“When the mountain community…grapples with the accidental death of one of its members,” Anna Callaghan writes, “only one thing is certain: it’s going to happen again.” Through interviews with several climbers who’ve lost loved ones to the mountains, Callaghan explores the ways in which people across the climbing community are banding together to address grief and support the bereaved.
![Photographer Bob Gaines: Werner [Braun] clowning around, ca. 1983. Scott Cosgrove was there too. Just a great day of fun-in-the-sun free soloing. [Photo] Bob Gaines](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/werner-braun-1.jpg?resize=796%2C620&ssl=1)
Earl Bates traces stories from the 50-year career of Werner Braun, one of Yosemite’s most reticent Stonemasters. Braun retired from his work in the Valley last year and moved to St. George, Utah, with his wife Merry. Braun was among the best free soloists of his generation and ultimately proved himself to be a significant asset to the Park Service and Yosemite Search and Rescue, but you won’t hear him say so. In his typical fashion, Braun continues to shy away from recognition, and that is why some of Yosemite’s best stories may never be told.
![[Photo] Courtesy of Science History Institute](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/a78-tool-users-sun-protection-1.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
In this Tool Users story from Alpinist 78–which is now on newsstands and in our online store–Sarah Pickman traces the early development of sun protection. As Western scientists debated the cause of sunburn in the nineteenth century, she explains, some researchers “turned to a community with plenty of experience getting burned: alpinists.”
![Katie Ives on Pinnacle Gully, Huntington Ravine, Agiocochook, Mt. Washington, 2012. [Photo] Alan Cattabriga](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/a78-sharp-end-1.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
In this Sharp End story from Alpinist 78–which is now on newsstands and in our online store–Katie Ives explores some of the many metaphors of late-season ice. She writes: “Any ice route is a land that appears and disappears, never taking an identical shape twice, leaving ghostly outlines in climbers’ memories of past forms–and posing the question of which ascent might be the last.”
![Rosie Fish, Cowlitz, on Muckleshoot and Coast Salish territories, wearing a red handprint in remembrance of her missing and murdered relatives. Fish runs with this handprint in her races at the University of Washington. [Photo] Micheli Oliver](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/a77-wired-1.jpeg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
In this Wired story from Alpinist 77–which is now available on newsstands and in our online store–Micheli Oliver contemplates some of many metaphors of ascent for herself and other Indigenous women.
![Ukrainian mountaineer Alina Kosovska during her trek of the Transcarpathian Route in 2022. She finished the route on February 14, becoming the first person to complete it in winter. [Photo] Courtesy of Alina Kosovska](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/snapshots-of-ukraine-war-1.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
From fighting in active combat on the front lines, to scrambling to find food and supplies, to struggling to find a refuge for their families abroad, Ukrainian climbers have had their lives turned upside down by the Russian invasion. Three of them share glimpses into what their day-to-day existence looks like amid war.
Nepal halted on-arrival tourist visas for the majority of foreign visitors and canceled all spring mountaineering expeditions. The country wouldn’t reopen until August 2020, just in time for the post-monsoon trekking season. As climbing journalist Holly Yu Tung Chen looks back on the impacts of the pandemic on the economies and health of mountain communities in Nepal, she observes some of the ongoing questions of how to make adventure tourism more responsible and sustainable in a precarious era.
In “I Gaze at My Mountains” (translated by Mark Andryczyk and Yaryna Yakubyak), a Ukrainian poet and children’s book publisher, Ivan Malkovych, evokes the intense significance of the Carpathian mountains, where he grew up–and where tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees have fled during the ongoing Russian invasion of their country. We are republishing the poem here, along with links with lists of some of the many ways to help Ukrainians.
![Climbers follow the aptly named route Beongae (5.10d, 123m) on Ulsanbawi, Seoraksan National Park, South Korea. [Photo] Choi Suk-mun](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/wfeature-a77-on-belay-2.jpg?resize=930%2C620&ssl=1)
For more than two decades, Choi Suk-mun has climbed around the world, including first ascents on giant Himalayan peaks; yet he remains haunted by a five-pitch rock route back home in South Korea.
![Katie Ives, on the North Face (the common name for the northwest face) of Gothics, Adirondacks. [Photo] Kevin B. MacKenzie](https://i0.wp.com/alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/a77-sharp-end-1.jpg?resize=900%2C620&ssl=1)
In this Sharp End story from Alpinist 77–which is now on newsstands and in our online store–Alpinist Editor-in-Chief Katie Ives looks back on autumn climbs and ponders the allure and haunting symbolism of early season ice.
