From December 8–14, we shared glimpses of Conrad Anker’s life through images and short stories via the Alpinist Community project. Anker has authored first ascents in the Great Ranges for nearly two decades, includes new routes in the Alaska Range, Patagonia, Antarctica, the Karakoram, and the Himalaya.
The story of Cochamo can start anywhere. But since the trail is where all climbers now begin their adventures, that is where this story will begin. The path was likely cut by the Mapuche, “People of the Land,” or by their ancestors, some of the first known human inhabitants of Northern Patagonia.
I’ve been on the move for four hours. My first summit, strapped in winter snow, falls further behind me. I step off the ridge into a west facing couloir. Boot skiing and heel plunging morphs into log jumping and running.
Canadian alpinists Jon Walsh and Michelle Kadatz, both from Calgary, Alberta, recently visited the Storm Creek Headwall.
From November 30 to December 6 we presented photos by Paul Zizka as part of our Alpinist Community project.
August 9, 2011: The mountains march east into China. That silver sentinel on the horizon is Muztagh Ata, I tell my sister, Christine. To the south rise the dusky ramparts of the Hindu Raj, indistinct in the morning haze. I point north across the Wakhan Corridor, panhandle of Northern Afghanistan.
From November 23 to 29 Drew Smith shared his photos and video on our social media pages as part of the Alpinist Community project. Smith has established new routes in El Chalten, Argentine Patagonia; Cochamo, Chilean Patagonia; and in Sequoia National Park, California.
WHEN I WAS A CHILD, reading adventure stories in a house by the sea, I often dreamed about worlds above the clouds. One day, my father took me on a hike up a nearby mountain. It was just a little one–a rocky summit poking through a thick carpet of trees–in the Fukushima prefecture of Japan. But for the first time, I thought I could touch the clouds. It was as though I’d walked into one of the illustrations in my books.
“Our arrival, aboard our yacht, before the walls of Renland left us speechless. Imagine if you could sail to Yosemite Valley, amidst an array of glaciers, the ocean flirting with the foot of the rocky slopes. Before our very eyes there were more [unclimbed] rock faces than we could ever climb, even if we stayed there for the rest of our lives.”
Between November 16 and 22, we posted Lizzy Scully’s photos and video to our social media pages as part of the alpinist community project. She calls her collection “The Middle Path”.
