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A dusty box of golden memories: photos from the life of Kim Schmitz (1946-2016)
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Savannah Cummins befriended the legendary alpinist Kim Schmitz in recent years when they were living in Jackson, Wyoming. Schmitz gave Cummins a box of old photos shortly before he died in a one-car accident in September 2016 at age 70. Rick Ridgeway, John Roskelley and Jack Tackle assisted in identifying some of the images, and in honor of Kim’s memory, we share some of his collection with you now.
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Adventures on the Turtle’s Back
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In this story from Alpinist 62, “Adventures on the Turtle’s Back,” Joe Whittle, an enrolled tribal member of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma and a descendent of the Delaware Nation, spends time in canyons and mountains that Indigenous people call home. Kanim Moses-Conner, Bobby Fossek, Len Necefer, Mia Ritter-Whittle and Brosnan Spencer join him on a shared journey to connect with the land and their Native American heritage in the Wal’wa-maXs, Oregon.
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The Mountain of Data
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In this Sharp End story from Alpinist 62, Editor-in-Chief Katie Ives contextualizes some of the life and work of the great Himalayan chronicler Elizabeth Hawley, who died January 26, 2018, at age 94. During her lifetime, Hawley became an icon for her fact-checking and record-keeping, aspects of journalism that remain as important as ever today.
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A collection of letters
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Selected letters to the editor from Alpinist 59, 61 and 62.
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Under Pulse
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In this Off Belay story from Alpinist 61, Jerry Auld imagines a close encounter with the gears of a massive mechanical system lurching under the surface of a glacier. The tale was inspired by some of his glacier travel in which he once fell into a crevasse and from a 2013 ski circumnavigation of Mt. Logan in Canada’s Kluane National Park. He writes, “When you are in the palm of such a setting, it is hard to not feel the importance of keeping these environments working. I wanted to tell that story–to visualize a wounded Earth that is starting to…
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Tom Higgins (1944-2018) remembers the 1976 first ascent of a Pinnacles classic
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Tom Higgins, an influential climber and writer, passed at age 73 on March 21. In his memory, we present a story in which he recounts the 1976 first ascent of Shake and Bake, a classic three-pitch 5.10a R in Pinnacles National Park, California.
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The Mountain of Diamonds
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In this Sharp End story from Alpinist 61, Editor-in-Chief Katie Ives ponders the legend of the “mountain of diamonds” in nineteenth-century American history and the obsession with the idea of hidden riches: “How quickly visions of distant summits turn into longings for conquest, exploitation and gain. But if an imaginary peak is a creation of desire, its elusiveness might also hint at more insubstantial or transcendent things.”
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Pressure Lift
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In this story from Alpinist 61, Cole Taylor recounts his solo journey of sailing north along the Pacific coast from Washington, navigating miles of crevassed glaciers and pulling off the second ascent of the North Pillar of Devils Thumb (Taalkhunaxhk’u Shaa) with borrowed gear, 40 years after it was first done by Bob Plumb and Dave Stutzman.
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Marc-Andre Leclerc Remembered
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Brette Harrington, Luka Lindic, Sonnie Trotter, Bernadette McDonald, Tom Livingstone and others recount the impressive climbing career and profound life of beloved Canadian alpinist Marc-Andre Leclerc.
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A Short Stretch of Fred’s Road
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In this story from Alpinist 61, Douglas McCarty recalls his adventures on the road with Fred Beckey, which started in 1972 when McCarty and a friend hopped a freight train from Montana to Seattle, where the 17-year-olds subsequently met Beckey. Since then, McCarty joined the legendary mountaineer on trips to Alaska, China, Kenya, Mexico and Tanzania, with urban bivies at public parks in between.
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On Becoming a Mountain Steward
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In this unabridged version of a Climbing Life story from Alpinist 61, Laura Waterman retraces the path and climbs that inspired her to become involved in conservation work with her husband, Guy Waterman, in New England’s Presidential Range during the 1970s. Laura Waterman outlines the environmental challenges the area has faced in the past and now faces again in the form of a new hotel that is being proposed by the Cog Railway near the summit of Mt. Washington (Agiocochook).
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Remembering Ryan Johnson
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Clint Helander remembers the life and prolific climbing career of his friend Ryan Johnson, who went missing and is presumed dead along with Marc-Andre Leclerc after the pair climbed a new route on the north face of the Main Mendenhall Tower in Alaska in early March.
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Local Hero: Lopsang Tshering Sherpa
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In this Local Hero story from the latest issue, Alpinist 61, Kapil Bisht interviews Lopsang Tshering Sherpa, who began his storied career as an expedition worker in 1959 as a kitchen helper on the 1959 international women’s Cho Oyu expedition; three years later he was among those bridging the gap for Lionel Terray and the first ascent of Jannu.
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The Prow
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Alex McKiernan suffered a spinal cord injury from a car crash in 2014 and he has slowly regained some use of his legs since then. In this story from Alpinist 60, he details the path of his recovery, and how he climbed a Yosemite big wall in 2016.
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Glimpses of Higher Worlds: Bernadette McDonald’s ‘Art of Freedom’
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“‘Art of Freedom,’ is a brilliant work of insight, not only into the life of the great alpinist, but also about the questions that compel us to the mountains in the first place,” writes Alpinist Associate Editor Paula Wright in her feature about Bernadette McDonald’s award-winning biography, “Art of Freedom: The Life and Climbs of Voytek Kurtyka.”
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Totality from a Mountaintop
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In this letter to the editor from Alpinist 60, Christopher Elliott describes the solar eclipse that occurred on August 21, 2017, and the fleeting “moment of totality” that he and his fellow observers experienced from the top of a mountain.
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Auden in the Brooks Range
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In 1969, a young David Roberts buzzes the doorbell at the apartment of W. H. Auden, his literary hero, in hopes of inspiring the aging poet to journey with him to Alaska’s Brooks Range.
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The Force of the Soul: Hugues Beauzile
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In this feature from Alpinist 60, James Edward Mills recounts the story of Hugues Beauzile, the son of a Haitian immigrant who became one of the most promising young alpinists in France before his death on the South Face of Aconcagua 1995.
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The Raven at the Door
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In this Full Value story from Alpinist 60, David Stevenson gets caught in a storm returning from a hut trip in Alaska and suffers a heart attack, forcing him and his partner to spend a cold night in a shallow snow cave. In the aftermath he discovers a new significance to a haunting experience that happened decades earlier in his childhood home.
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Still Distant Temple: Zoroaster, Grand Canyon
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In this On Belay story that first appeared in Alpinist 60, Jeff Snyder writes of completing a first free ascent of the Southeast Face of Zoroaster Temple (III 5.11+ R, 520′) in the Grand Canyon with Zach Harrison and Blake McCord. The climbing was dangerous and crumbly in a hot desert, but Snyder discovers an appeal that is rooted far deeper than the cacti that pioneering climbers once slung for protection on the Temple’s first documented ascent in 1958.
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Strange Days: A look back on the previous 11 months surrounding Bears Ears National Monument and a glance at the future
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Alpinist Digital Editor Derek Franz documents the 11-month saga over Bears Ears National Monument, which was recently reduced by 85 percent of its original size by President Donald Trump, along with Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument, which was reduced by half of its 1.9 million acres. A series of lawsuits that are expected to reach the US Supreme Court and voracious action by groups including the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, Utah Dine Bikeyah, Access Fund, Friends of Cedar Mesa and many others provides a glimmer of hope for those who would prefer to see the monuments remain intact.
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Innovative Approach: Using paragliders to attempt high peaks in Nepal’s Langtang Himal
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In this guest feature from the American Alpine Journal, Antoine Girard documents an experiment that utilized paragliders to approach peaks in Nepal’s Langtang Himal that tend to be inaccessible because of difficult approaches or objective hazards. Girard and his partner, Julien Dusserre, landed at 6200 meters on Shalbachum (6707m), where they planned to climb alpine-style to the summit, but storms forced them to retreat. Weather patterns also prevented them from landing on their main objective–Langtang Lirung (7227m)–but they gained enough experience to prove to themselves that approaching peaks with paragliders could work.
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La Meije Mountain Profile: An interview with author Erin Smart
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Alpinist 60 completes our two-part Mountain Profile of la Meije–a mountain often referred to as the Matterhorn of the Dauphine Alps. In this article, we interview Erin Smart, the author of the Mountain Profile, about the process and the quirky stories she encountered from the mountain’s slopes.
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Vanishing Uplands
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Alpinist Editor-in-Chief Katie Ives recounts the lives of Austin Post and Edward LaChapelle and their contributions to the study of glaciers and snow, including their influential 1971 book Glacier Ice, which contained words that now read like early warnings of the impacts of climate change: “Much of modern civilization exists by virtue of a delicate balance between this climate and present snow and ice masses.” In the decades since its first publication, this collection of glacier photography has become a powerful testament to both the beauty and losses of its frozen worlds. Ives now ponders what might happen if more…
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Niels Tietze Remembered
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Libby Sauter reflects on the life of her friend and fellow Yosemite Search and Rescue teammate Niels Tietze after he was found dead at the base of Fifi Buttress in mid-November. Originally from Salt Lake City, Utah, Tietze made friends and climbed all over the world, picking up a wide array of jobs that included work as a ranch hand and as an ophthalmic assistant for the Himalayan Cataract Project. His parents wrote after his passing that he was “a man who in so many ways embodied the complexities of the Universe.”
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Through the Telescope
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In this Mountain Profile essay from Alpinist 60, Associate Editor Paula Wright tells the story of a lasting partnership between two leading female alpinists and their adventures on la Meije in the late 1800s.
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A feminist review of climbing how-to guides
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At a time when the American climbing population is becoming increasingly diverse, Georgie Abel examines the extent to which current instructional climbing books represent people of different genders and races.
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Cartography of Prayers: Pemako
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In this story that first appeared in Alpinist 54 as part of a series titled “A History of Imaginary Mountains,” Harish Kapadia recalls a journey inward while visiting a mystical Himalayan land known as Pemako. Kapadia, 72, received the 2017 Piolets d’Or-Asia Lifetime Achievement Award on November 3 in Seoul, Korea. He is the first Indian to receive the recognition.
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Slovenians establish two new routes in the Kishtwar Himalaya
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In this guest feature from the American Alpine Journal, Urban Novak reports on two new routes that he established with Marko Prezelj and Ales Cesen this past June. They acclimatized with a Grade ‘D’ route on Peak 6013, and then got lucky with a weather window that allowed them to complete their main objective, the west face of Arjuna (ca. 6250m). They named their route All or Nothing (ED+ M7+ WI5+ A0).
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Threshold Shift
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Nick Bullock recounts his first ascent of the North Buttress of Nyainqentanglha Southeast in Tibet with Paul Ramsden in 2016, and his subsequent return from Tibet to England to help his aging father. Back home, Bullock confronts the death of his mother, the loss of climbing friends and the uncertainties of Brexit. This story first appeared in Alpinist 57 and was recently named the best Mountaineering Article of the year at the Banff Mountain Book Festival.