![The Full Circle Everest expedition. Expedition leader Phil Henderson is third from left in the back row. [Photo] James Edward Mills](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/full-circle-everest-success.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
Full Circle Everest–the first all-Black expedition team (with Sherpa support) to attempt Chomolungma (Everest, 8849m)–attained success when several members stood on the highest point of the world before sunrise on May 12. With this news, we revisit an article from Alpinist 75 (Autumn 2021) by James Edward Mills, titled “Climbers of Color Come Full Circle: The Future of Expanded Representation.”
![Rosie Fish, Cowlitz, on Muckleshoot and Coast Salish territories, wearing a red handprint in remembrance of her missing and murdered relatives. Fish runs with this handprint in her races at the University of Washington. [Photo] Micheli Oliver](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/a77-wired-1.jpeg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
In this Wired story from Alpinist 77–which is now available on newsstands and in our online store–Micheli Oliver contemplates some of many metaphors of ascent for herself and other Indigenous women.
![Jackson Marvell, left, and Matt Cornell.[Photo] Jackson Marvell, The North Face](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/alaska-pyramid-peak-1.jpeg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
In early-mid April, Jackson Marvell and Matt Cornell took advantage of a short window of good conditions to climb two new routes on Pyramid Peak in Alaska’s Revelation Range: Techno Terror (AI6 M7+ R A0, 3,600′) and Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em (AI5+ A2+, 3,600’). Austin Schmitz and Jack Cramer joined them for the latter ascent.
![[Photo] Courtesy of Takeshi Tani and Toshiyuki Yamada](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/kangchung-nup-1.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
After several attempts by other talented climbers in recent years, two alpinists from Japan completed the first ascent of the Northwest Face of Kangchung Nup (6089m) in Nepal. Takeshi Tani and Toshiyuki Yamada estimated the difficulty of their 900-meter route–which they climbed, round-trip from Gokyo village from April 21 to 24–to be ED1: M5 WI4/AI4. “It was really dry conditions this spring, which is safer than usual because there was less avalanche hazard,” Tani said. “We found a beautiful ice strip middle of the NW face and climbed pretty much straight up to permanent ice. Great conditions like snice make everything different.”
![Ukrainian mountaineer Alina Kosovska during her trek of the Transcarpathian Route in 2022. She finished the route on February 14, becoming the first person to complete it in winter. [Photo] Courtesy of Alina Kosovska](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/snapshots-of-ukraine-war-1.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
From fighting in active combat on the front lines, to scrambling to find food and supplies, to struggling to find a refuge for their families abroad, Ukrainian climbers have had their lives turned upside down by the Russian invasion. Three of them share glimpses into what their day-to-day existence looks like amid war.
![Clint Helander and Andres Marin on top of Golgotha (8,940') in Alaska's Revelation Range after completing the first ascent of Shaft of the Abyss (VI AI5 R M5 90° Snow A0, ca. 4,000'). [Photo] Courtesy of Clint Helander](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/golgotha-shaft-of-the-abyss-1.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
On March 25, Clint Helander and Andres Marin stood on top of Golgotha (8,940′) in Alaska’s Revelation Range after completing the first ascent of Shaft of the Abyss (VI AI5 R M5 90° Snow A0, ca. 4,000′). They had previously attempted the route three times together in 2016, 2017 and 2018, reaching a high point about halfway up in 2017 with Leon Davis before a crampon broke.
The recipients of the 2022 Grit and Rock Award for female first ascents have been announced. This year’s winners include Priti and Jeff Wright (USA); Lise Billion, Maud Vanpoulle (France) and Raphaela Haug (Germany); Nadine Lehner, Isidora Llarena and Rebeca Caceres Lente (Chile); plus a general grant to the French National Female Alpine Team (ENAF). The grant is intended to bolster female participation and leadership in exploration and alpine-style ascents. Teams of any nationality that are led by, or composed mostly of, women are eligible.
Nepal halted on-arrival tourist visas for the majority of foreign visitors and canceled all spring mountaineering expeditions. The country wouldn’t reopen until August 2020, just in time for the post-monsoon trekking season. As climbing journalist Holly Yu Tung Chen looks back on the impacts of the pandemic on the economies and health of mountain communities in Nepal, she observes some of the ongoing questions of how to make adventure tourism more responsible and sustainable in a precarious era.
On March 25, 2022, in an impressive 15-hour push, the 25-year-old Austrian Laura Tiefenthaler became the second known woman to solo the Heckmair Route on the Eiger-and thus the second known woman to solo the iconic Eiger North Face–thirty years after Catherine Destivelle’s historic solo of the route. (Two other women, Alison Hargreaves and Evelyne Binsack soloed the nearby Northeast Face by the Lauper Route during the 1990s.)
In “I Gaze at My Mountains” (translated by Mark Andryczyk and Yaryna Yakubyak), a Ukrainian poet and children’s book publisher, Ivan Malkovych, evokes the intense significance of the Carpathian mountains, where he grew up–and where tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees have fled during the ongoing Russian invasion of their country. We are republishing the poem here, along with links with lists of some of the many ways to help Ukrainians.
