![Bryan Becker on Hallucinogen Wall. [Photo] Ed Webster collection](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/hallucinogen-wall-1.jpg?resize=917%2C620&ssl=1)
In this Mountain Profile essay from Alpinist 65, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store, Ed Webster documents some humorous, behind-the-scenes moments that occurred during the first ascent of the Hallucinogen Wall on the North Chasm View Wall in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
In this Mountain Profile essay from Alpinist 65, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store, Jamie Logan revisits the 1972 first ascent of the Goss-Logan Route (now rated IV/V 5.11 R) on North Chasm View Wall in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Colorado.
![Anna Piunova. [Photo] Marko Prezelj](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/a65-local-hero-1.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
Alpinist Digital Editor Derek Franz profiles Anna Piunova, editor-in-chief of Mountain.ru. Piunova was instrumental in coordinating the helicopter rescue of Alex Gukov from 6200 meters on Latok I (7145m) in July 2018.
![The author with a standard New Mexico rack, ca. 1982--hexes and saddle wedges...sad times, he reflects. [Photo] Nestor Solano](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/catching-ludwig-1b.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
In this Climbing Life story from Alpinist 65, Cameron M. Burns learns to belay from an eccentric mentor before braving his way up Castleton Tower with a couple of friends and a few hexes.
![Smugglers' Notch, Vermont. [Photo] John Pitocco](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/a65-sharp-end-1.jpg?resize=800%2C309&ssl=1)
In recognition of International Women’s Day, we’re now sharing this Sharp End story by Alpinist Editor-in-Chief Katie Ives that first appeared in Alpinist 65, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store. Ives writes, “I became fascinated by recurring myths and images in the ways that climbers interpret fragments of existence. And as I looked for more examples, I grew absorbed by the sheer volume of alpine fiction written by and about women…. For authors [during the turn of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries], alpine settings seemed to offer their heroines a level of empowerment that they rarely found in cities…. ‘Why do we want to have alternate worlds?’ asked the fantasy writer Joan Aiken in Locus Magazine (1998), ‘You have to imagine something before you do it.'”
![Cannon Cliff in winter. In a crag profile of Cannon Cliff for Alpinist 21, Freddie Wilkinson wrote, Welcome to New England's biggest wall, where 1,000 feet of rivalry, bad weather and exfoliating granite never felt so good. [Photo] Sarah Audsley](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/an-astonishing-plentitude-2.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
This poem first appeared in Alpinist 65, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store. Sarah Audsley is a climber and poet living in the White Mountains region of New Hampshire. In January 2019, she completed an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College. She has received support for her creative work from the Rona Jaffe Foundation and the Vermont Studio Center. In this feature, we asked her to tell us a little about the inspiration for “An Astonishing Plentitude.”
![[Illustration] Andreas Schmidt](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/a55-full-value-1.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
In this 2016 Full Value story from Alpinist 55, Alpinist Digital Editor Derek Franz peers into the dark side of the dirtbag dream.
![[Illustration] Andreas Schmidt](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/a64-full-value-1.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
In this Full Value story from Alpinist 64, Quentin Lindfield Roberts confronts the long journey home and the occasionally even-greater dangers of daily life after his climbing partner nearly dies in an accident on Cerro Torre.
![Scott Coldiron climbs next to the route Raggedy Man. [Photo] Marlin Thorman](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/a64-on-belay-1.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
After recovering from a severe illness in the wake of the Gulf War, veteran Scott Coldiron returns to his long-abandoned climbing dreams–exploring new ice in remote parts of Montana’s Cabinet Mountains Wilderness. In this On Belay story from Alpinist 64, Coldiron traces the formative experiences of his hard-knock childhood, his discovery of what the mountains offered, and how he found his way back to the peaks that first stirred his imagination.
![Anders Ax, pictured here with Lumi the dog at Washington Pass, June 2017. Ax began working as an intern for Alpinist in the winter of 2013, but his familiarity with the magazine started much earlier. While in high school, Ax saw a copy of Issue 16 on a newsstand in the Charles de Gaulle airport and was taken by the cover photo: Tomas Bambus Bardas muscling his way up the overhanging sandstone in Teplice. After his Alpinist internship ended in early 2014, Ax moved West to teach outdoor education. He returned to Vermont that winter to work as a snowboard instructor at Smugglers' Notch, just up the road from the Alpinist parent company office, Height of Land. He stopped by the office one day and offered his services as a fact checker and has been working for Alpinist ever since. [Photo] Courtesy of Anders Ax](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/anders-ax-1.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
Every story in Alpinist is thoroughly fact-checked. “Fact checking” has become a more common term in today’s digital headlines, as accusations of “fake news” and “alternative facts” abound in our society. In this feature, Alpinist Associate Editor Paula Wright interviews Alpinist Research Editor Anders Ax about the strategy and nuance of exhaustive fact-checking and how he handles the most difficult questions that may not have definitive answers.
