workers, their families and the mountain environment.
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Off Route and Out of Time – The Sharp End, Alpinist 56
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Back in April 2016, Canadian alpinist Marc-Andre Leclerc described his solo of the Emperor Face of Mt. Robson: “My thoughts had reached a depth and clarity that I had never before experienced. The magic was real…. I was deeply content that I had not carried a watch with me to keep time…. I felt more at peace than I would have had I been counting my rate of kilometers per hour.” In the Editor’s Note for Alpinist 56, Katie Ives looks at the complex relationship that has long existed between evolving visions of mountaineering and the measurement of space and…
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An interview with Alex Megos about the cross-disciplines of sport vs. trad climbing
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Climbing phenom Alex Megos considers himself a “sport climber,” but that self-designation didn’t stop him from racking up to flash The Path, a 5.14 R trad route in Canada. Chris Kalman asks Megos what he thinks about the emphasis climbers put on various definitions of ascent, such as bouldering, sport climbing and trad climbing.
