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Hayden Kennedy and Inge Perkins remembered
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Alpinist Digital Editor Derek Franz recounts memories of the lives of his friends Hayden Kennedy and Inge Perkins after their recent deaths in Montana.
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Light Before Wisdom: The East Face of Cerro Kishtwar
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“Light Before Wisdom”: In this article from Alpinist 54, Hayden Kennedy shared moments of laughter and uncertainty from his 2015 ascent of the east face of Cerro Kishtwar with Marko Prezelj, Urban Novak and Manu Pellissier.
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A Mysterious Lonely Path: The Life of Francek Knez
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On October 6, Slovenian alpinist Francek Knez passed away. During the course of his lifetime, Knez completed over 5,000 international climbs, including the first ascent of Hell’s Direttissima on the east face of Cerro Torre. Bernadette McDonald profiled the visionary and reclusive mountaineer in Alpinist 52: “He seemed to draw energy from the natural landscape, tending his soul and feeding his imagination. Or maybe he garnered strength, not from the landscape, but from his inner core.”
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The Changing Faces of the Outdoors
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As she recalls her own experiences as a woman of color who enjoys the outdoors, Teresa Baker interviews members of various organizations who strive to help a wider range of people experience the mountains, forests and cliffs–not just the typical faces most often seen in media and ad campaigns. “By coming together to create a more inclusive industry,” she points out, “we can better guard against the threats to the environment that affect not only outdoor recreation, but our communities as a whole.”
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Contraindications
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In this story from Alpinist 59, Alison Criscitiello recalls her friendship with the late Anna Smith, a climber who sought a life of spontaneity and freedom in wild places.
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Unclimbed Nepal: The Explorations of Paulo Grobel
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In this guest feature from the American Alpine Journal, French guide Paulo Grobel reports on his explorations of Nepal’s Damodar Himal, north of the Annapurna group, and the first ascent of a subpeak of Himlung Himal, a popular 7,000er north of Manaslu. This story provides a sneak-peak from the 2018 AAJ.
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Inaccessible (1853-1917)
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Henry Duhamel was an influential figure in the early exploration of la Meije, one of the last, great unclimbed Alps in the Massif des Ecrins in France. This essay by former Vertical editor Claude Gardien–part of Erin Smart’s Mountain Profile in Alpinist 59–recounts Duhamel’s rich life as an inventor and explorer who never quite attained international fame and who died after slipping on ice in a military barracks during World War I, but who nevertheless helped usher in a new age of French mountaineering and skiing.
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New route attempt in Alaska’s Revelations ends with a rescue and a near miss
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Chris Thomas and Rick Vance received a 2017 Mugs Stump Award to attempt the unclimbed north face of Jezebel in Alaska’s Revelation Mountains this past spring. The trip went according to plan–until it didn’t, and the two climbers found themselves suddenly involved in a rescue beneath dangerous seracs.
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The Accidental Mountaineer
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As a single mom living in California, Ana Beatriz Cholo never imagined she would become a mountaineer. But she began climbing peaks in her state, and she eventually earned a spot on a Denali climbing team organized for female military veterans like her. Cholo shares how the experience helped her in this Climbing Life Story from Alpinist 59.
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Through local stewardship and civic engagement, climbers protect places for all
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Land managers and climbers have been known to have conflicting interests at times, but local climbing coalitions across the country—such as the Bay Area Climbers Coalition and Salt Lake Climber Alliance, among others—have helped organize climbers into a group of allies who can make a great difference when it comes to advocating for public land, from the grass-roots, to the national level. Laura Booth and Andrea Laue take a closer look at how we can work together as local stewards or our natural resources.
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Marguerite ‘Meta’ Claudia Brevoort: 1825-1876
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In 1870, Marguerite ‘Meta’ Claudia Brevoort attempted to become the first climber, male or female, to stand atop the highest point of la Meije, one of the last great unclimbed Alps in the Massif des Ecrins in France. In this Mountain Profile essay from Alpinist 59, Associate Editor Paula Wright relates the adventurous life of Brevoort, her nephew William Coolidge, and their dog, Tschingel, whose list of Alpine summits earned her an honorary membership in the exclusive Alpine Club.
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The Moth
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In this Climbing Life story from Alpinist 59, Marc-Andre Leclerc considers a dead moth in the snow as he begins a risky ascent below looming cornices.
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Outdoor Retailer Summer Show: Diversity and Inclusion; Where the outdoor industry’s mega-convention does (and doesn’t) succeed
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Sara Aranda and Emma Murray attended Salt Lake City’s last Outdoor Retailer Summer Market Trade Show to journal the demonstrations and conversations about public lands as well as race and gender equality in the outdoor industry. Here is what they saw and heard.
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Shunyata
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In this On Belay feature for Alpinist 59, Indian Alpinist Karn Kowshik describes a journey of self-discovery during his time in the mountains of Spiti Valley, India, where he first dreamed of becoming a climber. After gaining experience in other ranges, he then returns to Spiti in search of unclimbed waterfall ice.
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The World as It is Not
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During the mid-twentieth century, an ardent conservationist and Cascades mountaineer planted a series of elaborate hoaxes in Summit magazine. He hoped to prod readers to see the mountains in fresh and unfamiliar ways–and to remember the value of wild lands. In this Sharp End from Alpinist 59, Editor-in-chief Katie Ives talks with some of the climbers involved in the story, as well as friends and family members, to learn more about the great imaginary mountains of Harvey Manning (1925-2006).
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Freedom Catalogue
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In this Climbing Life story from Alpinist 58, Spencer Gray tallies the amount of resources and human labor required to produce the gear that he used to enjoy a single excursion into the mountains. He explains: “I submit this catalogue as proof of something true of much of modern life: the social and environmental cost of reaching these out-of-reach places, and returning safely, is unsustainably high.”
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Refuge
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Early expeditions often combined the exploration of new heights with a search for rare botanical specimens. More than a century after both natural history and mountaineering fractured into subdisciplines, Associate Editor Paula Wright explores the impacts of climbing’s science gap and the need for a more unified focus on conservation in this Wired story from Alpinist 58.
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Conrad Anker’s commencement speech for the University of Utah addresses current and future challenges for humanity
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Renowned alpinist Conrad Anker delivered the University of Utah’s graduation commencement speech and received an honorary doctorate on May 3, 2017. This is a copy of his speech, which considers the current and future challenges faced by Earth’s citizens, and the responsibility we have to address these global problems.
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Less and Less Alone: Alex Honnold
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This profile of Alex Honnold first appeared in Alpinist 35 (Summer 2011). In this piece, Alex Lowther cover’s Honnold’s sudden rise to fame, from his childhood and the death of his father, to how he balances the demands of his professional climbing career with his personal priorities.
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In the Bear’s Lodge
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Many climbers observe the voluntary climbing ban at Bear Lodge (Devils Tower) during the month of June as their way to show respect for local Native American cultures. In this Climbing Life piece from Alpinist 57, Nick Mott speaks with Milo Yellowhair from the Oglala Lakota and Arvol Looking Horse, Chief of the Nakota, Dakota and Lakota, and others to learn more about their views on the history.
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Pulled Apart
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In this Full Value story from Alpinist 58, Rick Accomazzo tells the story of a mission he participated in as a member of Yosemite Search and Rescue in July 1975 that has haunted him ever since–its memory compounded by the loss of his friend and climbing partner Tobin Sorenson in 1980. Illustrations by Andreas Schmidt.
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Bree Loewen describes ‘a job for a human, not a hero’ in ‘Found: A Life in Mountain Rescue’
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Bree Loewen’s brilliant memoir, Found: A Life in Mountain Rescue, is a compelling tale of life and death, motherhood and wilderness, rescue and recovery–and a must-read for anyone who travels in the backcountry.
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Tommy Caldwell is honest and vulnerable in his autobiography ‘The Push’
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Tommy Caldwell’s autobiography, The Push, is as daring as his multitude of world-class climbing accomplishments, which range from 5.14 and 5.15 sport routes around the world, and towering free ascents on Yosemite’s El Capitan–including the first free ascent of the Dawn Wall (VI 5.14d) in January 2015 with Kevin Jorgeson–to the first completion of the Fitz Roy Traverse in Patagonia with Alex Honnold in 2014. Caldwell’s writing is honest and vulnerable, which makes his moments of triumph even more inspiring.
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Tea Song
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In this Climbing Life story from Alpinist 58, mountaineer Shirin Shabestari writes about her childhood in Iran, where her dad introduced her to snowy peaks that inspired the dreams she continues to follow.
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K’e yil yal tx’i: Saying Something
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In this Climbing Life story from Alpinist 58, Leslie Hsu Oh takes her kids climbing and observes them learning lessons that took her a lifetime to learn. After Oh lost her birth mother and brother to cancer, her adoptive mother had encouraged her to seek a sense of kinship in the mountains.
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A foray into the ‘Never-Never Land’ of Cordillera Sarmiento, Chile
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Last March Americans Whitney Clark, Jon Griffin and Tad McCrea ventured into a notoriously wet and seldom-visited coastal region of South America–Patagonia’s Cordillera Sarmiento–in hopes of climbing a peak called Alas de Angel Sur. The approach to their main objective proved too difficult to decipher in the time and weather that they had, but the team still managed to climb another peak by a route they dubbed Estoy Verde (M6 200m). Clark recounts their rain-soaked adventure.
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Riding the Storm on Torre Central, Patagonia
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Mayan Smith-Gobat returns to the Torres del Paine in Patagonia to attempt a complete free ascent of Riders on the Storm (VI 5.12d/5.13 A3, 1300m) on the Torre Central, which she came close to accomplishing with Ines Papert in 2016. This year the weather dashed all hopes for a complete ascent, but Smith-Gobat and Brette Harrington summoned all their reserves and went up the icy wall anyway. Here Smith-Gobat relates their journey inward, upward and downward.
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On Belay: A Thousand Days of Lapis Lazuli
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After ten years as a boulderer, Keita Kurakami attempts what some other local climbers called impossible: a new free route on the daunting 110-meter Moai Face of Mt. Mizugaki. When he succeeded in July of last year, it turned out to be the hardest multipitch trad climb in Japan at 5.14a R/X.
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Wired: Rethinking Mountain Gloom
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Dawn L. Hollis challenges the belief in academia that people did not care for mountains until they began climbing them at the end of the eighteenth century. Further, she studies why an institution such as the British Alpine Club would react so strongly against the premise that the love people have for mountains is nothing new.
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TOOL USERS: The Headlamp
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In this Tool Users story from Alpinist 57, Paula Wright shines a light on the evolution of the headlamp. Since some climbers were still carrying flashlights in their mouths as late as the early 1970s, it seems that we have only recently emerged into a more illuminated age.