Derek Franz

On December 4, President Donald Trump signed two proclamations to shrink Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments by more than half of their current acreage. Changes to other monuments are expected to come, and a handful of lawsuits have been filed in response to Trump’s action since December 4.

President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Salt Lake City, Utah, on Monday, Dec. 4, and he is expected to announce plans to slash the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance is organizing rallies at the Utah capitol on Saturday, Dec. 2, and Monday, Dec. 4, to oppose the reductions.

On October 14-21, Helias Millerioux, Benjamin Guigonnet, Frederic Degoulet completed a risky new route on Nuptse’s south face in mostly alpine style, fixing only two short sections. The overall technical difficulty of their as-yet-unnamed route weighs in at M5+ WI6, 65° snow, 2342 meters. For Millerioux and Guigonnet, this was their second attempt on this route after trying it in 2015.

Tickets are now available for the American Alpine Club’s annual benefit dinner weekend on February 23-24 in Boston, Massachusetts. This year’s event will honor the 40th anniversary of the first American ascent of K2. Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner–an Austrian who became the first woman to summit all 14 8000-meter peaks without bottled oxygen or high-altitude porters when she summited K2 in 2011–is the keynote speaker.

Fred Beckey, one of the most prolific alpinists the world has ever known, died October 30 at age 94 in Seattle, Washington.

Alpinist contributor Nick Bullock was recently named the winner of Banff Mountain Book Awards’ “Mountaineering Article” category for his story, “Threshold Shift,” which appeared in Alpinist 57.

On August 10-21, Jesse Huey and Maury Birdwell free climbed Original Sin (V 5.12+, 1,800′) on the north face of Mt. Hooker in Wyoming’s Wind River Range. Their line mostly follows the 1964 Royal Robbins route, which was the country’s first Grade VI climb outside of Yosemite. Huey and Birdwell climbed the crux pitch with pre-placed beaks to avoid adding bolts to the original route. “Freeing an old Robbins route from 1964 ground-up is certainly a lifetime achievement for both Jesse and I,” Birdwell said.