After climbing Everest in 1975, Pete Boardman found he had become a mountaineering celebrity. Uneasy with this status, he still felt he had to prove something to his peers. Accordingly, the next year he teamed up with Joe Tasker to launch himself at what was then probably the hardest Himalayan climb yet made – the [...]
climbing
America could do no better than to have Big Jim Whittaker as its first citizen to top Mt. Everest. Genial, without pretense, funny and at times ribald, he is above all other things a lover of nature and testing one’s self there. This sweet, delightful short film features Whittaker talking about the elements of finding [...]
Are you going hiking this weekend? Planning a climb of Mount Hood, Shasta, Rainier? There are two things you should be doing: training, and planning what your summit photo is going to look like. Here are a few things to think about: 1. What are you going to do with your hands? a. thumbs up [...]
AMGA and IFMGA certified guide and founder of Alpenglow Expeditions Adrian Ballinger recently returned from Mt. Everest and Lhotse and filed this essay, in which he argues that requiring or demanding certified guides is a key to reducing risk on the world’s highest peak. — Ed. Over the past two years, I have read numerous [...]
Originally from Philadelphia, Norman Clyde migrated to California to become a schoolteacher in his mid-20s. After the sudden death of his wife in 1919, he went to live alone in the Eastern Sierras and became wedded instead to the mountains, devoting most of the rest of his long life to pioneering climbs there. Renowned for [...]
There are two types of climbers: Those who have gotten lost on the hike to a route or crag and those who never climb outdoors. The folks who dreamed up Rakkup, a mobile app designed to give turn-by-turn navigation to the base of climbing routes and crags, aim to change that. Rakkup launched at Nevada’s [...]
In 1959 the diminutive French swimwear designer and accomplished alpinist Claude Kogan set out for the 8,200-meter summit of Cho Oyu, the world’s sixth-highest peak. She was joined by her friend, a Belgian, Claudine van der Stratten. They were never to return. Their top camp was struck by a devastating avalanche, killing the two women [...]
In yet another incident that suggests Mt. Everest is for a lot of parties mostly about the money, Nepal is asking British climber Daniel Hughes to pay a $2,000 broadcast fee for making a live video call to the BBC from the summit. “The mountaineering rules say if you want to make a live telecast [...]
The ugly fight between Western alpinists and Sherpas on Mt. Everest a few weeks back had its roots in a complicated mix of issues, but one of the biggest was the unspoken tension between guided and unguided climbers, between non-commercial and commercial efforts. Ueli Steck and Simone Moro, who are two of the world’s top [...]
If there were any doubts that Mt. Everest is overcrowded, they should be dispelled with the news that a leading Nepali outfitter group, Expedition Operators Association, wants to install a ladder on the Hillary Step, one of the few sections of actual climbing on the most popular route, the South Col, to ease the way [...]
He said he would do it and he did. Just five months after having his fourth heart surgery, 80-year-old Yuichiro Miura (at right in photo with son Gota, left) became the oldest person to climb the world’s highest peak, reaching the summit of Mt. Everest at 9 a.m. Thursday. Although Miura’s fame has faded in [...]
With nicknames such as the Lung with Legs and the Mutant, it comes as no surprise that Alex Lowe had a reputation as one of the fittest and strongest mountaineers who ever lived. Lowe’s exceptional upper body strength was developed through a fanatical exercise regime that regularly included 400 pull-ups and hundreds of dips. But [...]
It has been a loooong time in the wilderness for the status of placing climbing bolts in federal wilderness. In June 1998 the U.S. Forest Service banned all fixed climbing anchors within the designated wilderness areas under its jurisdiction. This didn’t just mean permanent bolts: It meant that pitons, nuts, and pretty much any form [...]
The first time I went to Greenland, I spent the entire time accompanied by a constant buzzing hum in my gut. It took a few days to figure out that it was a kind of physically manifested existential concern. You could call it fear, I suppose, but I think it was just a heightened sense [...]
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