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​The Adidas Terrex Solo approach shoes after a season in Yosemite. [Photo] Josh Huckaby

Adidas Terrex Solo Approach Shoe 2016

YOSAR team member Josh Huckaby reviews the Adidas Terrex Solo approach shoes: “The Terrex Solos felt light on my feet, and have just enough support for extended carry outs down the dusty trails around Yosemite National Park.”

Cirque of the Towers. [Photo] Doug Kofsky

Wind River Universe

Dick Dorworth reflects on the changes that the last forty-five years have brought to the Wind River Range: “On a clear day, the surface of Lonesome Lake reflects the sweeping silver walls of the Cirque of Towers, a glacier-polished mirror to the climber who cares (dares?) to gaze into it and to take those visions back to the larger world.”

Ellingwood Peak (13,052'), the most prominent in the photo, with Notch Pinnacle (12,720'+) to the immediate left and Not Notch Pinnacle (12,760'+) farther left. [Photo] Joe Kelsey

Last Unclimbed Wind River

Eminent chronicler of the Wind River Mountains Joe Kelsey searches for the “last Unclimbed Wind River” peak–a quest inspired by an episode with his climbing partner, Paul Horton, on an obscure and seemingly unvisited summit: “As Paul led toward a chimney on the final pitch, he let out an equivocal chuckle…. ‘What?’ ‘A piton.'”

Mitchell Peak (12,482'). [Photo] David Salisbury

My Big Scary First Ascent

Before she and Bev Johnson made the first female ascent of El Capitan, Sibylle Hechtel lead her first unclimbed big wall in the Wind Rivers: “Dick handed me our minimal gear, pointed,

and said, “Just head up that corner until you get to a good ledge, and set up a belay.’ I gulped.”

Bill Lindberg on Tower I Gully (IV AI 3+, 1,000'), Mt. Helen (13,620'). [Photo] Raymond G. Jacquot

Tower I Ice Couloir, Mt. Helen

Bill Lindberg and I are several pitches up a narrow couloir on the north side of Mt. Helen. A thick, even ribbon of white divides the tawny-grey granite walls that rise steeply above us on either side. The granular, late-season ice accepts the picks of our piolets and rigid crampon points perfectly. Thus far, the climb has been so straightforward that we might have rehearsed it ahead of time; we are both exhilarated to be moving rapidly on an unclimbed alpine line.” In 1971, two climbers put new alpine gear to the test on what was the first ascent of Mt. Helen’s now-classic ice couloir.