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[Illustration] Andreas Schmidt

The Raven at the Door

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.

Zach Harrison on the first free ascent of the Southeast Face (III 5.11+ R, 520') of Zoroaster Temple, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. [Photo] Blake McCord

Still Distant Temple: Zoroaster, Grand Canyon

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.

Lockhart Basin is one of the areas no longer included in the two smaller national monuments that replaced the former Bears Ears Monument. [Photo] Tim Peterson, courtesy of Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition

Strange Days: A look back on the previous 11 months surrounding Bears Ears National Monument and a glance at the future

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.

Above the Lirung Glacier. Behind is the lower right side of the east face of Langtang Lirung. Dusserre and Girard hoped to land above the icefall visible in the center. [Photo] Dusserre/Girard Collection

Innovative Approach: Using paragliders to attempt high peaks in Nepal’s Langtang Himal

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.

Erin Smart on the summit of la Meije in 2016, with the Pic Central in the background. [Photo] Kurt Dienel

La Meije Mountain Profile: An interview with author Erin Smart

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.

Edward LaChapelle and Austin Post in 1995. Glacier Ice continues to influence current photographers' efforts to document climate change. [Photo] Courtesy Ananda Foley

Vanishing Uplands

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 climbers were to look beyond some of our focus on individual fulfillment to face the bigger challenge that confronts us all.

Niels about to dodge some lightning in the Wind River Range, Wyoming. [Photo] Gareth Llewellin

Niels Tietze Remembered

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.”

Emile Rey, Katharine Richardson and J.B. Bich at the foot of the statue of Horace Benedict de Saussure and Jacques Balmat, Chamonix, France, 1890. [Photo] Courtesy of the Alpine Club

Through the Telescope

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.

[Illustration] Jeremy Collins

Cartography of Prayers: Pemako

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.