![Lopsang Tshering Sherpa recalls small perks from mountaineering work: I often came back with clothes that no one else had in Kathmandu. He drank so much tea on expeditions that he was called Tea Lopsang. Now, he grows tea in his village, where everyone calls him Chiya Baje (Grandpa Tea). [Photo] Kapil Bisht](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/a61-local-hero-1.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
In this Local Hero story from the latest issue, Alpinist 61, Kapil Bisht interviews Lopsang Tshering Sherpa, who began his storied career as an expedition worker in 1959 as a kitchen helper on the 1959 international women’s Cho Oyu expedition; three years later he was among those bridging the gap for Lionel Terray and the first ascent of Jannu.
![The author on the approach to Washington Column with Half Dome in the background, 2015. [Photo] Alex McKiernan collection](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/a60-tcl-the-prow-1.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
Alex McKiernan suffered a spinal cord injury from a car crash in 2014 and he has slowly regained some use of his legs since then. In this story from Alpinist 60, he details the path of his recovery, and how he climbed a Yosemite big wall in 2016.
![Art of Freedom: The Life and Climbs of Voytek Kurtyka by Bernadette McDonald. Rocky Mountain Books, 2017. 326 pages. Hardcover, $32. [Image] Courtesy Rocky Mountain Books](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/art-of-freedom-1-scaled.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
“‘Art of Freedom,’ is a brilliant work of insight, not only into the life of the great alpinist, but also about the questions that compel us to the mountains in the first place,” writes Alpinist Associate Editor Paula Wright in her feature about Bernadette McDonald’s award-winning biography, “Art of Freedom: The Life and Climbs of Voytek Kurtyka.”
![[Photo] Paul Zizka](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/a60-letter-to-editor-1.jpg?resize=923%2C620&ssl=1)
In this letter to the editor from Alpinist 60, Christopher Elliott describes the solar eclipse that occurred on August 21, 2017, and the fleeting “moment of totality” that he and his fellow observers experienced from the top of a mountain.
![[Illustration] Andreas Schmidt](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/a59-full-value-1-scaled.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
In 1969, a young David Roberts buzzes the doorbell at the apartment of W. H. Auden, his literary hero, in hopes of inspiring the aging poet to journey with him to Alaska’s Brooks Range.
![Hugues Beauzile and Lucien Lulu Berardini climbing at the crag they helped develop in Claret, France. [Photo] Pascal Tournaire](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/hugues-beauzile-1.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
In this feature from Alpinist 60, James Edward Mills recounts the story of Hugues Beauzile, the son of a Haitian immigrant who became one of the most promising young alpinists in France before his death on the South Face of Aconcagua 1995.
![[Illustration] Andreas Schmidt](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/a60-full-value-1.jpg?resize=930%2C607&ssl=1)
In this Full Value story from Alpinist 60, David Stevenson gets caught in a storm returning from a hut trip in Alaska and suffers a heart attack, forcing him and his partner to spend a cold night in a shallow snow cave. In the aftermath he discovers a new significance to a haunting experience that happened decades earlier in his childhood home.
![Zach Harrison on the first free ascent of the Southeast Face (III 5.11+ R, 520') of Zoroaster Temple, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. [Photo] Blake McCord](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/a60-zoroaster-1.jpg?resize=905%2C620&ssl=1)
In this On Belay story that first appeared in Alpinist 60, Jeff Snyder writes of completing a first free ascent of the Southeast Face of Zoroaster Temple (III 5.11+ R, 520′) in the Grand Canyon with Zach Harrison and Blake McCord. The climbing was dangerous and crumbly in a hot desert, but Snyder discovers an appeal that is rooted far deeper than the cacti that pioneering climbers once slung for protection on the Temple’s first documented ascent in 1958.
![Lockhart Basin is one of the areas no longer included in the two smaller national monuments that replaced the former Bears Ears Monument. [Photo] Tim Peterson, courtesy of Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/monument-feature-1-1.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
Alpinist Digital Editor Derek Franz documents the 11-month saga over Bears Ears National Monument, which was recently reduced by 85 percent of its original size by President Donald Trump, along with Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument, which was reduced by half of its 1.9 million acres. A series of lawsuits that are expected to reach the US Supreme Court and voracious action by groups including the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, Utah Dine Bikeyah, Access Fund, Friends of Cedar Mesa and many others provides a glimmer of hope for those who would prefer to see the monuments remain intact.
![Above the Lirung Glacier. Behind is the lower right side of the east face of Langtang Lirung. Dusserre and Girard hoped to land above the icefall visible in the center. [Photo] Dusserre/Girard Collection](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/aaj-paraglider-alpine-style-6.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
In this guest feature from the American Alpine Journal, Antoine Girard documents an experiment that utilized paragliders to approach peaks in Nepal’s Langtang Himal that tend to be inaccessible because of difficult approaches or objective hazards. Girard and his partner, Julien Dusserre, landed at 6200 meters on Shalbachum (6707m), where they planned to climb alpine-style to the summit, but storms forced them to retreat. Weather patterns also prevented them from landing on their main objective–Langtang Lirung (7227m)–but they gained enough experience to prove to themselves that approaching peaks with paragliders could work.
