Coffee is as essential to climbers as ropes, sticky rubber and excuses why they don’t climb hard. Whether it’s trad climbing at Joshua Tree, alpine starts in the Tetons, or iced-coffee afternoons at Tonsai, coffee is essential fuel for climbers. The problem is that camp coffee methods are often sloppy and cumbersome.
From November 30 to December 6 we presented photos by Paul Zizka as part of our Alpinist Community project.
I’m a wilderness camping minimalist, bringing just enough food and not bothering with extras or luxury items. I eat freeze-dried meals out of a bag, eliminating cooking, cleaning pots and other annoying dish duties. My no-cook system is not perfect, since I usually eat tasteless freeze-dried meals, but it’s difficult to reach food deep inside a bag without spilling it.
August 9, 2011: The mountains march east into China. That silver sentinel on the horizon is Muztagh Ata, I tell my sister, Christine. To the south rise the dusky ramparts of the Hindu Raj, indistinct in the morning haze. I point north across the Wakhan Corridor, panhandle of Northern Afghanistan.
From November 23 to 29 Drew Smith shared his photos and video on our social media pages as part of the Alpinist Community project. Smith has established new routes in El Chalten, Argentine Patagonia; Cochamo, Chilean Patagonia; and in Sequoia National Park, California.
WHEN I WAS A CHILD, reading adventure stories in a house by the sea, I often dreamed about worlds above the clouds. One day, my father took me on a hike up a nearby mountain. It was just a little one–a rocky summit poking through a thick carpet of trees–in the Fukushima prefecture of Japan. But for the first time, I thought I could touch the clouds. It was as though I’d walked into one of the illustrations in my books.
