Derek Franz

In 2015, Hayden Kennedy and Whit Magro spent a week in Wyoming’s Wind River Range establishing a route over new terrain over halfway up the northeast face of Mt. Hooker. On the last day of their trip, they free climbed to Der Minor Ledge, 800 feet from the top of the wall, where they traversed right and finished on the Boissonneault-Larson. They dubbed their route Gambling in the Winds (5.12). In the aftermath of Kennedy’s death in October 2016, his friends Jesse Huey and Maury Birdwell returned to Mt. Hooker over the last two seasons to complete his route. Last year was “dismally cold and wet,” Huey told Alpinist. But this year they managed to free the remaining 800 feet directly to the top, spending two days on the wall, August 9-10. Two weeks later, Magro managed a one-day, team-free ascent with Harrison Teuber.

On July 20 Cala Cimenti, of Italy, became the first person to stand on top of 6955-meter Gasherbrum VII. Cimenti’s elation, however, was soon cut short. His partner Francesco Cassardo–who had decided not to continue to the top in order to save strength for their ski descent–was injured in a massive fall shortly after putting his skis on to follow Cimenti down. Cassardo was ultimately rescued by helicopter at 5900 meters near Camp I on July 22 after a dramatic effort that included the Polish alpinist team of Denis Urubko, Janusz Adamski and Jaroslaw Zdanowicz, Canadian climber Don Bowie and Italian mountaineer Marco Confortola.

On June 20, in a round-trip from his advanced base camp that took approximately 11 hours, Tico Gangulee free soloed the first ascent–and first ski descent–of Chashkin I (6035m) in Pakistan. He named his route Steeze Matters (ED: 5.11c M4+, 85 degrees, 900m).

Czech climbers Marek Holecek and Zdenek Hak teamed up for another huge, demanding route on May 16-23, this time on the northwest face of Chamlang (7321m) in Nepal. They named their route UFO Line (ABO: M6, WI5, 2500m). Holecek initially declined to give a technical rating. “We have agreed on difficulty of the climb as the hardest we have done together in the mountains, ABO in other words,” is all he wrote in his initial press release. UFO appears to be one of the only routes to be completed on the northern aspect of Chamlang, despite years of interest and attempts by top climbers.