-
In Search of Lost Peaks
|
In this Sharp End story from Alpinist 68–which is currently on newsstands–Alpinist Editor-in-Chief Katie Ives goes in search of a secluded alpine basin to retrace the steps of a famous guidebook author, Harvey Manning.
-
A Visit with Dee Molenaar (1918-2020)
|
Dee Molenaar died January 19 at age 101. In honor of his inspiring life, we are sharing a profile written by Michael Ybarra for the Climbing Life section of Alpinist 36 (Autumn 2011). Sadly, Ybarra preceded Molenaar in death, when he died in the summer of 2012 while climbing solo in California’s Sierra Nevada Range. Both men are dearly missed.
-
Melting Giants: La Meije, Massif des Ecrins, France
|
For 141 years since its first ascent, mountaineers from around the world traveled to climb la Meije in the Massif des Ecrins of France. Meanwhile, the permafrost that held its stones together was melting. On August 7, 2018, rockfall destroyed much of the normal route. In this On Belay story from Alpinist 68, two locally based guides–Benjamin Ribeyre and Erin Smart–recount a search for a new way up the peak amid the uncertainties of the planet’s future.
-
Tool User: Kendal Mint Cake
|
In this Tool Users story that first appeared in Alpinist 68–which is now available on newsstands and in our online store–John Hessler explores the history of an energy bar invented in 1869: the famously (or infamously) sweet Kendal Mint Cake.
-
Blood That Dreams of Stone: Antonia Pozzi, Climbing Poet
|
During the early twentieth century, the talented young poet Antonia Pozzi sought freedom from her family and her society amid the rock spires of the Dolomites and other Italian peaks. In this feature story from Alpinist 68, David Smart provides an introduction to her career, along with translations of three of her climbing poems, with the help of Brian McKenzie and illustrations by Rhiannon Klee.
-
Local Hero: Katie Sauter
|
Whether they’ve collected summits, books or memories, many climbers long to preserve records of the past. In this Local Hero story from Alpinist 68–which is now available on newsstands and in our online store–Paula Wright presents the person responsible for cataloguing and managing one of the most extensive of these collections: Katie Sauter, director of the Henry S. Hall Jr. American Alpine Club Library.
-
The Less You Talk
|
In this Climbing Life story from Alpinist 68, our digital editor Derek Franz articulates the value of staying quiet while climbing with his wife. “I’ve learned that my enthusiasm can be a detriment,” he writes. “My impulse, ever since I was a kid, has been to try to offer guidance…. I want to encourage her; I want her to realize the ability she has. My words usually come out wrong.”
-
The Thing with Feathers: On mountains, climate science and hope
|
In this story that was commissioned as part of the Covering Climate Now campaign, Michelle Dowd reports on her time spent observing scientists at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado last summer and considers today’s climate crisis through the lens of her deeply religious upbringing.
-
Pandora’s Box: The Brief, Brilliant Life of Kei Taniguchi
|
In 2009 Japanese alpinist Kei Taniguchi became the first woman to receive a Piolet d’Or for her first ascent of the Southeast Face of Kamet (7756m), with Kazuya Hiraide. During the final years of her life, Taniguchi continued to explore challenging new routes, while hinting at a mysterious personal quest. Piecing together diary entries and interviewing family and friends, her biographer Akihiro Oishi tries to see inside what Taniguchi called “the Pandora’s box.”
-
Robert Paragot (1927-2019): An Old Man’s Lesson
|
Robert Paragot, a highly influential alpinist and Fontainebleau boulderer, passed away at his home near Paris on October 24 at age 92. French climbing journalist Claude Gardien reports that Paragot continued to be involved in the climbing community up until his death: “He was a great climber and a very nice man.” Chris Schulte, an American climber who has referred to Fontainebleu as a “second home,” summarized Paragot’s career: “Exceptionally well rounded, Paragot achieved many difficult and historic ascents in the Great Ranges of the earth, from the north faces of the Drus and the Grand Capucin in the Alps,…
-
Denali, A Universe
|
In 1913 Walter Harper, an Irish-Athabascan climber, became the first person to stand on the summit of Denali, soon joined by teammates Harry Karstens, Robert Tatum and Archdeacon Hudson Stuck. In this Wired story from Alpinist 67, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store, Harper’s grandniece, Jan Harper-Haines, shares a few family histories of his short, but remarkable life.
-
The Unclimbed
|
In this story from The Climbing Life section of Alpinist 67, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store, Ana Beatriz Cholo faces a difficult choice: Following an unexpected cancer diagnosis, she must decide if she is willing to forgo her long-dreamed-of expedition to Denali to reunite with her estranged father. She first wrote about her ambitions to climb Denali in a story for Alpinist 59 (2017) titled “The Accidental Mountaineer.”
-
David Guterson’s book “Turn Around Time” applies mountaineering themes to youth, aging
|
Sarah Boon reports that David Guterson’s new book Turn Around Time applies the mountaineering concept as “a metaphor for life.” The book-length series of prose poems cover “the themes of youth, aging and compassion for the elderly,” Boon writes. “It also investigates the boundaries between reality and myth, and common sense and imagination in the outdoors. Illustrations by Justin Gibbens enhance the whimsical nature of the book.”
-
Alpinist 67 Mountain Profile Essays | Mt. Hubbard, Mt. Alverstone and Mt. Kennedy
|
Read the essays from our Mountain Profile about Mt. Hubbard, Mt. Alverstone and Mt. Kennedy in the St. Elias Range of Alaska and Canada.
-
1998: The Pugilist at Rest
|
In this Mountain Profile essay from Alpinist 67, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store, Barry Blanchard relives a couple of new routes that he explored with Mark Wilford in 1998 on Mt. Alverstone in the St. Elias Range. He recalls one particular moment: “I lay raw and exhausted, shouldered to the mountain and anchored to it…. Our ledge was two feet at its widest and nine feet long. Strangely, I felt secure, as if I belonged there, as if I’d been in land like this at some time in the past.”
-
1996: The Wall of Arctic Discipline
|
In this Mountain Profile essay from Alpinist 67, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store, Jack Tackle writes about his time on the north face and north ridge of Mt. Kennedy, which culminated in a freezing epic with Jack Roberts in 1996 when they lost a crampon and spent nine days on the wall waiting out storms. “Years later, I still reflect upon the solace, joy and suffering we experienced together,” Tackle writes.
-
1967: Summer on Mt. Saskatchewan
|
In this Mountain Profile essay from Alpinist 67, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store, Andrea Rankin recounts the women’s expedition to climb Mt. Saskatchewan in 1967, which was Canada’s centennial year. Rankin writes: “The Alpine Club of Canada coordinated with local and federal governments to organize the country’s largest-ever mountaineering endeavor, with more than 200 climbers attempting peaks in the Steele Glacier area, and 52 climbers attempting first ascents in the St. Elias Mountains.” Rankin’s team was one of four that was assigned to each of the thirteen unclimbed peaks in the Centennial Range.
-
1972: Rivers that Flow Back to Mountains
|
In this Mountain Profile essay from Alpinist 67, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store, Anna Chiburis documents some of the Indigenous cultures and stories associated with the St. Elias Range, specifically within the area of Mt. Hubbard, Mt. Alverstone and Mt. Kennedy. “Areas such as Wrangell-St. Elias were not an empty wilderness devoid of civilization,” she writes. “Indeed, the Tlingit had developed a culture that had layered their land with profound meaning.”
-
The Shadow’s Edge
|
In this feature from Alpinist 67, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store, Claire Giordano shares stories and paintings that depict her search for hope in an era of melting ice, endangered glaciers and climate crises. After recovering from a severe childhood illness, she grew up to become a mountaineer and an artist, using her climbs and her paints to explore the fragility of both wild landscapes and human life. With this collection of mountain watercolors, she searches for hope in an era of melting ice, endangered glaciers and climate crises. “We walk the line between…
-
Human Dimensions of Climate Change in the Himalaya: An interview with anthropologist Pasang Yangjee Sherpa
|
Alpinist Managing Editor Paula Wright interviewed Pasang Yangjee Sherpa for the Alpinist Podcast in 2017 and followed up with her again this month. Born in Kathmandu, Yangjee Sherpa is an anthropologist who specializes in the human dimensions of climate change in the Himalaya. She says that “mountaineers are really well equipped to be advocates for talking about climate change…because of the kind of intimate relationship mountaineers have with the natural landscape, with mountains, snow and glaciers…. So I would like mountaineers to speak more about it and share what they know with the public.”
-
Namesake: Izumi (“The Spring”)
|
In this Namesake story from Alpinist 48 (2014), Katsutaka “Jumbo” Yokoyama–an original member of Japan’s famous Giri-Giri Boys, who have become known for their bold and visionary ascents–writes about the first ascent of a route he named Izumi (“The Spring”) on Mt. Mizugaki.
-
Mountaineering in reverse: Tales from the Underland
|
“A peak can exercise the same irresistible power as an abyss,” Theophile Gautier wrote in 1868. Robert Macfarlane’s new book Underland explores the landscapes below our feet where, as Sarah Boon writes in her review, “people appear to find something similar in caves to what they experience in the mountains–clarity of thought and vision.”
-
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Outdoor Media Landscape: A Note from the Editors
|
As they praise the publication of She Explores–a 2019 anthology of women’s outdoor stories and photos–Alpinist editors Katie Ives, Paula Wright and Derek Franz write, “We felt struck by two thoughts: how rare outdoor publications like this book, with such a variety of women’s images and voices, were in the past; and how much the field of outdoor literature still needs to broaden to include the vast constellations of under-represented and long-silenced voices today.”
-
The Story of Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
|
The following story is an Ahwahneechee creation story of Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La (El Capitan) as told by Julia Parker, an Ahwahneechee descendant of Yosemite Valley, mother of climbing legend Ron Kauk and the grandmother of Ron’s son, Lonnie Kauk. This story originally appeared as a sidebar to a feature about the Kauk family, Lonnie’s childhood in Yosemite and how he made the first redpoint of his father’s route “Magic Line,” for which the story is named.
-
Thirteen Feet Under
|
Last April, as she scouted ice climbs deep within Canada’s Banff National Park, Michelle Kadatz was engulfed by an avalanche that swept her 650 feet down slope and buried her at a depth far beyond the reach of her partners’ avalanche probes. While entombed thirteen feet under, she experienced something that seemed as improbable as her eventual rescue. One year later, Jayme Moye recounts Kadatz’s accident.
-
Magic Line
|
The son of legendary climber Ron Kauk and Ahwahneechee descendant Lucy Parker, Lonnie Kauk has long felt a deep connection to the rocks of his home in Yosemite Valley. In this oral history recorded by Alpinist Managing Editor Paula Wright and featured as the cover story for Alpinist 66, Lonnie, friends and family recount his journey from growing up beneath the granite cliffs of Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La (El Capitan) to making the first redpoint ascent of his father’s Magic Line, once considered the most difficult single-pitch climb in the Valley.
-
Gifts
|
In this Off Belay story from Alpinist 65, Joe Whittle shares a creation story that was told to him by a Nez Perce elder, Allen Pinkham. The story led Whittle to consider his relationship with nature more closely. He writes: “As I listened, I understood that recognizing the sovereignty of other elements in the world–including rocks, plants and water–can weave sustainability into a culture.”
-
Muhammad Ali of Sadpara
|
In this Climbing Life story from Alpinist 62 (2018), Amanda Padoan profiles Muhammad Ali of Sadpara, Pakistan, after he completed the first winter ascent of Nanga Parbat with Simone Moro (Italy) and Alex Txikon (Spain) in February 2016. Padoan writes: “Sponsorship never materialized for Ali, however, as it did for his European companions. He doesn’t question why, not out loud. Back in Sadpara, he says he has too much to occupy him: wheat to thresh, potatoes to dig, cattle to feed, walls to mend, roofs to patch and children to educate.”
-
“Unfinished Sympathy”: An interview with Dmitry Golovchenko and Sergey Nilov about their new line on Kumbhakarna’s east face
|
Eliza Kubarska is an alpinist and filmmaker who accompanied Dmitry Golovchenko and Sergey Nilov to base camp during their recent ascent of a new line on the east face of Kumbhakarna (Jannu, 7710m) on March 16 to April 2. The men completed their 18-day round-trip on 14 days of rations and without completing a formal acclimatization period beforehand. Kurbarska conducted the following interview with them as they made their way back to Kathmandu, Nepal, on April 6.
-
1997: Homecoming
|
In this Mountain Profile essay from Alpinist 65, which is now available on newsstands and in our online store, Amanda Tarr Forrest recounts an aid-solo ascent of the Hallucinogen Wall on the North Chasm View Wall in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in 1997.