The American Alpine Club Announces 2025 Cutting Edge Grant Winners

PC: Nelson Neirinck

March 2025

The American Alpine Club and Black Diamond Equipment are pleased to announce the 2025 Cutting Edge Grant recipients. The Cutting Edge Grant continues the Club's 120-year tradition by funding individuals planning expeditions to remote areas featuring unexplored mountain ranges, unclimbed peaks, difficult new routes, first-free ascents, or similar world-class pursuits. Five teams have been awarded a total of $25,000 for this cycle, with objectives featuring a low-impact style and leave-no-trace mentality looked upon with favor. Black Diamond Equipment is a proud sponsor of the Cutting Edge Grant and a key partner in supporting cutting-edge alpinism.

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Kishtwar Shivling. 2023. PC: Vitaliy Musiyenko

Vitaliy Musiyenko will be awarded $6,000 to attempt a new route on the southwest aspect of Kishtwar Shivling (6,000m), located in the Indian Himalayas. The mountain's main summit has only been reached once; the east summit was climbed in 2014, and the east pillar was climbed in 2015. Vitaliy Musiyenko will be attempting the route with Sean McLane. If they have enough time and energy in the tank, they hope to attempt another, unclimbed mountain with a similar altitude in the area.

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Michael Hutchins

Michael Hutchins will be awarded $6,000 to attempt the southwest face of Rimo lll (7233m), an unclimbed 1600m face in the eastern Karakoram of India. Hutchins and Chris Wright discovered this objective because Wright caught a glimpse of the Rimo peaks after an expedition in 2012. Stefano Ragazzo will join them on their expedition. The team of three are all mountain guides with extensive climbing experience: Ragazzo recently rope-soloed Eternal Flame on Nameless Tower in Pakistan; Wright received the Piolet d'Or in 2020 for his team's ascent of Link Sar; and Hutchins has climbed six of seven major peaks in the Fitz Roy massif.

Stefano Ragazzo

Chris Wright

 The SW Face of Rimo III

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Tad McCrea. PC: Tad McCrea

Tad McCrea will be awarded $4,000 to attempt the southeast pillar of Latok lll (6,949 meters) from the Choktoi Glacier. Latok III has never been climbed from the Choktoi glacier but was summited from the west face in 2011. The expedition team will include Jon Giffin and Thomas Huber. The three climbers attempted the proposed route in 2024 but had to descend before bad weather moved in.

The Team: Thomas Huber, Tad McCrea, and Jon Griffin atop Cerro Chalten (Fitz Roy) 2024. PC: Tad McCrea

Thomas Huber. PC: Tad McCrea

Jon Griffin. PC: Tad McCrea

Latok III from Choktoi. PC: Tad McCrea

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Zach Lovell. PC: Carrie Mueller

Zach Lovell will be awarded $4,000 to attempt a new route on Dorje Lhakpa (6966m), located in the Jugal Himal, about 55 kilometers northeast of Kathmandu. Japhy Dhungana and Joseph Hobby will join Lovell on this expedition, which will involve over 1,000 meters of technical climbing from 5900 to 6900 meters. Dhungana and Lovell did their first new route in the alpine together in Nepal several years ago and are looking forward to another adventure in Dhungana's home country. Hobby and Lovell have also spent countless days climbing and skiing together, from the contiguous U.S. to Alaska. Lovell is honored to call both of them some of his closest friends and looks forward to spending time together as a team of three.

Japhy Dhungana. PC: Cary Jobe

Joseph Hobby. PC: Millet

Dorje Lhakpa overview. PC: Nikonphotog

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Ethan Berman negotiating a short mixed step low down on Ultar Sar in 2024. PC: Maarten van Haeren

Ethan Berman will be awarded $5,000 to attempt the southeast "hidden" pillar of Ultar Sar (7388 m), located in the Karakoram Range of Pakistan. The route is a striking 3000m line, with the lower half of the route consisting of 1500m of steep snow and ice climbing with a couple of mixed steps, and the upper half consisting of a 1500m stunning rock pillar that cuts a line through the sky all the way to the summit. Maarten van Haeren, Sebastian Pelletti, and Berman attempted the route in the spring of 2024, reaching a hanging glacier at 6000m before turning around due to dangerous snow conditions. They made three attempts total, each time climbing a bit higher while learning how to move safely through the complexities of the route. They are fired up to return to Pakistan with the support of the Cutting Edge Grant and hope to apply all that they learned last year to increase their chances of success.

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Sebastian Pelletti stops to admire Ultar Sar (7388m) while approaching the base of the mountain. PC: Ethan Berman

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Maarten van Haeren (left) and Sebastian Pelletti in a snow couloir on Ultar Sar during their attempt in 2024. PC: Ethan Berman

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Ethan Berman swinging his legs to keep blood flowing to the toes while at a crevasse bivy while acclimatizing in Pakistan in 2024. PC: Maarten van Haeren

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Back to front: Ethan, Maarten, and Sebastian test their custom 3-man sleeping bag made by Grade VII Equipment. PC: Nathan Kukathas

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Applications for the Cutting Edge Grant are accepted each year from October 1 through November 30.

Contact:

Berkeley Anderson, Foundation and Grants Coordinator: banderson@americanalpineclub.org

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Presented by:

Sea to Summit

Bristol Bay to Mendenhall Towers

By Sierra McGivney

Photos by Jessica Anaruk

Originally published in Guidebook XIII

Jessica Anaruk and Micah Tedeschi spent the short summer season of Alaska on separate drift boats for sockeye salmon. Their days were long and filled with hours of manual labor, setting the net on the ocean and picking fish. It was not uncommon for Anaruk to work 16 hours and get around three to four hours of sleep most nights—her captain was an aggressive fisher. But at the end of their season, they were trading in their XTRATUF boots for climbing shoes and, powered by the AAC’s Catalyst Grant, heading to the big walls of the Mendenhall Towers, seven granite towers that rise high above the surrounding Mendenhall Glacier in southeast Alaska.

Anaruk and Tedeschi met while living in Durango, Colorado. A 24-hour car ride to El Potrero Chico, Mexico, with mutual friends solidified their friendship. After a week and a half of climbing on limestone in the desert, the origins of this expedition were born. Tedeschi was intrigued by Anaruk’s experience of commercial fishing in Alaska. Their conversations poured like concrete, solidifying when spoken. They would spend the upcoming summer fishing and then go on a climbing trip afterward. A unique pairing of sea and land.

“My goal throughout my life is to get to know different parts of Alaska, and [in] this season in my life, the mountains of Southeast Alaska are drawing me in. I intend to create a relationship with this part of Alaska that I admire deeply,” wrote Jessica Anaruk in her grant application.

A few summers ago, Anaruk was interning in southeast Alaska. She spent a lot of time on the water gazing at the surrounding mountains, dreaming of climbing on the tall peaks. Her passion for Alaska’s fierce oceans and grand mountains is a deep fire that runs through her.

“I think it’s fun to go to all these different places and to see the vast difference of the mountains ... and just to get to know it more and connect to the land,” said Anaruk.

They embarked on a training trip to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in May of 2024. Since they would encounter unfamiliar terrain in Alaska, they chose The Scenic Cruise (1,700’, 13 pitches, 5.10d), a route that was longer and more challenging than the routes they planned to climb on the Mendenhall Towers.

After that, their summer at sea began, and there was no climbing in sight.

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Photo by Jessica Anaruk.

Growing up in Akiachak and Anchorage, Alaska, as well as in Oregon, Jessica Anaruk was always on the water. Jessica is Yup’ik from the Akiachak community. Every summer, she and her family returned to their fish camp on a slough of the Kuskokwim River to subsistence fish for salmon, fishing for personal, family, and community consumption.

“Returning to commercial fish[ing] is a way I’m able to express this part of myself while also making an income. I learn something new about the land, the work itself, as well as myself every time I return,” said Anaruk.

In contrast, sometimes climbing feels like being alone at sea. “Being an Indigenous woman in climbing is definitely not something I see very often,” reflected Anaruk.

They fished almost every tide, twice a day. Bristol Bay is home to six major pristine water systems and 31 federally recognized tribes, including the Central Yup’ik, Alutiiq/ Sugpiaq, and Dena’ina. The bay is divided into five management districts; each opens and closes to fishing for periods of time. This allows salmon to lay eggs upriver, repopulat- ing and continuing to thrive so fishing remains sustainable. The district Tedeschi was fishing in would open for 12 hours and then close for another 12 hours, allowing more time to rest and relax.

In contrast, Anaruk’s captain and district allowed for more aggressive fishing. It wasn’t uncommon for Anaruk to work 16-hour days picking and setting the net. Despite the exhausting labor, the early-morning sunrises, the two-hour-long sunsets, and seeing bears roaming the beach keep Anaruk coming back.

“What sustains me is how it continually connects me to my culture, the land, salmon, and people,” said Anaruk.

Physically, commercial fishing doesn’t translate much into climbing beyond picking fish out of the net, which requires hand strength. But the mental aspect prepares you for long, arduous ascents on big walls. During unpredictable weather, the sky spits rain sideways, soaking the boat’s inhabitants while they scramble around picking and setting the net, adapting to any and all conditions.

“You are fishing for long periods of time, and it’s cold, and you’re tired, so I feel like that translates well, on the wall, [where] you’re also tired and cold but also trying to have a good attitude,” said Anaruk.

The long days of midnight sun on the ocean began to shorten, and on August 5, 2024, they walked into the helicopter outfitter. Fifteen minutes after loading the helicopter, they were on the Mendenhall Glacier.

“I think it’s the closest thing to teleportation that exists,” said Tedeschi.

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Photo by Jessica Anaruk.

The helicopter dropped them off at the base of the fifth tower, and their first objective was the South Buttress (1,200’, 10 pitches, IV 5.10a) on the third tower, about a half mile to the west. This was Tedeschi’s first time on a glacier, and Anaruk had limited glacier travel experience. So the Extra Tough Salmon Sisters—their new nickname, inspired by the classic Alaskan boots with fish and octopuses printed on the inside—sat down and got to work on their own glacier travel school. Tedeschi strapped microspikes to his sneakers, the only other shoes he had, since he had come straight from Bristol Bay. Like many expeditions, the pair soon found themselves well aware of the depth of knowledge they didn’t possess. They quickly dove into filling the gap by watching YouTube videos on glacier travel and practicing mock rescue drills.

Along the way, they met Clay, Sam, and Brandon, another group of climbers on the glacier. They warned the Extra Tough Salmon Sisters that the bergschrund at the base of the South Buttress was a bit sketchy. They had just climbed the South Buttress and had broken some of the ice at the base, so conditions were questionable.

This didn’t faze them. The next day, to mitigate the risk, Tedeschi started off by climbing a 5.9 to the left of the main route, and connected it to the first pitch of the South Buttress. The two enjoyed a day of stellar climbing on granite in the Alaskan alpine.

The higher up the two climbed, the better the rock quality was. As expected in the Alaskan alpine, the lower pitches had a fair bit of loose, muddy rock. Not all pitches were 5.10; they ranged from 4th-class terrain to 5.10, so some pitches were more exciting than others. Anaruk loved pitch seven; it was exhilarating for her to be so high up on the tower on a challenging pitch. Tedeschi worked his way through a steep headwall with a splitter crack on one of the last pitches.

Photo by Jessica Anaruk.

“Those upper headwall pitches were absolutely bullet rock, really exposed and just really incredible climbing,” said Tedeschi.

There is no topo for the South Buttress, and the main beta for the route is a limited description on Mountain Project. They spent several hours searching for the 5th-class route to the summit, and once they had found it and summited, they began a very involved series of rappels. By the time they were back on the Mendenhall Glacier, the sun was setting, and they had been en route for 16 hours.

That night, they sat in their tent discussing whether they should do another route tomorrow, and deal with getting only five hours of sleep. They would have to start ahead of another group and be down in time to be picked up by their helicopter.

They heard the other group getting ready in the morning and kicked it into high gear. They packed up camp and hopped on the Solva Buttress (1000’, 10 pitches, IV 5.8). The first section proved scrambly, flowy, and more relaxed than the day before. Halfway through the climb, Tedeschi pulled out gummy worms. A smile spread across Anaruk’s face, despite being worn down and tired. It was the perfect surprise. The day was spent having good conversations, laughing, and moving through fun and easy terrain.

From the summit, the Extra Tough Salmon Sisters looked out at endless glaciers with granite peaks sticking out and the ocean not too far away. Once back on the glacier, they enjoyed Modelos and a charcuterie board while waiting for the helicopter. A deep sense of satisfaction settled in.

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Support This Work—AAC Grants

Today, with up to $100,000 in annual grant awards, the Club continues to support these endeavors and is proud to stand behind the individuals and their projects which seek the betterment of the climbing community and climbing landscapes.

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Photos by Jessica Anaruk.

Alpine climbing is not something Anaruk’s family and community think about. This trip transcended climbing for Anaruk. It was a way to show her family and community that you can make anything happen. Challenging expeditions inspire Anaruk to keep pushing herself.

Anaruk would love to connect with other Indigenous women in the climbing space and usher in more representation within the climbing community. Even though she is not from southeast Alaska, she believes connecting to and protecting the land is extremely valuable, especially doing so through an Indigenous lens. She also believes that climbers should consider consulting the area’s Indigenous communities when making decisions that impact the land they are climbing on.

Tedeschi’s reflection was interwoven with Anaruk’s. Most of Tedeschi’s climbing partners look like him. Anaruk is a skilled, competent climbing partner who brings a different lived experience from Tedeschi.

“I found it to be a cool outlet to express myself too because I am queer, and it’s not something I talk about often within the climbing community. I’m straight passing, so it’s just not a conversation I ever have with my male climbing partners. It was cool to be on the glacier with Jess and just be ourselves,” said Tedeschi.

They brought nail polish and painted their nails on the glacier. It was simple, but they felt they could be unabashedly themselves. They met three women on the Mendenhall Glacier— Keisha, Kaitlin, and Bailey, who had each climbed there many times before—in addition to another women’s team.

“There were more women on the glacier than men that day, and it was cool changing what is considered the norm in these spaces,” said Tedeschi.

Two all-women teams, Tedeschi, a queer man, and Anaruk, an Indigenous woman, were the majority on the glacier, a space that historically hasn’t been full of people like them. For Anaruk and Tedeschi, it was deeply impactful for their expedition to be part of the change they want to see in the climbing community.

It was a trip about reveling: reveling in the endless days Tedeschi and Anaruk spent on Alaska’s ocean, and how those days cascaded into sunsets on top of rock towers and poured into long nights filled with dancing colors.

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The Line: News From the Cascades to the Karakoram

Binocular view of the crux fourth pitch of Borrowed Time on the west face of Sloan Peak. Photo: Michael Telstad.

SLOAN PEAK, BORROWED TIME

The west face of Sloan Peak, about 20 kilometers southwest of Glacier Peak in Washington’s North Cascades, has seen a flurry of winter climbing in the past five years. But one obvious plum remained: a direct route up the center of the face, with an intimidating crux pitch leading past steep rock to a hanging dagger. In January, Northwest climbers Justin Sackett and Michael Telstad picked that plum, climbing nearly 2,000 feet up the west face in a long day. We’re sharing Telstad’s report for AAJ 2025 here.

The west face of Sloan Peak (7,835’) has been at the forefront of my mind for about as long as I’ve been winter climbing. Despite numerous attempts, the main face was unclimbed to the summit in winter until 2022, with the completion of Superalpine (IV WI3/4, Legallo-Roy). In 2023, the Merrill-Minton (a.k.a. The Sloan Slither, 1,600’, IV WI4+) climbed partway up the center of the face, then moved rightward to join Superalpine. A previous winter line on Sloan Peak, Full Moon Fever (IV AI4 R 5.8, Downey-Hinkley-Hogan, 2011), started on the west face then angled up the northern shoulder.

Directly above the point where the Merrill-Minton cuts right to easier ground, a large hanging dagger is guarded by gently overhanging, compact gneiss. Known as one of the biggest unpicked plums in the North Cascades, the direct line past the dagger was going to get climbed sooner or later—it was just a question of by whom and in what style. When a perfect weather window arrived in the forecast, I convinced Justin Sackett to drive up from Portland for an attempt.

The west face of Sloan Peak showing the line of Borrowed Time, climbed in January 2025. The climbers followed the Merrill-Minton Route (2023) up to the middle of the big rock band, then continued straight up where the Merrill-Minton veered right. Photo: John Scurlock.

Early on January 19, 2025, we stepped away from the car and into the rainforest. We reached the base of the route at first light. Following the Merrill-Minton for the first three pitches, we encountered climbing up to WI5 R—a far cry from the moderate ice reported on the first ascent. Below the dagger, we took a short break and got ready for an adventure. I’d chosen to leave the bolt kit behind. This route deserved an honest attempt on natural gear before being sieged.

No bolts on this mixed pitch: Michael Telstad zigzags up overhanging gneiss on the fourth pitch of Borrowed Time, the M7 crux of the route. Photo: Justin Sackett.

After traversing back and forth a few times, I chose my line to the ice and started up. The rock on this portion of the wall is highly featured but compact and fractured. Just about every seam that might take gear was packed full of frozen moss; finding decent protection was a slow, agonizing process. A steep crux near the end of the pitch held potential for a huge fall, but an improbable no-hands rest allowed me just enough of a reprieve to get good gear.

On the summit. Photo: Justin Sackett.

Justin joined me in the sun above the dagger, and we continued up a pitch of perfect blue water ice to snow slopes. Rather than finish via the standard scramble route, we opted for an obvious corner system above us. Reminiscent of Shaken Not Stirred on the Mooses Tooth in Alaska, this narrow slot held steps of water ice broken by sections of steep snow—the ideal finish to an excellent climb.

Arriving on the windless summit around 3:45 p.m., we took a short break and began our descent along the southeast shelf. After what felt like an eternity of steep downclimbing, we post-holed back to the cars, arriving a bit after 8 pm. Our direct new route is called Borrowed Time (1,900’, IV WI5 M7). 

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RESCUE ON SLOAN PEAK

In a sad footnote to the Sloan Peak story, a climber was severely injured in a long fall on the mountain about a week after the ascent reported above, apparently attempting one of the initial pitches on either this line or the Merrill-Minton route. The climber was pulled from the face in a dramatic helicopter mission—the five-minute video from Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office is a remarkable window into such rescues. We wish the climber well in his recovery.

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The third bivouac on the north pillar of Yashkuk Sar I. Photo courtesy of Dane Steadman.

YASHKUK SAR FIRST ASCENT

Crashhhhh! rang through the perfectly still night. To say this woke up August Franzen, Cody Winckler, and me would be a lie. How could we sleep? We were camped below the biggest objective of our lives, on our first trip to Pakistan, alone in the Yashkuk Yaz Valley aside from our two cooks and liaison officer back at base camp, surrounded by the most beautiful, terrifying, inspiring, and chaotic mountains we’d ever seen. Now, on the glacier beneath Yashkuk Sar I (6,667m), about a mile past our advanced base camp, I poked my head out the tent door to see a gargantuan avalanche roaring down the peak’s north wall, its powder cloud billowing toward us.

“Should we run?” asked August.

That’s the start of the article Dane Steadman has written for AAJ 2025. The new AAJ will be mailed to AAC members in September, but you can hear Dane talk about this climb right now in the latest Cutting Edge podcast. Along with Dane’s interview, you’ll hear alpinists Kelly Cordes and Graham Zimmerman, plus AAJ editor Dougald MacDonald, sharing their insights on this climb and the unique challenges and attractions of climbing in the Karakoram.

The 2024 Yashkuk Sar I expedition was supported by a Cutting Edge grant from the American Alpine Club.

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The Line is the newsletter of the American Alpine Journal (AAJ), emailed to more than 80,000 climbers each month. Find the archive of past editions here. Interested in supporting this publication? Contact Heidi McDowell for opportunities. Got a potential story for the AAJ? Email us: aaj@americanalpineclub.org.

Your Guide to Climbing at The New River Gorge

The World Class Climbing You Need to Check Out in 2025

By Sierra McGivney

Originally published in Guidebook XIII

If you haven’t logged some ascents on West Virginia stone, that’s a gap in your climbing resume that you should rectify immediately. You won’t regret making the trek to climb on the New’s tiered roofs and bouldery, sequency walls. The New River Gorge (NRG) is one of the few truly world-class destinations in the U.S., and a trip to visit in 2025 would be an easy way to ensure your climbing year is filled with unbelievable climbing— the kind that has you yelling, “WOW I LOVE ROCK CLIMBING” halfway up the wall.

STYLES OF THE NRG:

technical, bouldery, puzzle solving, high steps, big pulls, powerful movement

The NRG boasts miles of challenging climbing on ironclad Nuttall sandstone cliffs. Many routes overlook the stunning New River Gorge, or you can travel deep into the vibrant West Virginia forest and find hidden cliffs with stellar routes. The rock is composed of 98% quartz—some even claim it’s harder than Yosemite granite. With over 3,000 established routes, the NRG has almost every type of climbing: run-out and well-bolted, slab, overhangs, cracks, techy vertical faces, corners, arêtes, trad and sport climbing, and bouldering. Technical small holds, long reaches, big moves, and old-school bolting leave many shaking in their climbing shoes. You’ll never get bored if you love finding a sequence of moves that unlocks a climb. And you’ll never feel better than when you push through the mental challenge and pull off the move.

“It’s a humbling place to climb, so you have to be willing to be humbled a lot,” said Jane Kilgour, the Community & Guest Services Manager at the AAC New River Gorge Campground.

Liz Haas on Black Rider (a.k.a. Pocket Route) (5.13a). Land of the Shawnee, Yuchi, and Moneton peoples. Photo by AAC member Jan Novak.

The caliber of climbs makes every fall and try-hard scream worthwhile.

“[The New River Gorge] is the kind of place where people come for a week, and they end up staying for three months and then moving around their plans for the year so they can return again next season,” said Kilgour.

The best advice for visiting the New: chase stars, not grades. The quality of lines and routes is why climbers can’t get enough of the NRG.

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AAC Partner Members Get Discounts on Lodging!

As an AAC member, enjoy discounts at AAC lodging facilities and dozens of other locations in the AAC lodging network.

Each membership is critical to the AAC’s work: advocating for climbing access and natural landscapes, offering essential knowledge to the climbing community through our accident analysis and documentation of cutting edge climbing, and supporting our members with our rescue benefit, discounts, grants and more. 

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A Brief History of New River Gorge Climbing

Magdalena Gromadzka on Tattoo (5.12a). Photo by AAC member Jan Novak.

The New River Gorge National Park is on the land of the Cherokee and Shawnee, among other tribes. We acknowledge their past, present, and future connection to the land. To learn more, visit the Sandstone Visitor Center on your trip.

In the 1970s, West Virginia locals began developing the New River Gorge, focusing on what would become the Bridge Area before the NRG Bridge was completed in 1977. Classics like Chockstone (5.9), Jaws (5.9), and Tree Route (5.10) were climbed in the Bridge Buttress area and graded initially as 5.7. Locals continued to put up more routes, moving on to the Junkyard Wall.

Whispers of amazing climbing at the New River Gorge spread, and the 1980s brought a new wave of climbers who pushed grades and technical difficulties in the area. Rapscallion’s Blues (5.10c), Leave It to Jesus (5.11c), and Incredarete (5.12c) were put up, and with every season, more climbing areas were discovered. In the late ‘80s, sport climbing and Lynn Hill came to the New. Eric Horst put up the first 5.13 in the New, Diamond Life, and Lynn clinched the first ascent of the Greatest Show on Earth (5.13a), setting a new standard for women in the New River Gorge.

Hard sport climbing ruled the early 1990s. The late Brian McCray put up difficult lines on overhanging walls, including the first 5.14a, Proper Soul. Development plateaued in the late ‘90s, as the NPS acquired most of the climbing cliffs, and a power drill ban was enacted in 1998. Currently, the NPS accepts permit applications for new routes. In the 2010s, many 5.14s were bolted and sent, including Trebuchet (5.14b), Coal Train (5.14a), and Mono Loco (5.14a) by guidebook author Mike Williams. Hoax of Clocks (5.14a) was the first route to be bolted legally under the current NPS climbing management plan after the New officially became a national park in December 2020. New routes like Jonathan Siegrist’s Full Metal Brisket (5.15a) continue to be put up alongside classics at popular crags to this day.

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New River Gorge Beta

Photo by AAC member Jan Novak.

Getting There

• Driving: The NRG is located in south-central West Virginia near Fayetteville.

• Flying: Fly into Charleston, West Virginia, and drive about 90 minutes to the NRG. A car is essential at the NRG, where crags, lodging, and grocery stores are spread out.

Season

The New can be climbed year-round and has great warm and cold-weather crags.

The best seasons are fall and spring.

• Fall: It is possible to climb at any crag during this season by chasing sun or shade.

• Spring: Longer days, higher humidity.

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Book Your Stay

If you’re climbing in the New River Gorge, stay in the heart of the national park at the AAC’s New River Gorge Campground, within walking distance of popular climbing crags and hiking trails.

Reservations are required, and same-day reservations must be made by 11 a.m. on the day of arrival. Reservations open March 1, 2025.

The campground offers three types of accommodations: private tent sites, vehicle camping parking spots/sites, and communal camping spots.

No RVs, trailers, or vehicles over 20 feet. Pets are welcome but must be leashed.
Prices are as follows: Member / Non-Member

• Private tent site: $24 / $32

• Communal camping: $10 / $14

• Vehicle sites: $16 / $20

AAC’s New River Gorge Campground season runs from the end of March to early December.

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Emmeline Wang on Legacy (5.11a). AAC member Jan Nova

Notes on Climbing Ethics

• Stick-clipping the first bolt is expected. On some climbs, the first bolt is 20 feet off the ground.

• Always lower (instead of rappelling) from the anchors on single-pitch climbs when possible. New River Alliance of Climbers (NRAC) is active in the area and replaces bad anchors.

• Fixed or project draws within the national park are illegal, and placing fixed protection is by permit only.

• Most NRG crags are within the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, so all NPS rules apply when climbing there—especially the seven principles of Leave No Trace.

• Grocery Stores

  • Swiftwater General Store, Lansing

  • Walmart Supercenter, Fayetteville

  • Kroger, Fayetteville

• Rest Day Fun

  • Hike Endless Wall Trail, a 3.2-mile loop in the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve.

  • Check out over 60 miles of mountain biking trails in the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve.

  • Raft the New River or the Gauley River.

  • Kayak, stand-up paddleboard, or swim at Summersville Lake.

  • On a rainy day, head over to Rangefinder Coffee in Fayetteville.

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Photo by AAC member Jan Novack.

Climbs You Need to Check Out

Now that you’ve packed, prepared, and researched, the looming question of what to climb still stands. We’ve highlighted a number of climbs you don’t want to miss with help from our New River Gorge Campground staff.

Warning: There are plenty more classics not listed here. You might leave wanting to come back for more.

A Forgotten Classic

• Bicycle Club 5.11d: Not necessarily “for- gotten,” but often overlooked compared to its neighbor, Sancho Belige (5.11c), this is a high-quality route.

Six Must-Climb Routes up to 5.9+

• Ferrovieri 5.7 Sport

• Hippie Dreams 5.7 Sport

• Mrs. Field’s Follies 5.8 Sport

• Two Bag Face 5.9 Trad

• Four Sheets to the Wind 5.9+ Trad

• Flight of the Gumby 5.9+ Sport

Ten Must-Climb Trad Climbs

• Harder Than 5.9

• Black and Tan 5.10a

• Hyperactive 5.10a

• Burning Calves 5.10b

• Rapscallion’s Blues 5.10c

• Fairtracer 5.10d

• Stuck in Another Dimension 5.11a

• Mellifluus 5.11a

• Leave It to Jesus 5.11c

• The Beckoning 5.12a

Ten Must-Climb Sport Climbs Harder Than 5.9

• The Rico Suave Arête 5.10a

• The Decameron 5.10b

• Legacy 5.11a

• Satisfaction Guaranteed 5.11a/b

• Porter for Recorder 5.11d

• Psycho Wrangler 5.12a

• Concertina 5.12a

• Thunderstruck 5.12b

• Welcome to Conditioning 5.12d (“Indisputable Proof that God is a Climber.” —Mike Williams)

• Blood Raid 5.13a

Ten Classic Boulder Problems

• Gymnastic Fantastic V2

• Perfect World V2

• Way of the Gun V4

• Gundercling V4

• Loki V5

• Sunshine Arête V5

• The MacGuffin V5

• West Virginia Hot Pocket V6

• There’s No I in Illiterate V6/7

• 1,2 Punch V7

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Keenan Griscom is Doing Everything Your Parents Tell You Not To Do

Keenan Griscom giving it his all during the 2023/2024 competition season. Photo courtesy of the UIAA

Every year, ice climbers flock to the Ouray Ice Festival to test their skills on the human made ice flows in the park. A select few test their skills on the ice climbing competition wall. Routes are created that include ice, rock, and plywood in the Scottish Gullies section of the ice park. 

The American Alpine Club sat down with USA ice climbing competitor Keenan Griscom. Griscom was rocking a North Face leopard-print 1996 retro Nuptse puffer and Y2K gray wrap-around sunglasses, as chill as the ice around us. We chatted about growing up competing in ice climbing competitions, his new link up Tommy's X (5.14b) in Clear Creek Canyon's Nomad’s Cave, and his experimental competition headspace. The experiment succeeded clearly, since Griscom took home the gold in the Ouray men's lead finals the next day. 

AAC: You were the youngest American to win the Ouray Elite Mixed Climbing Competition at age 16. When did you start climbing? How did you get into competitive ice climbing?

Keenan Griscom: My dad actually started me ice climbing when I was four or five here in Ouray. So I've had tools for a long time. And then through Marcus Garcia, [I] found the competition scene and got hooked. I was doing rock comps, and the community in the ice climbing comps was just, so, so good and supportive and friendly, so, as someone who's already into competing, starting the ice comps is just like, oh, this is it. This is a cool spot to be in.

AAC: What was it like competing at such a young age?

KG: I don't know, I've been competing since I was nine. It was somewhat second nature. I've always wanted to give it [my] all in the comps. And Ouray was really special because when I started, there weren't any age categories. It was just the open format, and anyone could sign up. So if you were in, you're competing with everyone. My first two seasons, I didn't place particularly well. But it was so cool to be competing with people like Will Gadd and Ryan Vachon and all these epic mixed-climbers and alpinists who I looked up to. 

AAC: What drew you to continue doing competition ice climbing while you fell away from competition bouldering and rock climbing? 

KG: I stopped competing in rock comps mainly because the scene isn't as welcoming. There's a lot more toxic competitive nature there, and a lot of people get really worked up and will take other people down to get a better result. There's not really any of that in the ice climbing crew. Ice climbing comps are really fun. I'm going to stick with that. But I've been rock climbing outside nonstop. 

AAC: On that note, I noticed you put up an alternative finish to Tommy's Hard Route (5.13d)—Tommy's X (5.14b). What is the relationship between route development and ice climbing? How do those two things relate, if at all for you?

KG: They don't relate a ton since I haven't really done much development for ice or mixed. I've gotten a lot of help from mentors like Marcus, who I met through ice climbing, to teach me development ethics. That route, specifically, it's in a cave near my house, and there's a lot of link ups. I didn't put in any new bolts [for Tommy's X] it was just a new line that hadn't been done yet.

AAC: And what inspired you to do that?

KG: Tommy's Hard Route (5.13d) is an old school natural line in a cave that's almost all manufactured. There is this really, really big dead point crux that I always thought was super, super interesting. Then it's over. You do this really gnarly dead point, and it's jugs to the chains. Which is nice, but more sustained climbing is more my style. There's this other route called Predator X (5.13a/b) that comes in from the left and finishes basically directly above that dead point. And one day, I was wondering if I could link those up, and then it'd be like a perfectly straight line of bolts through the wall. Yeah, it ended up being a really interesting crux sequence after the initial crux. 

AAC: That's awesome. You also boulder, can you tell me a little bit more about that?

KG: Yeah, I grew up almost exclusively sport climbing, and then started to do a little bit of bouldering through friends and kind of got hooked on it, because it’s a little bit easier. You can go out and solo sesh a lot of stuff in Clear Creek Canyon near the crib. I took that and ran with it. I've been doing more bouldering than sport lately, and that's currently what I'm probably most excited about, pushing bouldering grades.

AAC: Do you have a preference between sport climbing, bouldering, ice climbing, ice climbing competition, and mixed climbing?

Keenan Griscom is all about staying chill, captured during the 2023/2024 competition season.

KG: Really hard to say. I might put bouldering at the top, but then it's a massive tie for second. Ice climbing comps are unbeatable. There's no other scene that's as fun and welcoming, and the movement is so dynamic. You just don't get the same movement on rock. It's a really fun change of pace. With actual ice and mixed I'd really like to get into doing some more big things and exploratory multi-pitch in [Rocky Mountain National Park]. But I've definitely been more focused on competition and rock climbing lately.

AAC: What does training look like for you?

KG: It depends. This year has been more casual—been working on a lot of power, strength, and technique. Last season was a pretty full-on training block. I basically trained from August through December, like super structured for the World Cup tour, and it ended up panning out really well.

AAC: It definitely did, you received the overall World Cup lead medal in silver, last year. What about competition ice climbing sparks inspiration or joy for you?

KG: Initially, it's like basically everything your parents tell you not to do. You get to jump around with blades on your feet and in your hands and take massive falls in the air. Honestly, on the World Cup scene, it's all a massive party. Everyone's a big family. I find the movement really fun. It's really physical. So you get to actively try hard while you're doing it, which is a good feeling. Honestly, it's the community, like the scene is so fun. That's a large part of why I'm here.

AAC: Who do you think you are as an ice climbing competitor? 

KG: I'd like to say Keenan is just a climber who wants to do it all. In ice climbing comps, I'd like to be seen as someone who's really focused on doing as well as they can. But I've done some coaching in Boulder at the Ice Coop, and for me to, like, not feel the stress of the competition, I tend to try and help everyone; making sure everyone else is doing good helps me a lot with not worrying about how it's gonna go. So I guess I would like to be seen as someone who's a wealth of knowledge to come and get help from. But at the same time, I'll put my headphones in and lock in for the warm-ups.

AAC: Who are you outside of climbing?

KG: Outside of climbing, I'm trying to be an artist. I'm wrapping up my Arts Associate right now. I'm a little unsure of what I'm doing afterwards, but I'll figure it out.

AAC: What mediums do you work in?

KG: Fashion and then dry mediums, so, charcoal and graphite.

AAC: What do you hope to get out of this 2025 season?

KG: I'm really excited to go into it with a casual mental space. I'm trying to just put it all on the line during the competitions. I haven't done as much training and prep for this season. I'm trying to play around with different approaches to the competition headspace. Instead of treating it as a competition, I want to treat it as redpointing a project. The goal is not to get a certain placement, or even do well in the comp. The goal is to top the routes. At a world cup level that almost always means winning. It's not like I want to win to top the route, I just want to top. Topping is the main objective. 

AAC: What has been the most pivotal moment in your climbing career?

KG: In competition climbing, it was definitely my last season as a U16. I won that year's Youth World Cup. The whole prep I was focused on winning, and when I won, it wasn’t very fulfilling. I felt pretty hollow. That drastically changed how I approached my whole preparation and training. I think that was a massively positive moment. 

[For] rock climbing it's really hard to say. I think potentially [when I stopped] competition rock climbing, because I grew up doing camping trips to Indian Creek and Vedauwoo and following leads all the time. And taking a step away from the competition rock was really nice and refreshing to go back to the routes and try really hard on rock without any external things happening. 

AAC: If you could be any climb, what would it be and why?

KG: I have two lines in mind. Biographie (9a+/515+) in Céüse, France, because it is the most beautifully perfect chunk of rock I have ever seen. It just looks so incredible—proper dream line. Or Off the Wagon (V14), that V14 in Switzerland. The beta on that thing is the definition of swagger. It's so cool.

AAC: Could you elaborate on that, and leave us with some climbing beta humming around in our heads?

KG: Yeah, the history of that boulder is pretty sweet. Dave Graham and Chris Sharma tried it forever ago, and it's this massive right hand dead point for this first move and then you do a campus row sequence. And that's it. It's a two move V14. It's smash, hold, campus, done. It's in this beautiful little meadow valley in Switzerland, and you start on a wagon. It's a really cool chunk of rock. It's like a perfectly flat 45 degree panel.

Just one podium among many. Keenan Griscom celebrating his bronze medal in the 2024 Champagny Continental Open. Photo courtesy of the UIAA

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For the Ouray Competition men's results, click here, and for the women's results, click here. The Ice Climbing competition scene returns to Colorado for the World Cup in Longmont on Feb. 22-23. Watch Team USA compete this February, or learn more about getting involved here. 

Want more ice climbing content? Check out A Little Extra Spice: Stories from the World of Competition Ice Climbing

CLIMB: Behind the Scenes of the Cutting Edge Grant, with Jack Tackle

In this episode, we sit down with legend Jack Tackle to discuss all things cutting edge. We begin by diving into the many first ascents of Jack’s own alpinism career, his progress as a climber, and his deep history with the AAC. We cover the evolution of adventure grants in climbing, how the AAC’s Cutting Edge Grant got started, and why it’s the premiere climbing grant in today’s climbing scene. We also cover the last few years of successes that have come out of Cutting Edge Grant expeditions, a behind the scenes look at some of the considerations these alpinists face when pursuing such high-end objectives, and how Jack’s experience can shed light on the significance of these ascents. Plus, we cover some of the other AAC grants and how they meet the needs of climbers at all levels. 

We don’t cover the exact details of the expedition planning process, or how important it is for these expeditions to be respectful and cognizant of both local cultures and environmental issues, or what happens when things go disastrously wrong. That’s for another episode!

If you love following the cutting edge of climbing, or are considering applying to the Cutting Edge Grant yourself this year, or want to soak up Jack’s wisdom, this dive into the history and present of adventure grants is a fascinating look at the logistics it takes to pursue the cutting edge! 

You still have time to apply to the 2024 Cutting Edge Grant, presented by Black Diamond! Apply before midnight on Dec 31, 2024.

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Resources:

Apply to the Cutting Edge Grant

Learn More About Jack Tackle’s Legendary Alpine Climbing Career

Apply to Other AAC Grants

Guidebook XII—Grant Spotlight

The Emperor Face of Mt. Robson in water color and ink. AAC member Craig Muderlak

Mountain Sense

By Sierra McGivney

Usually, when Balin Miller encounters spindrift ice climbing, he puts his head down, waits for 10 to 20 seconds, and continues climbing. Halfway up the face of the Andromeda Strain, a line on the northeast face of Mount Andromeda in Alberta, Canada, Miller and his climbing partner Adrien Costa encountered an intense spindrift funnel. Thirty seconds passed, then one minute, two. After five minutes, he thought, f*** this, and downclimbed.

Miller was persistent, but the spindrift was relentless. They wasted a couple of hours trying to go around.

“You couldn’t see anything, even if you wanted to push through,” said Miller.

Miller and Costa peered around to where the climbing turned into a chimney. A wall of white snow poured down it. They turned back a pitch before the Hockey Stick Crack, disappointed that they wouldn’t be able to live the lore embedded in that pitch. This wouldn’t be the last time they tested their judgment in the mountains and turned away from an objective.

“I think what gets me most stoked for routes isn’t really how good they are, per se, but a lot of the history involved in it—the route that has some old trip report of people getting really scared on it,” said Miller.

This might be why Miller chose the Andromeda Strain as one of his objectives for this 2023 Mountaineering Fellowship Fund Grant (MFFG) trip. Apart from being one of the most popular yet serious alpine climbs in the Canadian Rockies, it has an epic story. An unsuccessful earlier group tried to ascend the off-width and found it too wide to take anything but one-foot lengths of hewn-off hockey sticks (an eerie, early rendition of the Trango Big Bro). Having no hockey sticks handy in 1983, Barry Blanchard, Dave Cheesmond, and Tim Friesen traversed beneath the off-width and around the corner to a steep snow-choked chimney that became the Hockey Stick Crack.

Miller originally applied for the MFFG from the American Alpine Club to support an expedition to the Alaska Range. He was awarded the grant but had to change his trip to the Canadian Rockies due to financial constraints. This grant funds climbers 25 years or younger seeking challenging climbs in remote places. One of Miller’s partners, Adrien Costa, has previously leveraged other AAC grants, including the Tincup Partner in Adventure Grant in 2021 and the Catalyst Grant in 2021 and 2023. The AAC grants can be a great jumping-off point for climbers looking to dream big.

Miller is an ice climber who spends his summers in Alaska and his winters in Bozeman. He got into climbing at the age of 12 and was versed in both ice and rock climbing growing up in Alaska. He is stalwart when it comes to ice climbing, but he has a goofy aura. You can deduce from photos of his trip that he doesn’t take himself too seriously, even on big alpine climbs.

After getting turned around on the Andromeda Strain, Miller and Costa climbed Dreambed (5.11 PG-13) on Mount Yamnuska and enjoyed a sunny day on rock. The two saw a weather window coming up and turned their gaze to Mount Robson or Yuh-hai- haskun (“The Mountain of the Spiral Road”), the highest peak in Canada. Infinite Patience (2200m, VI 5.9 WI5 M5) climbs the north side of the Emperor Face of Mount Robson until it merges with the Emperor Ridge (2500m, V 5.6). This was another big objective for Miller. Despite a solid weather window and the season being in their favor, new challenges awaited the group.

Aidan Whitelaw, six feet, four inches tall with a high-pitched voice, is one of Miller’s best friends. Despite being a student at Montana State University in Bozeman, he’s almost always down to skip class if it means going climbing.

With Whitelaw newly arrived, they set off on their adventure with only one rope, trying to go as light as possible. One rope between three climbers is OK if they don’t need to bail, but just in case, the team brought a Beal Escaper.

Miller wrote in his trip report: “Leaving the parking lot on October 5, Aidan Whitelaw, Adrien, and I hiked into Berg Lake, camping at the base of the face. [We] started up the face at 2 a.m. on the 6th. We soon realized that the direct start was out of condition. It’s usually [three pitches of WI 4 or 5] but turned out to be steep, wet melting snice. We opted to traverse right to gain Bubba’s Couloir. Unfortunately, there was no alpine ice left in the couloir. But the snow climbing was moderate but unprotectable. We eventually decided to bail after the House Traverse, which is roughly halfway up the Emperor Face to the ridge on Infinite Patience.”

Deciding to bail had become extremely obvious to the group. They encountered compact limestone with no cracks and nothing to sling. The group was fine leaving cams or pins but couldn’t find good placements to make anchors. They decided to deadman their ice tools, burying them to create a snow anchor to rappel off.

“It was the worst rock imaginable,” said Miller.

Eventually, they reached a bivy spot and got cozy, fitting three people into a two-person tent and Whitelaw and Miller into one sleeping bag. At noon the next day, they started their descent, which consisted of rappelling off V-threads and lousy rock anchors.

Balin Miller, Adrien Costa, and Aiden Whitelaw at the bivy spot on Infinite Patience getting cozy in a two-person tent. Land of the Mountain Metis, Stoney, Cree and Secwepemc peoples. AAC member Balin Miller

The Beal Escaper is a detachable rappelling device that allows you to descend on a single strand without permanently fixing the rappel and sacrificing the rope. To retrieve the rope, the climber tugs the rope ten to twenty times, causing the rope to inch through the Escaper and retrieve the rope.

The group was on 80-degree melting snow. No one had counted how many times they had pulled the rope to disengage the Escaper, but something was wrong. Everyone got quiet. They pulled as much rope through as they could, but ultimately, the rope refused to release. Unable to jug back up the rope out of fear that movement could release the device, and unable to solo back up because of 80 feet of steep bad snow and friable rock, they pulled out as much rope as they could and cut it. Only eight meters of rope were in their hands, the rest of it lost to the mountain. It was dark, and they didn’t know how far they were above the Mist Glacier.

They tied slings together as a pull cord, allowing them to do increments of full eight-meter rappels. Luckily, they were only 100 feet from the bottom.

Twenty-four hours later, Whitelaw was in class in Bozeman, Montana; no one was aware of the epic in the mountains he had just returned from.

Balin Miller questing off to lead a mixed pitch on Infinite Patience (VI5.9M5WI5).Land of the Mountain Metis, Stoney, Cree, and Secwepemc peoples. AAC member Adrian Costa

After several days off, Miller and Costa hiked into the Lloyd McKay Hut to attempt the north face of Alberta. However, they didn’t get the chance due to a storm and nine inches of wet snow. Miller wasn’t too bummed. Conditions weren’t in their favor, and there was always next year. Both Miller and Costa left after that, and Miller headed to Yosemite.

In November, Miller returned ready to ice climb. He climbed Suffer Machine (200m, WI5+ M7); Virtual Reality (100m, WI6+); Kittyhawk (150m, WI5), solo; and Nemesis (150m, WI6), solo.

He took a short break to visit his mom in Spokane, Washington. Ethan Berkeland flew out to meet him, and the pair drove about 430 miles back up to Canada with Slipstream in sight. Slipstream (900m, IV WI4+) climbs the east face of Snow Dome. It is infamous for it’s exposure to dangerous seracs, avalanches, and cornices, as evidenced by five reports in the Accidents in North American Climbing archive. Jim Elzinga and John Lauchlan first climbed it in 1979, and Mark Twight simul-soloed it in 1988 with Randy Rackliff.

“Anything Mark Twight does is awesome,” said Miller.

The previous fall, Miller had bailed after the approach when it had taken longer than expected, and “it just didn’t feel right.” Both Miller and Berkeland are solid ice climbers. They brought a full rope, a tagline, 14 screws, and a handful of draws, planning to solo the easier parts and pitch out the harder ones. They ended up simul-soloing the entire east face of Snow Dome on November 29 in four hours. In total, the day was thirteen hours from car to car.

After getting turned around on his previous alpine objectives, this was a great achievement for Miller.

Despite the epics on some of his original objectives, Miller found success. Each “failure” in the mountains is a lesson learned for the next climb, maybe even a cutting-edge ascent. The spindrift turned him around on Andromeda Strain, and Infinite Patience was out of condition, but Slipstream proved to be an amazing climb. Sometimes, infinite patience pays off in the mountains.

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Guidebook XII—Rewind the Climb

Photo by AAC Staff Foster Denney.

The Naked Edge

By Hannah Provost

If you had to tell the story of the evolution of climbing within the history of one route, your most compelling choices might be The Nose of El Capitan or The Naked Edge in Eldorado Canyon. In this way, The Naked Edge is a time capsule containing within its memory: the much dreamed-of first ascent finally climbed by Layton Kor, Bob Culp, and Rick Horn; a period defining free ascent by Jim Erickson and Duncan Furgeson in the early 1970s; and one of the few battle- grounds for speed records in the United States. In 1962, Kor and Bob Culp were diverted attempting to aid the steep final edge, and today, climbers have speed climbed the route, bridge to bridge, in a little over 22 minutes. What is it about this climb that has allowed it to be the sketchbook for climbing legends to draw out the evolution of our sport? Anecdotes and artifacts from the American Alpine Club Library and archives provided the answer.

Perhaps it was all aesthetics—the compelling imagery of a climb that could divide dark- ness and light. Or maybe it was the fact that The Edge tends to rebuff many of its suitors. But whether The Naked Edge was dishing out a good humbling, or whether, as Jim Erickson famously argued, his free ascent style “humbled the climb” instead, The Naked Edge might live so prominently in our collective climbing memory because it encapsulates one of the great questions of each climbing endeavor. Who holds the power here? The climb or the climber?

At first, the route held all the cards. Layton Kor, known for his hulking height and wild, almost demonic, drive, could usually weaponize his determination and fearlessness to get through any hard climbing he might envision for himself. Yet when Layton Kor and Bob Culp attempted to aid the route in 1962, having each been turned away in 1961 on separate occasions, they still had to deviate from the original vision and finished the climb via a dihedral slightly to the left of the stunning final overhang. It wasn’t until Kor came back with Rick Horn in 1964 that The Edge, as we climb it today, was first done in its entirety.

Jim Erickson, a young gun with a knowing grin, hadn’t always been a hotshot. However, by the early 1970s, he had gotten into the habit of proving a point—freeing the old obscure aid lines in Eldo put up by Robbins, Kor, Dalke, and Ament the decade before. After several failed attempts to free The Naked Edge, repeatedly retreating from the first pitch finger crack due to a strict avoidance of hangdog- ging and rehearsing, freeing The Naked Edge was his foremost ambition.

By 1971, The Naked Edge had been ascended 30 or so times using direct aid. Erickson was envisioning a new phase of the route’s life. Yet his first moderately successful attempt, with prolific free climber Steve Wunsch, was yet another humbling. As he wrote for Climb!: The History of Rock Climbing in Colorado, the fourth pitch was daunting to the point of existential: “Steve dubs it impossible. I give it a disheartened try, but it is late so down we come, pondering the ultimate metaphysical questions: ‘Is there life after birth? Sex after death?’”

When Erickson and Duncan Ferguson returned a week later, things went a little more smoothly. Though The Naked Edge was the last major climb that the two would ascend using pitons, it wasn’t the use of pitons that haunted Erickson and sent him off on his staunch commitment to only onsight free -climbing. Rather, when Erickson reflects on the effort and technique of pitoncraft, and the incredible added effort of free climbing on pitons, he seems almost to be creating something, tinkering. Describing nailing the crux of the first thin pitch in an interview for the Legacy Series, a project of the AAC to preserve the history of climbing, Erickson painted a picture of immense toil: “You’re in this strenuous fingertip layback, with shoes that didn’t smear very well...You had to first of all figure out which piton you were going to place, you had to set it in the crack, you were doing all of this with one hand while you were hanging on. Then you had to tap the piton once to make sure you didn’t lose it... because if you missed it and dropped it you’re back to square one, so you had to tap the pin, finally hit it in, test it to see if it was good, then you’d clip a single free carabiner, and a second free carabiner into it, and then you would clip your rope in, all while you were hanging on with one hand in a bad finger lock.”

In the 1960s and 1970s, once a route was freed, it was not to be aided again. The rock had been sufficiently humbled, and all climbers seeking to prove their worth on that rock must level up their skills to prove themselves worthy.

Lynn Hill and Beth Bennett set out to capture an ascent of The Edge with filmmaker Bob Carmichael in 1981, who may have let the reputation of the climb leak into the produc- tion notes, asking the climbers to fall repeatedly on the first pitch and editing in a training mon- tage. Though the film claims to document the struggle of the first all-female ascent, Bennett reports: “the film with Lynn was a fictionalized account.” Bennett had already clinched the FFFA in 1977, and reports doing the first all-fe- male ascent with Louise Shepherd and Jean Dempsey (née Ruwitch) a year later. Similarly, Hill had become the first woman to climb 7c (5.12d) two years before, and was clearly stronger than the film suggests. Their humbling was played up for the sake of drama, and Hill wishes she could have properly attempted an onsight. In the case of this ascent, the humbling reputation of the climb dominated the narra- tive, obscuring the power the climbers’ held in that fight.

These days, news about The Naked Edge revolves around the potentially most hubristic

part of modern rock climbing: soloing and speed ascents. Speed ascents of this iconic route began in the early 1990s with Micheal Gilbert and Rob Slater. As the record dwin- dled, a friendly rivalry emerged between two teams consisting of Stefan Griebel and Jason Wells, and Brad Gobright and Scott Bennett. Before Gobright and Wells died in respective climbing accidents in Mexico and California, this friendly rivalry had pushed the record to 24 minutes and 29 seconds. New kids Ben Wilbur and John Ebers arrived on the scene in 2020 and, with just a few practice runs, cut down the record to 24 minutes and 14 sec- onds. In 2022, Griebel put on his racing shoes again and paired up with local Joe Kennedy, climbing The Naked Edge in 22 minutes and 44 seconds, bridge to bridge.

Griebel has climbed the route over 350 times. Sometimes pitched out and casual, some- times as reconnaissance missions, sometimes as three laps in three hours as he and Joe got closer to going for the Fastest Known Time. For these speed climbers, the route has become a “third place,” even more so than the climbing gym. Besides work and home, it has become the other, alternative place where one is social, makes connections, and refines one’s identity. Kennedy writes: “You could argue it’s a waste of time to climb it over and over, but doing so has led to some of the most meaningful friendships and climbing experiences I’ve had in my life. It has turned the route into a meeting place, a fitness test, a playground, and something so much more significant than just a rock climb.”

But even these modern masters of this stone can be humbled by the climb in their own way. Kennedy reflects: “I was totally humbled by the route when I first climbed it. It was much more difficult than I expected–thin, techy, pumpy, and slick. And when I don’t climb it for a while, I never fail to get more pumped than I thought, no matter how dialed my beta is.” Griebel is adamant the rock always does the humbling: “Sometimes it feels like the easiest one-pitch 5.9 warm-up in the canyon, and other days I mess up a crux sequence in the smallest way and suddenly get pumped and scared! The rock always does the humbling, not the other way around. I’ve seen 5.13 sport climbers fall out of the Bombay Chimney onto that 50-year-old pin!”

Reflecting today, Jim Erickson says his famous quote is often misunderstood. Indeed, he believes the style in which he and Furguson freed The Edge wasn’t the ethics he truly believed in—despite yo-yoing being an accepted practice at the time, he only ever truly felt satisfied by onsight climbing. But he also insists that he and his partners were hum- bled by the climb, too. In contrast to Griebel, Kennedy, and others, Erickson has never gotten back on The Naked Edge after his his- tory-making ascent. It was such a special experience that he worried that climbing it again would destroy the myth of it. Still, he can remember nearly every piece of beta, each pound of the hammer required to secure each piton.

Climbing it only once, Erickson is still torn by the question of humility. Climbing it hundreds of times, Griebel has yet to come any closer to finding the answer. So, who is doing the humbling? Perhaps, the fact that the answer is so elusive is why the pursuit of the question remains so satisfying.

The Line: Exploring Africa’s Stunning Granite Domes

In AAJ 2024, we highlighted new climbs in Angola spearheaded by American climber Nathan Cahill, along with local developers—see Cahill’s story here. The pace of exploration on the beautiful rock of this southwest African country has not slowed. This past summer, a Spanish quintet visited the province of Cuanza Sul and climbed seven new routes on six different granite domes. Here is the story they‘ve prepared for the 2025 AAJ.

CONDA AREA, FIRST ASCENTS OF HUGE DOMES

Top: Climbing Bon Día Boa Noite on Hande. Establishing the 420-meter 7a was the highlight of the July 2024 trip, said Manu Ponce. Bottom: The topo for Bon Día Boa Noite. (Manu Ponce Collection)

During July 2024, our team of five Spaniards—Miguel A. Díaz, Alex Gonzalez, Indi Gutierrez, Jaume Peiró, and me, Manu Ponce—traveled to Angola in search of big walls. Having many options to explore, we decided to start in the Conda region of Cuanza Sul province, around eight hours south of Luanda, the capital. Once in Conda, we headed about ten kilometers south to the village of Cumbira Segundo.

We knew from past reports that we would find big walls, but the reality far exceeded what we imagined. Amid the lush jungles surrounding the small village of Cumbira Segundo were enormous granite domes, between 200 and 400 meters tall. Some of these had been climbed before, but many had not.

In this type of adventure, the easiest aspect is often the climbing itself, and this was true here, as the dense vegetation full of wild animals—many of them very poisonous—required us to open paths to the walls with extreme care. Taking turns, we chopped through the jungle with machetes meter by meter until we reached our starting points.

Once on the wall, we were in our element, though temperatures were scorching: between 20°C and 25°C, with almost 100 percent humidity. These were truly tropical conditions. We tried to choose walls in the shade, although this wasn’t always possible.

We climbed everything ground-up, using bolts as sparingly as possible, though some of the walls had very little opportunity for removable protection. Most of our routes involved technical slab climbing, with few cracks, poor handholds, and friction-dependent footwork. This meant that, at the end of the day, you would end up with your head mentally fried.

We had several wild moments during the expedition: falls of more than ten meters with a drill included, scorpions as big as your hand defending their nest as you climbed, and running into black mambas on the nightly return to camp. Despite this, if asked if we would return, we would all answer without hesitation: Sim, claro!

In total, we opened seven routes on six different peaks, two of which had never been summited before. This totaled around 2,000 meters of climbing, all of which made us sweat meter by meter. The seven routes were: 

●      Bon Día Boa Noite (420m climbing distance, 7a) on Hande.

●      Peluchitos (380m, 7b) on Hande.

●      Vuelta al Armario por Festivos (350m, 6b+) on Cunduvile.

Top, from left to right: Indi Gutierrez, Chilean Lucho Birkner of Climbing for a Reason, Manu Ponce, and Miguel A. Díaz on the summit after the first ascent of Leca via Raices (200m, 6c). The dome Hande rises behind. Bottom: The topo for Raices. (Manu Ponce Collection)

●      Quero verte Vocé (100m, 6a+) on Wende, first ascent of the formation.

●      Raices (200m, 6c) on Leca, first ascent of the formation.

●      Os Mulatos (130m, 6c+), the first climbing route on Cawanji. The formation can be ascended by hiking via another route.

●      Fumaca Densa (115m, 7b) on Nhenje.

We received much valuable help from Nathan Cahill of  Climb Angola, and Lucho Birkner and Javiera Ayala from the nonprofit Climbing for a Reason. The local community, specifically all the children with which the latter organization works, helped us from the moment we got up each day until we returned in the evening through the dense vegetation. A very humble community opened its arms to us without asking for anything in return.

A group of women from Cumbira Segundo. The Angolan village is surrounded by many large granite domes. (Manu Ponce Collection)

We are particularly grateful for the work Climbing for a Reason is doing in this place. It has given life and a lot of hope to a large part of the town’s population: the children. Due to the incredible climbing and potential for route development, we are sure this place soon will be visited by people from all over the world. Climbing for a Reason is helping prepare and teach the inhabitants what can be done in their “garden.”

In all, we are very happy with what we have achieved, and more importantly with the experience we had with the people of Cumbira Segundo. Our weeks were full of learning, and we came to feel comfortable in a wild terrain full of surprises.

—Manu Ponce, Spain

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CUTTING EDGE PODCAST: NEW HOST, MORE VOICES

The Cutting Edge podcast returns for its seventh season this week, with a new host and deeper dives into first ascents and iconic climbing locations around the world. Hosting the show is filmmaker and podcaster Jim Aikman, creator of the AAC’s “Legacy Series,” featuring interviews with climbing legends from the Club’s deep vault of oral history.

As it has for the past six years, the podcast will continue to center on a recent cutting-edge ascent. Each month, Jim also will explore the climbing history and significance of the peak or range we’re visiting, drawing on the expertise of the American Alpine Journal team, as well as other climbers past and present.

Up first: Mt. Dickey in Alaska’s Great Gorge of the Ruth Glacier. British climber Tom Livingstone talks about his brand-new route up the south face, and you’ll also hear from AAJ Editor Dougald MacDonald, Ruth Gorge climber and filmmaker Freddie Wilkinson, and an archival interview from the late David Roberts, who was first to climb Dickey’s mile-high walls, half a century ago.

We asked Jim Aikman for a few thoughts on taking over as host of the podcast:

1. What’s your number one goal in taking the reins of The Cutting Edge?

Well, this is a beloved show with a great following, so the first goal is to continue delivering for the core audience. Beyond that, I'll be bringing a documentary style to the storytelling, where interviews still drive the show but I'll dig more into the history and larger context through research, voiceover, thematic richness, and more expert voices. The ultimate goal is to create a compelling narrative that explores the depth and meaning of a new climb, its setting, history—and what it adds to the limitless evolution of the sport.

2. Why should the average climber care about cutting-edge climbs?

I think this gets to the essence of climbing and what makes it interesting to me as a storyteller. Climbing is still so new, and it really shines on the extreme end of the learning curve. Startling stuff is happening all the time, and will continue to, because we are still exploring what we're capable of as a species interacting with the natural world. That comes through better training practices, technical innovation, and sheer boldness, playing out in venues with the highest stakes, yet with perhaps intangible rewards. I’ve heard answers to the question “why climb?” from many of climbing's greatest luminaries, and the answers are as philosophical as they are bewildering, and that just draws me in. Obviously I'm not alone in that, as we've watched climbing stories and figures finally break into the mainstream in recent years.

3. You obviously love climbing history. What draws you to the stories and people from climbing’s past?

I’ve been telling climbing stories since 2007, starting with Sender Films and the Reel Rock crew, followed by 15 years of short and feature-length documentaries on the sport. Then there’s the VIP interview series, which I've been capturing for the AAC with Jim McCarthy and Tom Hornbein (who we lost last year, RIP) since 2012. We have more than 75 interviews telling the oral history of American climbing, and we're still going strong. I think history is fascinating in general, but climbing is just this incredible spectrum of personalities and motivations, all playing out in the last couple of generations. I mean, how crazy is it that Americans reached the highest point on Earth only six years before we put people on the moon? And now we have this progression of strength and technique that makes the sport incredible to track as a purely athletic pursuit. I'm a fan of other sports as well, but there's really nothing like climbing. 

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The Line is the newsletter of the American Alpine Journal (AAJ), emailed to more than 80,000 climbers each month. Find the archive of past editions here. Interested in supporting this publication? Contact Heidi McDowell for opportunities. Got a potential story for the AAJ? Email us: aaj@americanalpineclub.org.

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“This Must Be The Place…”: A Story from the Gunks

May Perez Climbing Arrow (5.8). Photo by Eric Ratkowski. 

By Marian (May) Perez

A place I look forward to getting to, another place I call home. I sometimes drive through local roads outside of New Paltz, most of the time I drive up the thruway from New Jersey to go upstate. Jamming to my favorite tunes on repeat with joy or crying my heartache away from emotional pains. Once I see the stretch of windy road on Rt 299, passing by the farms and artwork, the interesting sculpture at the four way stop that not only indicates I’m getting closer, but also prompts the first appearance of the massive being known as the Shawangunks. I pass through the AAC campground to reminisce and surprise my close friends, a safe place for me to exist. A place where I’ve lived in my car and woke up next to the being called the West Trapps. A place where you look into the distance and see tiny dots of color climbing up the wall like ants making their way with their daily discoveries. A place where if you listen deep enough, you can hear the echoes of folks letting their partners know “Off belay!”

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Samuel F. Pryor III Shawangunk Gateway Campground

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May at the top of Ken's Crack (5.7+).

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Lindsay on Pitch two of Belly Roll (5.4).

At the sight of apple trees and the random billboard, my body wakes up. I know what I’m about to see and I know where I’m about to go. This must be the place, exit 18 to New Paltz, NY, home of the Shawangunk Mountains and home to me, where I want to be.

I drive through town with my windows down, taking in all the quirky things that make this place special. Making stops at my favorite gear shop, Rock and Snow, and grabbing the best coffee and tea in town at The Ridge Tea and Spice. I say hi to all my friends, grounding myself after a long drive and filling my heart cup knowing people care about me.

Vanessa and Hannah on Cascading Crystal Kaleidoscope (CCK) (5.8 PG13). Photo by May Perez.

I look up to spot the Dangler Roof. Close my eyes and daydream about sitting on the GT Ledge on Three Pines or Something Interesting, looking out in the valley trying to find the campground and all the land surrounding it, thinking about how small we humans actually are. We might not have the biggest mountains, but the feeling is the same I’ve had looking out into Yosemite Valley. The beauty of being surrounded by so much, and still so much to see. Or the privilege to be on a 9,000 ft long cliff in the middle of the day.

I open my eyes to find myself on the GT Ledge, realizing I’ve been present the whole time. It’s sunset and there’s still so much light on the cliff, except the darkness that hides in the trees below me. It might seem like we’ve been benighted, but the quartz conglomerate glows for us a bit longer to finish up Crystal Cascading Kaleidoscope (CCK) 5.7+, one of the wildest traverses of the grade. I follow my leader after they send and get ready to tip toe my way over to the big flake, trusting the polished feet and jamming my way up the #1 hand crack, up further to the crimpy ledge, back over to my partner, stoked to see me pull the last moves over the top of the cliff. We enjoy the last bit of light and share gratitude to the day and how we overcame what was presented to us, wild adventure no more than 400 ft below us. 

This must be the place, the place I like to call home, where I want to be. 

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It’s not too late! Experience epic fall climbing at the Gunks and book your stay at the Gunks Campground in Gardiner, New York until November 10.

CLIMB: Undercover Crusher Connie Shang

On this episode of the Undercover Crusher series, we have Connie Shang on the podcast to talk about her recent send of Spyfiction, a 5.14c in Mt. Charleston, Nevada. We discuss her projecting process, how she’s leveled up over the years, how she got so strong without training, what counts as a crusher in today’s climbing world and especially for women’s climbing, and plateaus on the moonboard. She also talks about her unique perspective on climbing-work balance, that perhaps more of us should consider utilizing! Love to hear about hard climbing, but want to hear from someone who’s a little more relatable than the pros? The Undercover Crushers series is here for your inspiration! Dive in!

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Resources:

Learn More about Connie Shang

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A Tribute to Michael Gardner

Michael Gardner astride the Infinite Spur on Sultana (Mt. Foraker) during a climb-and-ski adventure. Photo by Sam Hennessey. Originally published in AAJ 2022.

Michael Gardner 

1991-2024

We are deeply saddened by the death of Michael Gardner: a great alpinist and a vibrant life. 

Michael was on an expedition funded by the AAC’s Cutting Edge Grant, attempting the unclimbed north face of Jannu East in Nepal with his long time climbing partner Sam Hennessey, when he fell to his death on October 7th, 2024. We are grateful that Hennessey is safe after the incident. 

There have been so many tributes to Mike in the last few days that attest to his incredible empathy, enthusiasm, dedication to the craft of climbing, pure motivations and lack of ego. Indeed, his quiet pursuit of the mountains on his own terms means his legacy is not flashy, but found in traces and in the background—he was climbing and skiing for the sake of the craft, not for recognition. Yet he was repeatedly the preferred partner for Cutting Edge Grant recipients like Hennessey, and his name appeared again and again in the American Alpine Journal over the last few years, for his new routes, fast ascents of iconic faces, and creative ski alpinism.

Rather than listing his great ascents here, and reducing him to a list of accomplishments, we encourage all who knew him, all who were inspired by him, to dive into the AAJ stories that feature him—as a way to walk, for a brief moment, alongside him in the memories of some of his greatest life experiences in the mountains. The mountains called him back again and again, whether it was to put up a new rock route on Mt. Owens, Renny Take the Wheel (1,500’, 8 pitches, IV 5.11), or envision the first ascent of Hot Cars and Fast Women (850m, M6+) with Hennessey on Denali’s Ridge of No Return. Mike and Sam were also simply fast. Their second ascent of Light Traveler (M7) on the southwest face of Denali in 2018 was not only the fastest for this route at the time, but for any of the four routes generally considered to be most difficult on Denali’s south and southwest faces: the Denali Diamond, McCartney-Roberts, Light Traveler, and Slovak Direct. In 2022, they upped the ante when they joined up with Rob Smith to climb the Slovak Direct in 17 hours and 10 min. In next year’s 2025 AAJ, his more recent mountain adventures will live on, testifying to the kind of life he shaped for himself, including a new route on Mt. Hunter, a massive ski link-up in the Tetons, and a new route on the Grand Teton. 

Reading through these stories, you can see the creativity and quiet passion he brought to his climbing, and to his life. 

Describing his conflicted relationship to the mountains in an article for Alpinist in 2022, Mike writes how, when he climbs: “An indescribable awareness of place and peace takes hold. On the other hand, there are consequences to devoting yourself to the mountains. I know them intimately, and yet year after year, death after death, I continue to climb.”

We can’t know if Mike would have thought it was all worth it. All we can do is honor the incredible void his death has left behind. 

Our thoughts are with Michael’s family and climbing partners. 

Learning The Power of Low Expectations On A Rumney Classic

Route Profile: Stoned Temple Pilot, 5.12a, Rumney

By: Ryan DeLena

Stoned Temple Pilot (5.12a) at Prudential, Rumney, NH. Photo by AAC Lodging Director Allyssa Burnley.

It’s hard to find a route quite like Stoned Temple Pilot: a steep, beta intensive masterpiece hidden in Rumney’s Northwest Crags. And appropriately, it's hard to get people to want to walk to The Prudential crag. Most climbers flock to more classic crags, such as Main Cliff, Waimea, and Bonsai. However, if you can talk someone into trekking out there, you’ll most certainly secure a projecting buddy once they experience the epic kneebars, throws, and intricate boulder problems. 

I’ve always described the Rumney scene as a culture of beta. Often regarded as one of the most cryptic major sport climbing destinations, Rumney routes are rarely sent on raw power alone. Most climbs can feel a full grade harder until you know the trick to climbing them. The result is a really supportive projecting culture. Once you send, you become part of the crew that can now pass the beta down to the next inquiring aspirant. 

Before Stoned Temple Pilot, I was more of a trad climber. I was accustomed to the practice of climbing lots of different routes, and very slowly pushing my limit. Conversely, most people I met hanging out at Rumney had longer term projects they came back to every session. 

I first climbed Stoned Temple Pilot while project shopping for my first 5.12a. I was getting to that phase many of us enter in climbing, when the 5.11s start going faster than before and your friends encourage you to get on 12s. I’ve never considered myself much of a grade chaser, but 12a always represented a blockade for me. For years the idea that my body would be capable of that level of climbing seemed outlandish. Finally in spring of 2022, I decided it was time to find a route that inspired me and throw myself at it like never before. I tried a few different classic 12as, but Stoned was the one that captured my imagination.

Oh My Finish (5.11b/c) at Orange Crush, Rumney, NH. Photo by AAC Lodging Director Allyssa Burnley.

The route begins with a jug haul through spongy rock, culminating with a double knee bar rest at a monumental hueco. Next comes a bulge, nothing too bouldery, but it saps your energy before the crux. A bad crimp allows you to set your feet and throw. If not for a common tick mark, you might assume you need to make a desperate upward stab into the fat undercling, which is certainly big enough to distract you from the key crimp right above the lip. One more committing move gets you to a sneaky corner rest. If not for meeting a local who showed me this rest, I might’ve abandoned this project a long time ago. As you exit the corner, all the holds seem to face weird directions, but some knee bar wizardry lets you cross to a jug otherwise just out of reach. Made it this far? It’s in the bag. 

As I started projecting Stoned Temple Pilot, I didn’t feel like things were going swimmingly whatsoever. On my first burn I did all the moves, then proceeded to never be able to do the top sequence again. I expected to climb the route better with each attempt, but each burn slowly whittled away my faith.

Optimism is something I struggled with a lot my whole life, and climbing forced that reality closer and closer to the surface. Finally I had to acknowledge that somewhere deep down, no matter what I accomplished, I still didn’t believe in myself. Coming back to this route multiple times, somehow getting worse with each burn, was easy evidence to justify the pessimism in my brain. 

Two things haunted me. The first: every time I tried to clip from the undercling, I struggled to reach it and pumped out. The second: ever since my project shopping burn, I had not been to the top of the route. Each time I reached the top crux, even after resting in the corner, I failed to recollect how I had climbed it on my first attempt. I would try different sequences that left me hanging on the permadraw over and over, until finally opting to lower. Good links aside, how was I supposed to bring optimism to this route, if I couldn’t clip the crux draw, or even top it out?

One day in June 2022, I discovered the complex relationship between embracing optimism, and letting go of expectations. My friend Mike, and Allyssa, who I had met that morning, walked up to Prudential Wall with me. I had very low expectations. I already had aided my way through a bouldery 11c and my forearms felt fried. The previous day I tried Stoned multiple times and got shut down at the clip in the big undercling. I’d been trying to reach above my head to fear-clip it, ultimately pumping out. 

Swedish Girls (5.10d) at Prudential Rumney, NH. Photo by AAC Lodging Director Allyssa Burnley.

As I pulled onto the wall this time, I already planned on falling. I looked down at Mike after the first clip and said, “Man, I wish I was climbing something that used different muscles than yesterday.” Despite the bad attitude, I continued climbing. I entered the double kneebar, this time getting my right hip into the pod and settling into the fetal position, then closing my eyes. This brought a deep sense of calm. I launched into the boulder problem, and stood up into the undercling. Knowing this was where I always fall, I thought to myself, “If I’m going to fall anyway, I should just go for the jug and take the mega whip.” To my surprise, I not only stuck the throw, but had a lot of energy left in my forearms to continue. By simply committing and waist clipping, rather than trying hopelessly to clip above my head from a power-sapping undercling, I completely changed the nature of the route.

I pulled up into the corner rest and stayed there for a long while. I still had not been to the top of the route since the first time I got on it. 

I tried to relax every muscle in my body other than my left leg, which held me firmly in the corner. Now with some skin in the game, and determined to send, I launched into the top crux. Completely tunneling into the unknown, I tried something I had not done before. I switched my right knee bar on a sharp horn with a left knee bar, getting my right foot on a seemingly unlikely chip, which gave me just enough height to cross to the big hold. 

My heart beating fast now, I clipped the last bolt, and pulled through the final moves audibly in disbelief.. I screamed with joy. Through the sneaky art of low expectations, I had proved my potential to myself. Climbing some elusive grade wasn’t about having Herculean strength, it was about mastering the sequence. 

I’ve since sent a number of 5.12s, and all of them started like Stoned Temple Pilot. They felt so unbelievably impossible, until one day they didn’t. I’d come back fresh, with refined beta, and flow through the sequence like butter, because knowing the way is far more efficient than trying to muscle through.

Black Mamba (5.11c) at Orange Crush, Rumney, NH. Photo by AAC Lodging Director Allyssa Burnley. 

Though my brain is awfully resistant to change, going through this projecting process a number of times now has helped me embrace optimism more in my life. It reminds me that the whole idea of optimism is believing what’s coming will be better, despite not having the evidence to prove it. If you have proof, you don’t actually need to believe in anything. The projecting process reminds me that things can still go my way, even if it feels like that’s impossible, and the act of believing is often the first step in changing impossible to possible.

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Inspired to project a Rumney classic? Book your stay at the Rumney Rattlesnake campground today!

The Line — Mark Westman’s Long Quest to Climb Mt. Russell

Mark Westman has been climbing in the Alaska Range for nearly three decades and was a Denali Mountaineering Ranger for ten years. He has attempted Mt. Russell, on the southwest edge of Denali National Park, three times by three different routes over 27 years. The third time was the charm, as he and Sam Hennessey raced to the summit in a single day in late April. It was only the ninth ascent of the 11,670-foot peak, and Westman believes the line they followed may be the most reliable way to reach this elusive summit.

Sam Hennessey scales the rime wall just below the summit of Mt. Russell. Photo by Mark Westman.

Mt. Russell, East Face and South Ridge

At 9:45 a.m. on April 27, Paul Roderick dropped Sam Hennessey and me on the upper Dall Glacier, directly beneath the nearly 6,000-foot-tall east face of Mt. Russell—our objective.  

We had in mind a rapid round trip. After quickly setting up a tent to stash food and bivouac gear, we departed half an hour after landing with light packs. We started up the left side of the east face, following the same line that Sam had climbed the previous spring with Courtney Kitchen and Lisa Van Sciver. On that attempt, they carried skis with the hope of descending off the summit. After 3,600 feet of snow and ice slopes, they reached the south ridge, which they found scoured down to unskiable hard ice. They retreated and skied back down to the Dall Glacier.

The route Sam and I followed on the east face steepened to 50° at about mid-height, and the snow we had been booting up gave way to sustained hard névé and occasional ice—much icier conditions than what Sam and partners had found at the same spot in 2023. We continued to a flat area at 9,600 feet, near the base of the upper south ridge of the mountain. Until this point, we had climbed unroped for most of the way.

The line of the Hennessey-Westman Route on the east face and south ridge of Mt. Russell. The first ascent (1962) reached the south ridge from the far side of the mountain. The direct south face and south ridge (2017) is at left, and the original east face (1989) and northeast ridge (1972) are on the right. Photo by Mark Westman.

The upper south ridge was the route followed by Mt. Russell’s first ascent team in 1962 (see AAJ 1963). They accessed it from the west side via an airplane landing on the Chedotlothna Glacier (which is no longer feasible because of glacial recession). This section of ridge was repeated by Dana Drummond and Freddie Wilkinson in 2017 after they pioneered a new route up the direct south face and south ridge of Russell (5,000’, AK Grade 4; see AAJ 2018).

A moderate section of the upper south ridge of Russell. Photo by Mark Westman.

From where we intersected the ridge, there were several tricky sections of traversing across 50° ice and knife-edge ridges. We used the rope for these parts, then continued unroped for several hundred feet, easily avoiding numerous crevasses. Just beneath the summit, we reached a near-vertical wall of rime ice, surrounded by fantastically rimed gargoyle formations that spoke to the ferocious winds that typically buffet this mountain. We belayed the short bulge of rime and minutes later became only the ninth team to reach the summit, just seven hours after leaving our landing site.

Nomenclature

The peak known today as Mt. Russell appears to have been called Todzolno' Hwdighelo' (literally “river mountain”) in the Upper Kuskokwim Athabascan language. This is according to a National Park Service–sponsored study of Indigenous place names written by James Kari, professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Alaska. Today’s Mt. Russell was named for geologist Israel Cook Russell—one of founding members of the AAC. The California 14er Mt. Russell is also named for him.

There wasn’t a cloud in any direction and not a breath of wind. I had made storm-plagued attempts on Russell in two different decades, and there were many other seasons where I had partners and dates lined up but never left Talkeetna due to poor weather. It was truly gratifying to reach the top of this elusive summit.

Sam and I descended to the landing site in just four hours, making for an 11-hour round-trip climb and the mountain’s first one-day ascent. Paul picked us up the following morning.

While all of the terrain we followed had been climbed previously, the east face and south ridge had not been linked as a singular summit route. Having attempted the now very broken northeast ridge in 1997, and having climbed most of the Wilkinson-Drummond route in 2019, I feel confident the Hennessey-Westman (5,700’, UIAA V with 50° ice and 80°+ rime ice) is the fastest and most straightforward way to the summit of Mt. Russell. There is a perfectly flat bivouac site on the south ridge at approximately 9,600 feet, albeit very exposed to the wind. While the technical difficulties are modest, this route is sustained, serious, and committing.

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Alaska Range Top Five

We asked Mark Westman, one of the most experienced modern climbers in Alaska, to name his five most memorable or personally important Alaska Range climbs. In chronological order, they are:

Mark Westman on the Infinite Spur of Sultana (Mt. Foraker) in 2001. Photo by Joe Puryear.

• South Buttress (1954 Route), Denali, with the late Joe Puryear, April-May 1996. Significant for being my first time to reach the top of Denali, but also for being a month-long true wilderness adventure in total isolation on the mountain. It cemented my partnership with Joe for much bigger things that lay ahead.

• Infinite Spur, Mt. Foraker, with Joe Puryear, June 2001. One of the most committing routes I ever did, and also the finest achievement I had with Joe after a decade-long climbing partnership that began when we were neophytes.

• South Ridge of Mt. Hunter, with Forrest Murphy, June 2003. [It] had every sort of challenge one could expect in Alaska Range alpine climbing: difficult mixed and ice climbing, a serious icefall, a traverse of a high and massive mountain, extreme commitment, and, most of all, one of Alaska's most legendary corniced and knife-edged ridges (The Happy Cowboy), one of the most engaging mental exercises I have ever faced. 

• The Warrior’s Way, Mt. Grosvenor, with Eamonn Walsh, April 2006. How often does one get to make the very first ascent of a big face (the direct east face) on the west side of the Ruth Gorge? This was the last of three new routes we did on the peak (which were also the second, third, and fourth overall ascents), and it takes a king line straight up the middle of the face. Best of all, although run-out in places, it is relatively safe, and although technical, it goes at an approachable grade and has been repeated twice. 

• Denali Diamond, Denali, with Colin Haley, June 2007. This was a huge step up technically and stylistically for me, marking a multi-year transition from slower and heavier climbing to contemporary lighter and faster alpine-style techniques, with much credit to Colin for his youthful embrace of these methods. Managing this 8,000-foot-plus face in just 45 hours was a step well beyond what I would have imagined possible for myself many years earlier, and it was one of those rare climbs where literally everything goes as perfectly as you planned it back home in the living room.

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A Place Among Giants

Lisa Roderick, Westman’s wife (and pilot Paul Roderick’s sister), was the base camp manager on the Kahiltna Glacier for more than two decades. (She attempted Russell with Westman and the late Joe Puryear in the late ’90s.) In early November, her memoir of nearly four years of cumulative time spent on the glacier, shepherding planes and climbers in and out of Denali base camp, will be published: A Place Among Giants: 22 Seasons at Denali Basecamp.

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The Line is the newsletter of the American Alpine Journal (AAJ), emailed to more than 80,000 climbers each month. Find the archive of past editions here. Interested in supporting this publication? Contact Heidi McDowell for opportunities. Got a potential story for the AAJ? Email us: aaj@americanalpineclub.org.

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The Line: Global Ambition

Read how a professor of mechanical engineering at Seattle University solved a geographic mystery in Uzbekistan and made the first known ascent of that nation’s highest peak. (This same peak was also No. 141 in the professor’s quest to summit the high point of every country in the world.) Plus: attempting Everest, climbing Kangchenjunga, completing the “Seven ’Stans,” and becoming a Snow Leopard—just a few recent accomplishments in the very busy life of Eric Gilbertson.

Nearing the summit of Alpomish. Photo: Eric Gilbertson.

The following is adapted from a report by Eric Gilbertson for AAJ 2024.

Alpomish:
The First Ascent

Until recently, it was widely accepted that a broad, rocky 4,643-meter mountain in the Gissar Range, on the Uzbekistan-Tajikistan border, was the highest peak in Uzbekistan. This was based on the 1981 Soviet topographic map, the most accurate and recent map of the area. (In recent times, some online sources have called this mountain Khazret Sultan, but this is incorrect.) While researching Peak 4,643, possibly first climbed by Soviets in the 1960s, I realized that a border peak about six kilometers to the south, known as Alpomish, was potentially taller than Peak 4,643. Andreas Frydensberg (Denmark) and I laid plans to carry a differential GPS unit and sight levels to both summits and determine which was higher.

Acclimatized from ascents of Pik Korzhenevsky (7,105m) and Pik Ismoil Somoni (Pik Communism, 7,495m) in Tajikistan, Andreas and I headed to the Uzbekistan border region, and on August 21 we started our approach from Sarytag village. We hiked southwest alongside the Dikondara River, cached a few days of food, and continued south over several glaciated 4,000-meter passes and many talus fields, around 23 kilometers in total. Our base camp was by an unnamed glacier below the steep east face of Alpomish.

The first known ascent of Alpomish, by the east face (5.8). The rock wall is about 400 meters high. Photo: Eric Gilbertson.

The four-spired peak loomed above camp with 400-meter granite faces on each spire. The southernmost spire looked to be the tallest, which I verified with sight levels.

On August 23, we hiked to the east face and scrambled up a big gully on scree until it was blocked by a huge chockstone. I led a rock face then traversed left delicately to reach the top of the chockstone. Above a waterfall in the gully, ice continued all the way up to the notch, and since we’d left our ice gear below, we climbed the rock wall and ridge crest to the left. Once on the gendarmed summit ridge, a final knife-edge brought us to the top.

Using the sight levels, I first verified that all the nearby spires of the peak were shorter—we were definitely on the highest point of Alpomish. I set up the differential GPS, but it had trouble acquiring satellites. So I pointed my sight levels toward Peak 4,643, and with each level measured 10min–20min angular declination looking down at the distant summit. Clearly it was lower. There were no anchors, cairns, or any sign of human passage anywhere on Alpomish, so it seemed very likely we had made the first ascent. Our measurements showed that Alpomish is 25 meters (+/-8 meters) higher than Peak 4,643, giving an elevation for Alpomish of around 4,668 meters.

Gilbertson and Frydensberg on the summit of Alpomish. Photo: Eric Gilbertson.

After rappelling and downclimbing, we staggered back into camp shortly before midnight. Our route was the Upper East Face (300m, 5.8).

To be absolutely certain about the relative elevations, I wanted to take measurements from the top of Peak 4,643, looking back to Alpomish, so the next day we retraced our route over the glaciated passes, picked up our food cache, and hiked to the base of Peak 4,643.

On August 25, we climbed the northeast ridge, with long stretches of 4th-class scrambling on a knife-edge and two pitches of 5.7. On the summit, I used sight levels to measure the angular inclination up to Alpomish. All six measurements showed that Alpomish is higher than Peak 4,643, making it the highest point in Uzbekistan.

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Andreas Frydensberg on top of Noshaq, the 7,492-meter high point of Afghanistan, in July 2019, two years before the Taliban takeover of the country. Photo: Eric Gilbertson.

The Seven ’Stans

Breaking trail up massive Pobeda, the highest summit in Kyrgyzstan. Photo: Eric Gilbertson.

Eric Gilbertson and Andreas Frydensberg’s climb of Alpomish was part of a four-year effort to reach the highest point of all seven nations whose names end with “stan.” Most of these were very challenging mountaineering objectives.

In 2019, they climbed Noshaq (7,492m, Afghanistan). In 2021, they tagged the summits of Khan Tengri (7,010m, Kazakhstan) and Pobeda (7,439m, Kyrgyzstan). In 2022, it was K2 (8,611m, Pakistan), without supplementary oxygen. And in 2023 they climbed Ismoil Somoni (7,495m, Tajikistan), Ayrybaba (3,139m, Turkmenistan), and Alpomish (ca 4,668m, Uzbekistan). Gilbertson reported that Pobeda (via the Abalakov Route) was technically and physically the most difficult of the seven (technical climbing at high altitude with no fixed ropes, deep snow, serious objective and frostbite danger) and that Noshaq was logistically the toughest (landmines and kidnapping hazards).

EVEREST & KANGCHENJUNGA

As if climbing two 7,000-meter peaks in Asia last summer weren’t enough, Eric Gilbertson also made a strong attempt on Everest in May (reaching 8,500 meters without supplementary oxygen or personal Sherpa support). He then flew to Kangchenjunga and summited the world’s third-highest peak, thus ticking the high point of India on his list.

Gilbertson, along with his twin brother, Matthew, ultimately hope to reach the high point of every country in the world, a project that started in 2010. As of this month, Eric has climbed 143 of 196 the world’s high points. See the Country Highpoints website for his extensive trip reports.

Having climbed the five 7,000-meter peaks of the former Soviet Union, Gilbertson and Frydensberg applied to be named Snow Leopards, a great honor of Russian mountaineering. In November 2023, Gilbertson became the third American Snow Leopard (after William Garner and Randy Starrett in 1985) and Frydensberg the first Dane, but not without proving their case: The authorities argued that they had climbed the wrong summit of Pobeda. Gilbertson embarked on another geographic investigation and soon settled the matter. The results are documented in The True Summit Location of Peak Pobeda.

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How Does He Do It?

How does a 38-year-old assistant professor have the free time and spare cash to complete so many international expeditions? Gilbertson explains:

”I'm a teaching professor at Seattle University. This means I get about three months off every summer for mountaineering, and also winter and spring breaks between quarters. Sometimes I can get permission to overload my teaching schedule in a few quarters and take another quarter off. This was important for a peak like Kangchenjunga, which needs to be climbed in spring.“ As graduate students, Gilbertson and his brother, Matthew, were invited to international engineering conferences, which they paired with climbs.

“I try to be as frugal as possible,” he said. “Most of the European country high points I climbed as part of long-distance bicycle tours, camping in the woods every night, so transportation and lodging were basically free. I generally don’t pay for guides unless required by law. I sign up for airline credit cards to get free flights.” Gilbertson and his partners also maximize their efficiency and success rate during expeditions by paying for custom, satellite-delivered weather forecasts from Denver meteorologist Chris Tomer.

For Everest, Gilbertson hired the relatively inexpensive Seven Summit Treks (SST) for logistics and base camp services, then he climbed on his own above BC and did not pay for oxygen service (the same way he climbed K2 in 2022). As he was shopping for a guiding service, he negotiated for a multi-summit and multi-climber discount.

As events turned out, SST required Gilbertson to hire a Sherpa and use oxygen for his rapid Kangchenjunga ascent after Everest. “It would cost another $11K…and I could just barely afford that if I zeroed out my bank account,” Gilbertson wrote in his trip report. “That would be cheaper than losing all the money I’d already invested and then paying more a future year to come back. So I reluctantly agreed.”

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The Line is the newsletter of the American Alpine Journal (AAJ), emailed to more than 80,000 climbers each month. Find the archive of past editions here. Interested in supporting this publication? Contact Heidi McDowell for opportunities. Got a potential story for the AAJ? Email us: aaj@americanalpineclub.org.

The Line — July 2024

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

It’s prime season for climbing in the high peaks of the western United States, so we’re sharing six brand-new mountain routes from six states around the West.

AAC Members: Get a Sneak Preview of the AAJ right now! AAC members can now download a PDF of the complete 2024 AAJ. Log in at your member profile and click the Publications tab to download your sneak preview. Physical copies of the 2024 AAJ will start going into the mail next month.

Bluebell (Cascade Range, Washington)

The line of Bluebell (21 pitches, 5.13-) on the North Norwegian Buttress of Mt. Index. Photo by Nathan Hadley.

Nathan Hadley and friends spent more than 25 days establishing and free climbing Bluebell (2,000’, 5.13-), the first free route up the North Norwegian Buttress of Mt. Index. About one-third of the bolt-protected route’s 21pitches are overhanging. Hadley believes it’s one of the steepest long free climbs in North America (“Imagine two of Yosemite’s Leaning Towers, with sections of slab before, in between, and after.”) Hadley’s AAJ report describes the arduous effort to establish the climb and also offers a touching tribute to one of his partners on the route: Michal Rynkiewicz, who died in a rappelling accident soon after this climb was completed.

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Aiguille Extra (Sierra Nevada, California)

James Holland following the second pitch (5.10+) of the new direct start to the East Buttress of Aiguille Extra. Photo by Cam Smith.

The East Buttress of Aiguille Extra, a 14,048-foot satellite of Mt. Whitney, was first climbed in 1978 with a bit of aid. Forty-five years later, James Holland and Cam Smith freed the 10-pitch route at 5.10+, adding a three-pitch direct start. In AAJ 2024, Smith writes, “James and I hope the free version of the East Buttress (1,230’, IV 5.10+) will encourage others to check out [Aiguille Extra], an unsung gem of the Eastern Sierra.”

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Takin’ ’Er by the Tusks (Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho)

Benj Wollant finishes the crux sequence of pitch three (5.12a R) on Takin’ ’er by the Tusks. Photo by Greg Rickenbacker.

A rare new route up the beautiful Elephant’s Perch was completed in September by Greg Rickenbacker and Benj Wollant. Takin’ ’Er By the Tusks (625’, 5.12a R A3) combines challenging aid and stout free climbing on the southeast face of the granite formation. A bolting ban in Sawtooth National Forest ensured plenty of exciting climbing. Wollant, who grew up in the nearby town of Stanley, wrote in his AAJ report that establishing a route on the Elephant’s Perch was “a longtime dream come true.”

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Spirit Animal (Rocky Mountains, Colorado)

The line of Spirit Animal on the 1,500-foot northeast face of Chiefs Head in Rocky Mountain National Park. Photo by Bill Duncan.

“Given that I’d never stepped foot into Glacier Gorge [in Rocky Mountain National Park], you might say my plan to rope-solo a new line up the 1,500’ northeast face of Chiefs Head (13,577’) was ambitious,” writes Nathan Brown in AAJ 2024. But that’s what he did. Brown, a prolific new-router who earned his ground-up chops in North Carolina before moving to Colorado, spent two summers establishing Spirit Animal (10 pitches, 5.11), all alone, on the remote and steep Chiefs Head wall. Brown finished work on the route last September, but had not yet redpointed the full route in a continuous ascent. Just this month, he made the trek into Glacier Gorge yet again and rope-soloed the route completely free, with a bivouac in the middle.

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Directissima (Mt. Owen, Teton Range, Wyoming)

(A) The Grand Teton. (B) Mt. Owen. (1) The original North Ridge Route (1951). (2) Directissima (2023). Both routes continue up the long ridge to the summit of Mt. Owen. However, the FULL north ridge, continuing over Mt. Owen and up the north ridge of the Grand, may never have been linked. Photo by Acroterion | Wikimedia.

Tetons guide Michael Abbey had long imagined a more direct route up the north ridge of Mt. Owen, hewing closer to the ridgeline than the original North Ridge Route (Clayton-Emerson, 1951), which slants in from the left. It took a couple of attempts, but in 2023 he and Karen Kovaka completed Directissima (V 5.10) over two days in August. In his AAJ report, Abbey notes that another North Ridge Direct was climbed in 2001, but the key pitches of the new line were most likely unclimbed before last summer.

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Ménage Trout (Beartooth Mountains, Montana)

Jackson Marvell climbing the sixth pitch of Ménage Trout, high above East Rosebud Creek in the Beartooth Mountains. Photo by Austin Schmitz.

Until 2023, the Bear’s Face had only one known full-length route: Ursus Horribilis, established in 1998 by Andrew McLean and the late Alex Lowe. Last summer, Chantel Astorga, Matt Cornell, and Jackson Marvell, along with photographer Austin Schmitz who was shooting images of The North Face team members, completed a line started by Cornell, Marvell, and Justin Willis three years earlier. Ménage Trout has 13 pitches and went at 5.10+ R A2+. Astorga wrote in her AAJ report that the team hopes to return to free the climb.

Bear’s Face also got its first winter ascent in 2023, when Adrien Costa, Charlie Faust, and Paul Shaughnessy completed Dancing Bears (310m, WI5 M6 R) on the left side of the face, on the last day of the year, after multiple attempts.

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Explore These Peaks

Take a closer look at all six of the peaks and ranges highlighted here with this interactive map from onX and Mountain Project.

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The Line is the newsletter of the American Alpine Journal (AAJ), emailed to more than 80,000 climbers each month. Find the archive of past editions here. Interested in supporting this publication? Contact Heidi McDowell for opportunities. Got a potential story for the AAJ? Email us: aaj@americanalpineclub.org.

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The Line is supported by:

Educate: Search and Rescue Helicopter Evacuation in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Photo by AAC member Jon Glassberg.

This year, the featured winner of the Rocky Talkie Search and Rescue Award is the Black Canyon Search and Rescue team, who performed an incredibly technical rescue in 2023 in the Black Canyon, after a climber took a bad fall that left them unconscious, needing medical attention almost 2,000 ft down into the canyon. In this episode, we sit down to chat with Sean Hart, one of the SAR team members at the scene that day, who walks us through the unique challenges of climbing and rescuing in The Black, the harrowing rescue by Blackhawk helicopter, how critical communication is in rescues, and how to always have a plan B.

Learn more about the Rocky Talkie Search and Rescue Award, watch the film about this incredible rescue, and get the chance to give back to your local search and rescue team AND win some incredible gear by going to https://rockytalkie.com/pages/sar-award

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Announcing the 2024 Rocky Talkie Search & Rescue Award Winners

We’re thrilled to partner with Rocky Talkie to announce the winners of the 2024 Search & Rescue Award. Through this grant, Rocky Talkie is donating $75,000 to six underfunded SAR teams across the nation. Read their stories and watch a film by Jon Glassberg about the Featured Rescue of the Year on Rocky Talkie’s website.

You can also enter to win $5,000 for your local Search and Rescue team plus a safety prize package for yourself through Rocky Talkie’s SAR Award giveaway when you visit their website.

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Must-Read Ascents On Great Trango Tower From The American Alpine Journal

By: Sierra McGivney

A wonderful panorama looking southeast over Great Trango Tower from the summit of Trango II. (A) K7 (6,934m). (B) Yermanendu Kangri (7,163m). (C) Masherbrum (7,821m). (D) Mandu East (7,127m). (E) Mandu West (7,081m). (F) Urdukas (6,320m). (G) Seemingly unnamed. (H) Liligo Glacier. (I) Great Trango northeast (6,231m). (J) Great Trango Main (6,286m). (K) Great Trango southwest (ca 6,250m). (1) Great Trango normal route. (2) Top section of Krasnoyarsk Route. The lower left foreground is the summit of Trango Tower. PC: Jakob Schweighofer

"The impressive rock spires of Great Trango Tower and Trango (a.k.a. Nameless) Tower create one of the wonders of the Earth, capturing the imagination of everyone who travels on the Baltoro Glacier. Great Trango resembles a giant castle flanked by steep walls. On top of nearly a mile of sheer rock, four magnificent summit turrets comprise the East, West, Main (middle), and South summits," writes John Middendorf. 

Will it hold? Marek Raganowicz starts pitch 26, Bushido, Great Trango Tower. Photo by Marcin Tomaszewski.

Great Trango Tower is located in the Baltoro Glacier region of the Karakoram Range of Pakistan. The Karakoram is located mostly in northern Pakistan but also reaches into Tajikistan, China, Afghanistan, and India, creating a diverse ecosystem. Cutting-edge alpinists travel to the area to test their skills by climbing new routes on some of the biggest walls in the world. Great Trango Tower, which sits at 6,286 meters, offers challenging granite face-climbing and unforgettable rock features. The climbing history of the mountain runs deep, so we have compiled a list of must-read ascents on Great Trango Tower from the AAJ. 

Don't worry! We haven't forgotten Trango Tower (AKA Nameless Tower), the other famous monolith in the Trango Towers group. Our next dive into the AAJ archives will focus on the legendary ascents on Nameless Tower, so be on the lookout. Until then, dive into these epic stories from Great Trango Tower. 

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1. The First Ascent of Great Trango Tower

Great Trango Tower. Climb Year: 1977. Publication Year: 1978. Author: Dennis Hennek.

Kim Schmitz on perfect granite at 18,000 feet on the Great Trango Tower. Photo by Galen A. Rowell.

This list wouldn't be complete without the first ascent of Great Trango Tower. After rerouted and canceled flights, Galen Rowell, John Roskelley, Kim Schmitz, Dennis Hennek, and Dr. Lou Buscaglia began their trek through the Shigar Valley up the Braldu River Valley, where they met up with the final member of their team, Dr. Jim Morrissey. Once they established basecamp on Trango Glacier, a four-day storm settled over them, causing debris to fall on their proposed climb.

Telephoto view of Gasherbrum IV and Hidden Peak over Baltoro Glacier from the summit of Great Trango Tower. Photo by Galen A. Rowell.

"The scene greeting us at the base of the gully brought us back to reality and the seriousness of the next 3,500 feet."

On the first day of climbing, Hennek, Rowell, Schmitz, and Roskelley witnessed an avalanche filling the gully they had just ascended, where they believed Buscaglia and Morrissey to be. But "luck stayed with us"— the two had scrambled to the side of the gully to check out a waterfall, the avalanche narrowly missing them. This was only the first day, and it wouldn't be the only hurdle in their journey. Yet the rewards were great. "The afternoon was warm and clear, with an unobstructed, unforgettable view in all directions. We all agreed that there could be no better view of the Baltoro Karakoram." Read about the first ascent while looking at black and white photos from their expedition here. 

Trango Towers at Sunrise

The route ascends the face of the left tower via ramps. Photo by Galen A. Rowell.

Kim Schmitz on Great Trango Tower at 18,000 feet

Photo by Galen A. Rowell.

2. Suffer Well: Thirst and Hunger On The Azeem Ridge

Great Trango, Pakistan. Publication Year: 2005. Author: Kelly Cordes.

The cover of AAJ 2005: Josh Wharton traversing (5.10+ A1) into the headwall on day 3, about 1,500m up the Azeem Ridge, Great Trango, Pakistan. Photo by Kelly Cordes.

This article stands out in the AAJ archives because of what a saga this ascent turned out to be. Josh Wharton and Kelly Cordes climbed Great Trango’s southwest ridge, which they called the Azeem Ridge (7,400' vertical, 5.11R/X A2 M6), in what they deemed "delusional optimism," "disaster style," and "safety fifth!" climbing. Cordes and Wharton climbed 54 pitches, facing many challenges. On the second pitch, one side of their jury-rigged double-gear slings came undone, causing about a quarter of their cams to fall. Then, halfway up the wall, the two ran out of fuel, leaving them with only one option, sucking on snow in place of drinking water. Cordes wrote: "When we reached the bivouac where our last fuel sputtered out, we never spoke of retreat." On the fourth morning, Wharton's headlamp slingshotted out of his hands and was lost to the tower. Soon after, Cordes’ belay device suffered the same fate. At this point, their only option was up and over. Continue reading about how Cordes and Wharton kept heading up, even against all odds. 

3. Climbers vs. Technology

Great Trango Tower's Northwest Face. Publication Year: 2000. Author: Jared Ogden. 

Alex Lowe and Mark Synnott with computers at Camp I. Photo by Jared Ogden.

This article was written at the turn of the century when technology and climbing began to clash. Jared Ogden, Mark Synnott, and Alex Lowe faced moral dilemmas about filming and hosting a live internet site during the expedition for their sponsor, Quokka Sports Inc. Quokka.com was one of the only virtual adventure sports websites near the dawn of the internet, until they went bankrupt in the spring of 2001. Ogden, Synnott, and Lowe brought "all assortments of cyberspace technology," including computers and video cameras, and fixed more than 3,000 feet of rope. Foreshadowing today's day and age of viral climbing videos on TikTok and Instagram, this article launched a discussion of technology and its place in climbing. But once on the wall, the team's technology worries disappeared, and they became engrossed in the ethereal alpine world of the Karakoram.

Alex Lowe Cleaning Pitch 30. Photo by Jared Ogden.

The team faced challenges with group dynamics, fever, and "storm-ridden suffer-fests." Through hard-earned adventure, the team produced  Parallel Worlds (VII 5.11 A4, 6,000'). "Our…route combined all the elements of rock climbing: a long free climb up a 3,400-foot slab to a vertical and overhanging headwall that stretches over 2,000 feet, finishing on a knife-edge ridge for 1,000 feet to the West Summit," wrote Ogden. Read about this harrowing adventure and Ogden's tribute to Alex Lowe, who died in an avalanche just a few months after this climb.

Want to read more discourse about technology and its place in the mountains? Read Steve House's hot take on "business climbing" and media regarding the ascent of Parallel Worlds here. 

4. The Russian Way

Author: Yuri Koshelenko, Russia. Publication Year: 2000.

Parallel worlds: the American (left) and Russian teams hard at work on the headwall pitches on Great Trango's northwest face. Photo by Yuri Koshelenko.

While Jared Ogden, Mark Synnott, and Alex Lowe were putting up Parallel Worlds, Yuri Koshelenko, Alexander Odintsov, Ivan Samoilenko, and Igor Potankina climbed a line to the right of them—parallel up the Northwest Face of Great Trango Tower. The two groups worked hard next to each other for a time, developing genuine mutual assistance, "I was unexpectedly seized by the warm hospitality of the American team. I took huge gulps of piping hot tea from Alex's cup while thinking about the condition of the wet rock," writes Koshelenko. On July 24, after ascending shared fixed ropes, the two groups split apart, and so began the Russian team's arduous journey up dangerous 5.10 to 5.11 free climbing and difficult A3 and A4 sections. Two days later, while climbing a roof, Odintsov ripped off a huge block, tumbling down the face, caught by a well-placed cam but suffering hip and shoulder injuries. Odintsov's fall was just the beginning of their intense battle up the wall. The group faced unstable weather, including snowstorms, multiple uncomfortably close lightning strikes, a dropped haul bag, and dwindling food supplies. Read the epic tale of the ascent of The Russian Way (VII 5.11 A4, 2675m), written beautifully by Yuri Koshelenko, here. 

"The mountains always accept the tribute, though sometimes the price may seem excessive. But humanity cannot exist without extremes—such is the law of evolution." 

5. Epic Attempts on the Trango Towers

Great Trango Tower and Trango Nameless Tower, Attempts. Publication Year: 2001. Author: Timmy O'Neill 

Miles Smart on the last headwall on Great Trango Tower during the second attempt to climb the southwest ridge. Photo by Timmy O'Neill.

Funded by the American Alpine Club's Lyman Spitzer Climbing Grant, now the Cutting Edge Grant, this trip report chronicles two attempts of the southwest ridge of Great Trango, now the Azeem Ridge, by Timmy O'Neill and Miles Smart. O'Neill and Smart spent almost 50 days on the Trango Glacier waiting out bad weather. During one of their three brief weather windows, they attempted the southwest ridge of Great Trango, an effort "ended with a forced bivy at 18,000" after climbing for 12 hours through 4,000 feet of 4th class to 5.10. They tried again to no avail, despite climbing to within 300 meters of the summit, and moved on to a potential ascent of Eternal Flame on Nameless Tower. Their first attempt on Eternal Flame, "a one-day, single-push climb," ended with a difficult decision to descend six pitches from the summit. Three days later, they "blasted" from the col, ready to summit Eternal Flame. After eight hours of climbing, "the hand of Allah came to catch me and then subsequently thwack me into the wall," writes O'Neill. O'Neill had fallen 100 feet after he short-fixed his rope. Read about the epic attempts on the Trango Towers here. 

6. Triumph and Tragedy on Great Trango Tower

The Norwegian Buttress, 1984. 

Robert Caspersen, pitch 34. Photo by Per Ludvig Skjerven.

In 1984, a Norwegian team of four, Hans Christian Doseth, Finn Daehli, Stein P. Aasheim, and Dag Kolsrud, attempted the first ascent of the East Face of Great Trango. Due to a lack of food and slow progress up the wall, the team decided to split. Aasheim and Kolsrud rappelled off safely, reaching the Dunge Glacier, while Daehli and Doseth continued on. From the ground, Aasheim and Kolsrud watched via telephoto lenses as their friends reached the summit. Tragically, Daehli and Doseth fell to their deaths during the descent. Their bodies were later spotted at the foot of the climb, but soon after, an avalanche buried them. Their magnificent line was named the Norwegian Buttress. "The triumph had turned into a total tragedy." Read more about the Norwegian Buttress in an article in the 2000 AAJ, which also describes another new route on Great Trango, the Norwegian Trango Pulpit Direct (VII A4 5.11, ca. 2200m).

7. The Grand Voyage

Great Trango Tower, East Face, Swiss-American Expedition, Second Ascent To The East Summit. Publication Year: 1993. Author: John Middendorf. 

Xaver Bongard on Great Trango Tower. Photo by John Middendorf.

We picked this article because of the challenging climbing featured in it and because it was written by the one and only John Middendorf. The recent passing of John Middendorf deeply saddens us, and we invite you to read our tribute to him here.

The Grand Voyage (the Bongard-Middendorf route). This photo doesn’t show the 1984 Norwegian route, which climbed the same buttress, making the first ascent of Great Trango’s East Summit. Grand Voyage started far to the left of the Norwegian route, joined it for three pitches above the big midway ledge, and finished to the right of the Norwegian route. Photo by John Middendorf.

The Swiss-American Expedition, comprised of Swiss Xaver Bongard, Ueli Bühler, François Studiman, American photographer Ace Kvale, and John Middendorf, sought to establish a new line on the east face of Great Trango Tower: The Grand Voyage (Grade VII, 5.10, A4+), which started to the left of the original Norwegian Route and finished to the right. Bongard and Middendorf climbed capsule-style, moving their high camp upward and creating "safe havens" on the wall; they established five camps on the wall, four hanging and one at the snow ledge halfway up. This style of climbing resulted in almost a month on the wall. Ice, snow, and rock fall were high objective hazards for the group. In turn, this created belay stations that were "in suicidal positions." The group climbed the last five pitches below the snow ledge through vertical ice climbing, "rotten aid," and free climbing up a "dangerous steep corner system"—dubbed "Gollum's Gully"—at night due to high objective hazards. "Occasionally, huge sections would exfoliate off the wall and pound down around us." Continue reading about the legendary The Grand Voyage (Grade VII, 5.10, A4+) here. 

8. Pitch by Pitch, Move by Move: The Other Side of The Grand Voyage 

Great Trango Tower. Publication Year: 1995. Author: Xaver Bongard, Club Alpin Suisse.

John Middendorf and Xaver Bongard on Great Trango Tower. Photo by Ace Kvale.

If you're like us, you can't get enough of the epic story surrounding The Grand Voyage (Grade VII, 5.10, A4+). In 1995, the AAJ published Xaver Bongard's extensive trip report about the expedition, complementing Middendorf’s shorter report. If you love the nitty-gritty details and play-by-play of expeditions, this story is for you. "Pitch 23 was now behind us. To belay, I jammed into a narrow chimney. John, who was larger than I, had no chance of fitting in and continued up the outside. Hauling the sacks, I got up to his level and squeezed back into the crack, first removing my helmet, which was too big to fit in. John continued to climb on the exterior. I was resting from my efforts when I saw him fall and swing in an impressive pendulum." Read about The Grand Voyage from Bongard's perspective here. Tragically, Xaver Bongard was killed in April 1994 in a BASE-jumping accident. This story appeared in the 1995 AAJ as a tribute to him and to provide more information about the landmark Great Trango climb.

9. Stay Tuned: The First Ski Descent of Great Trango

The most recent news surrounding Great Trango Tower involves the first ski descent. On May 9, 2024, Chantel Astorga, Christina Lustenberger, and Jim Morrison skied down the west side of Great Trango Tower. The 2024 AAJ is already off to the printers, and we are eager to get the book into members' hands, so look out for the story in the 2025 AAJ!

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Want to learn more about the history of Great Trango Tower and Trango Tower? Read John Middendorf's The Trango Towers in Review article from the 2000 AAJ. Stay on the lookout for our upcoming deep dive into the archives around Nameless Tower and more! 

Want to catch up your reading before the 2024 AAJ comes out?

Protect: First Ascents, Ground Falls, and the AAC Rescue Benefit in Action

In this episode, we sit down with Jarod, a long-time AAC member, to discuss a crazy accident he had at his home crag in Missouri, and how he utilized the AAC’s rescue benefit to cover the cost of his medical expenses. If you’ve been wondering if the AAC’s rescue benefit is for you, Jarod’s story helps explain how it works. We dive into the quirky concept of “girdle traverses” or mulitpitches that go sideways, and analyze his accident— the decisions he made, how traversing complicates gear placements, and the close calls he had. Funnily enough, Jarod also did a FA on that same wall—putting up Missouri’s potentially longest rock climb with Jeremy Collins, and this FA made it into the American Alpine Journal! We discuss the vision behind this 8-pitch traverse, what went into making it happen, the silliness of climbing, the unique belay tactics for traversing, and more!

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The Line — June 2024

FAMILY TIES

With Father’s Day just past, we’re sharing a few stories of multi-generational climbing families that are featured in the upcoming 2024 AAJ (plus one from the archives).

Mt. Wilson and the Aeolian Wall

Aiding the new route's huge roof

Danny Urioste taking it to the top

The Uriostes of Red Rock

Joanne and Jorge Urioste are legends of Red Rock Canyon, Nevada, having established many classic routes (Crimson Chrysalis, Epinephrine, Dream of Wild Turkeys, Levitation 29, and on and on). Their son Danny is also a climber, and in recent years he too has been putting up big new routes in the sandstone canyons west of Las Vegas, often in the company of prolific new-router and AAJ contributor Sam Boyce. In December 2023, the two teamed up with Kyle Willis for a new route on the Aeolian Wall: Salami Wand Kenobi (14 pitches, V 5.11- R C2).

Coincidentally, the new route incorporated three pitches of Woman of Mountain Dreams. That route, Urioste explains in his AAJ 2024 report, “was first climbed in 1997 by my parents, along with Dave Krulesky and Mike Morea, and then freed by my mother and Aitor Uson in 1998.”

Danny Urioste and Sam Boyce climbed another route on Aeolian Wall, a long direct start to the classic Resolution Arête, in November 2022. You can read about that climb, the Evolution Arête, on Mountain Project.

Watch the AAC Legacy Series interview with Joanne and Jorge Urioste!

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The Millers of Juneau

Mt. Swineford (6,841’) from the northwest. The first ascent was by the west face, partially hidden in clouds. Photo by Dylan Miller.

Dylan Miller has been a frequent AAJ contributor in recent years, with many new routes and winter ascents in the mountains around Juneau, Alaska. He has three reports in the upcoming AAJ, including the story of the first known ascent of Mt. Swineford a few years back, which Dylan completed with his dad, Mike, along with Makaila Olson and Ben Still. Dylan says he owes his love of the mountains to his father: “He has definitely been a big inspiration in my life. He took me on my first adventures, and he has done so many first ascents in the area.”

In AAJ 2019, Dylan described a classic Alaska adventure with his dad: the first ascent of Endicott Tower, about 50 miles northwest of the capital city. “From Juneau we flew to Gustavus, jumped on a Glacier Bay tourist catamaran, cruised up the east arm of Glacier Bay, and got dropped off in a sandy cove at the base of Mt. Wright, near Adams Inlet,” Miller wrote. “We inflated our rafts and waited for the incoming tide to suck us into the 14-mile Adams Inlet. We waded and crisscrossed the Goddess River delta, sometimes crossing swift, waist-deep rivers, and made camp for the night. We then hiked a full day…to Endicott Lake, the headwaters for the Endicott River. Here we stashed our water gear and tromped 2,000’ up through the Tongass rainforest to a pristine hanging alpine valley, where we made our base camp.”

Mike Miller during yet another Southeast Alaska adventure: the first ascent of Snow Tower. See AAJ 2016. Photo by William Wacker.

A few days later, from a higher camp, the two climbed snow, mixed terrain, and rotten rock to complete the first ascent of the 5,805-foot peak. “From the top we looked southeast to Juneau and pointed out our home, which put into perspective how far out there we really were,” Dylan wrote. After a rest at base camp, during which a friend flew in to pick up their mountain gear, they packrafted down the Endicott River, bushwhacked past a deep gorge (climbing another peak along the way), and returned to the river to float out to the sea.

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Huayna Illampu (5,940m) from the south, showing (1) the approximate line of the 1973 Mesili-Sanchez Route and (2) Via dei Nembresi (700m, ED AI4 M5). The climbers in 2023 continued up Illampu (6,368m), which is hidden behind Huayna Illampu. Photo by Daniele Assolari.

The Nembrinis of Nembro

“In 1973, an expedition led by Carlo Nembrini climbed Illampu (6,368m) in Bolivia and then moved to Illimani,” begins a report in AAJ 2024. “After climbing that peak, they joined a search for the bodies of Pierre Dedieu (France) and Ernesto “Coco” Sanchez (Bolivia), who had been killed on the mountain. Sanchez had been considered the best alpinist in Bolivia at the time…. The Italians located the body of Sanchez, but tragically, during the evacuation, Nembrini fell to his death.”

A book written about Carlo Nembrini, a leading Italian alpinist of his era, after his death. The book can be seen at the AAC Library but is not available for check-out.

In 2022, Rosa Morotti, a niece of Nembrini’s, wrote to the guide Daniele Assolari, an Italian who lives and works in Bolivia, “about her dream of opening a new route on Illampu, 50 years after the death of her uncle.” Assolari put together a trip with Morotti and Maria Teresa Llampa Vasquez (the first female IFMGA aspirant guide from Bolivia), and in late June of 2023, the trio climbed a new line up the south side of Huayna Illampu, a 5,940-meter peak on the southwest ridge of the main summit, then continued up the higher peak. “Rosa dedicated the route to…all the people of Nembro (immediately northeast of Bergamo), where her father and Carlo were born: Via dei Nembresi (700m, ED AI4 M5).”

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Three George Lowes on the Grand

George Lowe III in Tanzania in 2015. Wikipedia Photo.

The 1981 AAJ carried one of the shortest stories in the journal’s history, a one-sentence report on a notable event in the Tetons. Here is the report, in its entirety: “In July three George Lowes, grandfather, father and son, all climbed the Exum route of the Grand Teton together, which may be some kind of a new record.”

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The Line is the newsletter of the American Alpine Journal (AAJ), emailed to more than 80,000 climbers each month. Find the archive of past editions here. Interested in supporting this publication? Contact Heidi McDowell for opportunities. Got a potential story for the AAJ? Email us: aaj@americanalpineclub.org.