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[Cover] Turn Around Time: A Walking Poem for the Pacific Northwest. David Guterson. Illustrations by Justin Gibbens. Mountaineers Books. Hardcover, 144 Pages. $21.95.

David Guterson’s book “Turn Around Time” applies mountaineering themes to youth, aging

Sarah Boon reports that David Guterson’s new book Turn Around Time applies the mountaineering concept as “a metaphor for life.” The book-length series of prose poems cover “the themes of youth, aging and compassion for the elderly,” Boon writes. “It also investigates the boundaries between reality and myth, and common sense and imagination in the outdoors. Illustrations by Justin Gibbens enhance the whimsical nature of the book.”

The Pugilist at Rest (5.10 A3 M5) follows the long center rib in the middle of the photo. The Wilford Couloir is the gully just to the left. [Photo] Mark Wilford

1998: The Pugilist at Rest

In this Mountain Profile essay from Alpinist 67, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store, Barry Blanchard relives a couple of new routes that he explored with Mark Wilford in 1998 on Mt. Alverstone in the St. Elias Range. He recalls one particular moment: “I lay raw and exhausted, shouldered to the mountain and anchored to it…. Our ledge was two feet at its widest and nine feet long. Strangely, I felt secure, as if I belonged there, as if I’d been in land like this at some time in the past.”

Jack Tackle on Pitch 11 of A Pair of Jacks/Arctic Discipline, Mt. Kennedy. [Photo] Jack Roberts

1996: The Wall of Arctic Discipline

In this Mountain Profile essay from Alpinist 67, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store, Jack Tackle writes about his time on the north face and north ridge of Mt. Kennedy, which culminated in a freezing epic with Jack Roberts in 1996 when they lost a crampon and spent nine days on the wall waiting out storms. “Years later, I still reflect upon the solace, joy and suffering we experienced together,” Tackle writes.

Wendy Teichmann, Andrea Rankin, Gertrude Smith and Helen Butling assemble at camp as they prepare for an attempt on the unclimbed Mt. Saskatchewan in 1967. [Photo] Courtesy Andrea Rankin

1967: Summer on Mt. Saskatchewan

In this Mountain Profile essay from Alpinist 67, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store, Andrea Rankin recounts the women’s expedition to climb Mt. Saskatchewan in 1967, which was Canada’s centennial year. Rankin writes: “The Alpine Club of Canada coordinated with local and federal governments to organize the country’s largest-ever mountaineering endeavor, with more than 200 climbers attempting peaks in the Steele Glacier area, and 52 climbers attempting first ascents in the St. Elias Mountains.” Rankin’s team was one of four that was assigned to each of the thirteen unclimbed peaks in the Centennial Range.

The north buttress of Mt. Kennedy as seen during the 1935 National Geographic Society Yukon Expedition. At the time, Bob Bates wrote that he hoped the peak would be called Mt. Washburn. It was known as East Hubbard until it was renamed for President Kennedy in 1965. In his years as director of the Boston Museum of Science, Washburn hung an enlarged version of this photograph on his office wall. [Photo] Bradford Washburn, Bradford Washburn collection, Museum of Science

1972: Rivers that Flow Back to Mountains

In this Mountain Profile essay from Alpinist 67, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store, Anna Chiburis documents some of the Indigenous cultures and stories associated with the St. Elias Range, specifically within the area of Mt. Hubbard, Mt. Alverstone and Mt. Kennedy. “Areas such as Wrangell-St. Elias were not an empty wilderness devoid of civilization,” she writes. “Indeed, the Tlingit had developed a culture that had layered their land with profound meaning.”

The Lines Between. Watercolor on paper. Selkirk Mountains, British Columbia. [Artwork] Claire Giordano

The Shadow’s Edge

In this feature from Alpinist 67, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store, Claire Giordano shares stories and paintings that depict her search for hope in an era of melting ice, endangered glaciers and climate crises. After recovering from a severe childhood illness, she grew up to become a mountaineer and an artist, using her climbs and her paints to explore the fragility of both wild landscapes and human life. With this collection of mountain watercolors, she searches for hope in an era of melting ice, endangered glaciers and climate crises. “We walk the line between shadow and light,” she writes, “and we slowly move forward.”

This photograph of the Himalaya was taken from the International Space Station in 2004. Visible from left to right are: Makalu, Chomolungma (Everest), Lhotse and Cho Oyu. [Photo] Courtesy of NASA, Wikimedia

Human Dimensions of Climate Change in the Himalaya: An interview with anthropologist Pasang Yangjee Sherpa

Alpinist Managing Editor Paula Wright interviewed Pasang Yangjee Sherpa for the Alpinist Podcast in 2017 and followed up with her again this month. Born in Kathmandu, Yangjee Sherpa is an anthropologist who specializes in the human dimensions of climate change in the Himalaya. She says that “mountaineers are really well equipped to be advocates for talking about climate change…because of the kind of intimate relationship mountaineers have with the natural landscape, with mountains, snow and glaciers…. So I would like mountaineers to speak more about it and share what they know with the public.”

Mt. Mizugaki, Japan. [Photo] E64, Wikimedia

Namesake: Izumi (“The Spring”)

In this Namesake story from Alpinist 48 (2014), Katsutaka “Jumbo” Yokoyama–an original member of Japan’s famous Giri-Giri Boys, who have become known for their bold and visionary ascents–writes about the first ascent of a route he named Izumi (“The Spring”) on Mt. Mizugaki.

Underland: A Deep Time Journey.

Mountaineering in reverse: Tales from the Underland

“A peak can exercise the same irresistible power as an abyss,” Theophile Gautier wrote in 1868. Robert Macfarlane’s new book Underland explores the landscapes below our feet where, as Sarah Boon writes in her review, “people appear to find something similar in caves to what they experience in the mountains–clarity of thought and vision.”