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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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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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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.
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Edges of Maps: The Mountain Stories of Kyle Dempster
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At the time of his disappearance on the Ogre II, Kyle Dempster was one of the most promising mountain storytellers of his generation. Alpinist editor-in-chief Katie Ives looks back at some of work, and wonders about the writer he might have become.
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Metrophobia: A Thirst for Adventure
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Doing a first ascent on a remote big wall was not enough for a team of three Swiss and two French men, who opted to sea kayak 170 kilometers with all their provisions just to reach the climb.
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Adamson, Dempster Remembered for Love, Tenacity
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Kyle Dempster and Scott Adamson were at home in wild and remote mountains. But their sense of passion and commitment spread beyond the bold routes they climbed to the people with whom they shared their lives. On Alpinist.com, Derek Franz writes about the disappearance of the two men on the north face of the Ogre II. Friends of the two climbers remember their tenacity and love.
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In Memory of Kyle Dempster
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On September 3, 2016, the search for Kyle Dempster and Scott Adamson, missing on the Ogre II in Pakistan, was called off. Here, a friend and climbing partner Scott Robertson writes a tribute to Kyle. We will be working on more stories about Kyle and Scott in the weeks ahead.
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Wind River Universe
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Dick Dorworth reflects on the changes that the last forty-five years have brought to the Wind River Range: “On a clear day, the surface of Lonesome Lake reflects the sweeping silver walls of the Cirque of Towers, a glacier-polished mirror to the climber who cares (dares?) to gaze into it and to take those visions back to the larger world.”
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Last Unclimbed Wind River
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Eminent chronicler of the Wind River Mountains Joe Kelsey searches for the “last Unclimbed Wind River” peak–a quest inspired by an episode with his climbing partner, Paul Horton, on an obscure and seemingly unvisited summit: “As Paul led toward a chimney on the final pitch, he let out an equivocal chuckle…. ‘What?’ ‘A piton.'”
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My Big Scary First Ascent
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Before she and Bev Johnson made the first female ascent of El Capitan, Sibylle Hechtel lead her first unclimbed big wall in the Wind Rivers: “Dick handed me our minimal gear, pointed, and said, “Just head up that corner until you get to a good ledge, and set up a belay.’ I gulped.”
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Tower I Ice Couloir, Mt. Helen
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Bill Lindberg and I are several pitches up a narrow couloir on the north side of Mt. Helen. A thick, even ribbon of white divides the tawny-grey granite walls that rise steeply above us on either side. The granular, late-season ice accepts the picks of our piolets and rigid crampon points perfectly. Thus far, the climb has been so straightforward that we might have rehearsed it ahead of time; we are both exhilarated to be moving rapidly on an unclimbed alpine line.” In 1971, two climbers put new alpine gear to the test on what was the first ascent of…
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Sticking Needles in the Haystack
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In 1969, at the age of 18, Jeff Lowe climbs “like a light-footed wolf” on Haystack Mountain.
