During the mid-1980s, Steve Hong was finishing his medical studies at the University of Utah, but he wasn’t yet done with his youthful antics. On weekends, he and his partners explored Indian Creek’s arid landscape of silent towers, crimson walls and grazing cattle. There, they found fissures that would eventually rank as iconic desert climbs. One was a 160-foot crack leading skyward up a smooth panel of maroon and orange varnish
ONLY A FEW CLIMBERS have seen Mt. Chobutse, the 6686-meter mountain above my village in the Rolwaling Valley of Nepal. In Tibetan scripture, the original name of the peak is Khang Tagri. Although the north and south ridges rise in gradual arcs, the west face looks as sharp as an upturned axe.
JANUARY: SHADOWS AND SILENCE fill the canyon of Zion National Park. Within the Emerald Pools amphitheater, icicles clatter to earth. I pull out my binoculars. A gently overhanging prow on Mt. Majestic catches wan winter sun. Bracketed by deep clefts, the sleek, southeast-facing buttress rises through dark-red sandstone and mahogany iron stains.
COFFEE LIFTS ON THE AIR. A dog marks time (and place) in the distance, its tail a silent metronome. The cold air, gently sinking, pulls a breeze across my face. I don’t like it. I want to crawl deeper in my bag. From the floor of the living room in John “Deucey” Midddendorf’s Hurricane home, I can just see the top of Mt. Kinesava, I think, starting to light up in the eastern sun.
This year will mark the 50th anniversary of the 1966 American Antarctic Mountaineering Expedition. This is John Evans’s story of the first ascent of Mt. Tyree–one of six unclimbed peaks the AAME team summited.
We reached out to Graham Zimmerman, author of “Through the Field: The First Ascent of Changi Tower and The Southwest Ridge of K6 West,” in our latest issue, Alpinist 53, and asked him to share additional photos for us to post online.
Qionglai Mountains, China. After several weeks of effort spread out between bouts of rainfall, Szu-ting Yi and her husband Dave Anderson completed their new route on the South Face of Eagle Peak East (5300m), calling it Secret Moon Cake (5.10 R, 760m).
“It’s a huge honor. I’m in shock about whole thing,” David Allfrey said when we congratulated him after hearing that the American Alpine Club awarded him the Robert Hicks Bates Award.
Photographer Dean “Bullwinkle” Fidelman, a 1970s Stonemaster, has called Yosemite his home for decades, first arriving there in 1971. He has produced several books celebrating the park’s climbing culture.
IT’S DIFFICULT TO SEPARATE WHAT part of the Eiger’s ambience is due to its actual limestone, snow and ice, and what part is due to all the stories that played out on that grand vertical stage. I don’t think it matters at this point.Most aspirants will start with those tales finely etched in their brains. At times, along the way, they’ll climb with the souls of those who perished. That’s what happened to me.
