Two Americans climb three new routes in Nepal’s Rolwaling Valley
Americans Nik Mirhashemi and Mark Pugliese made three probable first ascents on three peaks in Nepal’s Rolwaling Valley on their first trip to the Himalaya last autumn.
Americans Nik Mirhashemi and Mark Pugliese made three probable first ascents on three peaks in Nepal’s Rolwaling Valley on their first trip to the Himalaya last autumn.
A team of five friends self-fund an expedition to a rarely visited area of Tibet and climb a previously unnamed 5678-meter peak they named Xialongrezha. They climbed the west face and called their route Standing Room Only (Russian Alpine Grade 5a, Scottish IV, M4, 650m).
Tom Ballard closes out the year in the Dolomites with a rope-solo first ascent of Dust in the Wind (M8, 100m) and a casual multiday rope solo of the Gogna Route (5.10, 800m) on Marmolada Punta Rocca (3309m), which he finished on New Years Eve.
Thomas Huber, Roger Schaeli and Stephan Siegrist complete the second ascent of Metanoia (VII 5.10 M6 A4, 1800m) on the Eiger North Face (3970m), more than 25 years after Jeff Lowe established the legendary route that became a turning point in his life.
Tom Ballard and Marcin Tomaszewksi have only climbed together three times, but all those climbs have been first ascents. They added another hard new route to the Eiger North Face in December –Titanic–and Ballard continued his legacy with the mountain that his mother, Alison Hargreaves, had climbed while she was pregnant with him.
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.”
Stevenson contemplates the axe of God in this Climbing Life story from Alpinist 20.
The author climbs after the volcano poets. This piece originally appeared in Alpinist 40.
The VOORMI River Run Hoodie keeps Chris Van Leuven comfy in all kinds of conditions, from rainy trails and toothy offwidths to social scenes. He awards it five stars.
This week, we’re sharing an assortment of social media posts from the Alpinist Community Project in 2016. In this collection we’re resharing photos from Bryce Brown, James Rushforth, Michael Kennedy, Abhijeet Singh, Jeremy Joseph, Jenny Abegg and Forest Woodward, Tamotsu Nakamura and Caroline Treadway.