Despite the Obstacles: A Story from the Live Your Dream Grant

Adapted from the 2018 Live Your Dream Grant trip report by Bria Riggs.

Sometimes the dream is adventure. Sometimes the dream is discovery. For Bria Riggs, the Live Your Dream Grant allowed her to pursue both dreams simultaneously.

Bria’s funded trip brought her to the Cordillera Blanca region of Peru, where she spent almost eight weeks mountaineering and collecting scientific field data. Working with the American Climber Science Program, Bria ventured to six different valleys within the region and glimpsed countless beautiful peaks. She summited three major peaks (Villanaraju, Pisco, and Ishinca) and attempted two others. 

This expedition was focused on high mountain environmental science, in which her team combined mountaineering and science in order to investigate the impacts of climate change on the glaciers in the region. Specifically, Bria was studying and simulating the impacts of light absorbing particles on glacial melt. She would then go on to use this data in her senior thesis at Bates College.

As both a lover of the mountains and a scientist, Bria couldn’t have asked for a better research experience or introduction into expedition life. 

Over the course of the eight-week expedition, Bria’s team ran into minimal issues. Overall they had great weather conditions for climbing and were only snowed out of one peak (Maparaju). However, an ice bridge that connects to the summit pyramid of Chopicalqui kept them from attempting that peak, which would have been their highest peak of the expedition. To Bria, it felt ironic that climate change is what kept them from collecting their data on Chopicalqui and also kept some of their team from summiting Tocllaraju due to glacial recession and an increase in crevasse danger. 

Unfortunately, Bria  tore three ligaments in her ankle two weeks into the expedition on their first big climb up Andevite. However, Bria continued to climb as much as she could throughout the remaining six weeks but was unable to summit Urus Este and Yanapacha. While this was upsetting, her expedition was still wildly successful in her own eyes. Bria climbed to a new personal elevation record, collected great field data for her thesis, and fell in love with the people, culture, and landscapes of the Cordillera Blanca. The peaks that she was able to summit were incredible and absolutely humbling. 

Bria remembers coming over the crest to the summit of Villanaraju and being filled with joy and wonder. After weeks of frustration and pain from her injury, she had finally reached a summit and was so overwhelmed at that moment. Bria continued to have this same feeling with all of the team’s other summits, solidifying the fact that this is why she climbs and is fighting to save such beautiful places. 

Bria Reflected: “This expedition has had a tremendously positive impact on my climbing career. Not only did it allow me to climb bigger peaks than I ever have, but the experience also taught me a lot about expedition life. While it would have been great if everything had gone perfectly smoothly, in some ways, I am happy I had challenges and setbacks. I think my experiences showed me that in mountaineering, as in scientific research, there are always obstacles and despite these obstacles, I still loved being in the mountains and climbing for the full eight weeks. As a climber, this expedition opened up my eyes to the amazing life of climbing more than any of my previous experiences. Now, more than ever, I am excited to plan my next adventures and attempt to climb bigger and more technical peaks. 

“I have a lot of ski mountaineering experience, but my time in Peru has allowed me to further enhance my rope, crevasse rescue, and overall glacial travel skills. By solely mountaineering, this experience allowed me to focus on the ascent more than the descent as opposed to my previous skiing adventures. I am also more excited about climbing bigger peaks with technical routes.  This expedition was a perfect stepping stone for me to learn more skills and get ready to chase bigger climbs in bigger ranges.”

For Bria, chasing her dreams of discovery and adventure opened her up to the possibilities of future dreams. That is what the Live Your Dream Grant is all about. 

The Live Your Dream Grant is powered by The North Face.

Off Route but Overjoyed: A Story from the Live Your Dream Grant

Adapted from the 2021 Live Your Dream Grant trip report by Mason Risley.

Horses graze as the sun sets over the Tetons. Our route traverses from the right most prominence (Teewinot Mountain) left along the skyline to Nez Perce which is in the forward most mountain in the center of the skyline.

The Grand Traverse is a committing objective that climbs through the highest mountains of the Teton Range: The Traverse was first done in 1963 by Allen Steck, Dick Long, and John Evans going from south to north. Most modern ascents are done north to south and this was what my climbing partner Cvetomir Dimov and I did. The sequence of peaks traveled are: Teewinot Mountain (12,330’), Peak 11,840, East Prong (12,055’), Mount Owen (12,933’), the Grand Teton (13,775’), the Middle Teton (12,809’), the South Teton (12,519’), Ice Cream Cone (12,405’), Gilkey Tower (12,320’), Spalding Peak (12,240’), Cloudveil Dome (12,026’), and finally Nez Perce (11,901’) before dropping back down into Garnet Canyon and returning to the Lupine Meadows trailhead. All told, the trip we planned would be twelve peaks, nearly 13,000 feet of elevation gain, and 14 miles of travel. 

My partner Cvetomir and I decided to make the attempt over the course of three days because we had not done the route before and wanted to give ourselves the best chance for success. 

This objective pushed our physical and mental limits and left us feeling stoked, stronger and more accomplished in our alpine climbing skills. This route and other alpine climbs like it demand excellent endurance, strong climbing abilities, solid judgment, and a dialed gear system that keeps weight to a minimum. In addition, route finding skills and the ability to recognize and correct mistakes quickly is key. Experiences above treeline such as the Traverse stay with you, make you stronger and more versed in alpine climbing. 

The couple hiccups we ran into each day of the traverse cost us some time and in one case a rope, but fortunately nothing else. The story of our attempt on the Grand Traverse is filled with many close-calls, mistakes, and wasted-time, but that is not unique for this kind of adventure. Nothing ever goes as planned in the alpine, so the obstacles that we encountered were pretty par for the course. But as we learned, pushed through fear, and mitigated risk, the stoke just kept increasing. 

We may have found ourselves off route a few times, but that only made the taste of each summit all the sweeter.

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Day 1 Moving Time: 14 hours 17 minutes

0345 hours Sunday, August 15th, 2021. The alarm goes off and I embrace the sore grogginess that comes with getting 4 hours of sleep.  

Cvetomir and I had just done a 5.8 warm up climb in Cascade Canyon called Guide’s Wall the day before. Though we cruised the route in good time, it was a solid day of activity which started at 0600 in the morning to get permits for the Grand Traverse. Due to an incoming storm forecast to hit the Tetons that Wednesday—the end of our 3 day weather window—we didn’t have any time for a rest day before the push. 

We started up the seemingly endless switchbacks by headlamp leaving the van at 0420. 

Gearing up for the sufferfest.

Setback #1: Our packs were as light as we could have managed, each of us carrying about 33lbs of climbing gear, a 50m half rope each, food, layers, and a sleep system that would nominally allow us to stay comfortable enough to actually get some shut eye while on route. As dawn approached however, something we hadn’t expected was becoming visible with the early morning dawn: rain clouds, and the not too distant sound of thunder. Right around dawn we started to feel spitting rain. We sought shelter under the few remaining trees before we passed above treeline on the way to Teewinot—around 10,600 feet. We sat down for a moment, looked at the sky and decided to wait it out. 

With half an hour wasted, we started up the remaining 1,600 feet of 4th class and low 5th class terrain as the sun began to appear past the clouds that had been hanging over us. 

Setback #2: The Traverse comes with many challenges, one of which was getting water on route. There are only a few reliable locations on the Traverse where one can get water: 1) the Owen snow field; 2) the snow melt from the boulder field at the lower saddle; and 3) sometimes a small drip that can be formed from snow melt at the saddle between the Middle and South Tetons. Given the scarcity of the precious resource we stopped at the first sight of a slow drip coming off some ice. It was still early morning and the drip of water was painfully slow, but both Cvet and I had already drank a solid liter or more of water at that point gaining the first 3,000 feet of elevation. We filtered up a couple liters of water each and kept on moving. Unfortunately this water recon cost us another 15 to 20 minutes of valuable time. 

Cvetomir Dimov and Mason Risley on the summit of Teewinot Mountain with the Grand Teton and Mt Owen in background.

Setback #3: While Cvet and I were moving up the Teewinot we were passed by another climber who had no backpack or gear and was merely doing his cardio for the week. He said he had been up there many times. So when he passed us we watched him go towards a gully on the northern side of the east face (climbers right). We assumed he was on the standard route and decided to follow his path, although he quickly went out of sight. Upon reaching the gully he had passed through, we realized we were in steeper terrain and the path we were on was taking us off route. After some tenuous scrambling, we quickly reached the exposed summit of the Teewinot around 1000 hours. This was the first, but not the last, time we would head off-route. 

Setback #4: From the Teewinot we made quick work to gain Peak 11,840. At this point we crossed paths with another team also doing the Traverse over 3 days: Jackson, an arborist from Seattle, and Naphun, who was living in Lander, WY working for NOLS. Jackson and Naphun had a single 50m rope and the route beta indicated one needed a 60m rope to reach the ground on the last rappel off peak 11,840. Cvet and I were climbing with double 50m ropes, so we joined teams and rappelled off the west face in two raps: a single 50m rope followed by a double 50m rope passing the last rap station. In hindsight we should have done 3 raps as the rope got stuck when being pulled because we combined the second and third rap. At this point we ran into another group of climbers also doing the Traverse: On several other occasions during the Traverse we crossed paths with their team and worked together to figure out the route. 

Looking back at the East Prong and Koven Col from the base of Mt. Owen. We down climbed the exposed interface between the snow and shadowed rock face.

Near Miss #1: Scrambling up to the East Prong was pretty straight forward, however descending the East Prong into the Koven Col presented a tenuous problem of down climbing a wet rock face adjacent to a hard frozen 70 degree snow slope. The rock had no viable protection and a fall here would result in a quick slide down the snow slope to one’s death in a boulder field 600 feet below. Cvet and I gingerly soloed down the wet rock and on several occasions had to do foot jams in the gap between the ice and the rock. We had brought a singular glacier ax but the summer névé was so hard frozen that crampons and at least one tech tool would have been necessary to traverse it with any appreciable level of security. 

Setback #5: We scrambled up another several hundred feet from the Koven Col to the east facing Owen snowfields. Jackson and Naphun were ahead of us and had dropped their packs and soloed up the north east face of Owen. Cvetomir and I refilled our water then scouted out where to go next to gain the Koven Chimney route to summit Owen. On the southern side of the Owen summit block we found a notch leading to the west side of Owen’s south ridge with some rap anchors. This gully was our descent from Owen to reach the gunsight notch separating Owen’s south ridge from the Grandstand and north ridge of the Grand. We dropped our packs here and decided to solo up the 5.4 Koven Route which looked easy from where we were standing. However, Jackson and Naphun now came back into sight down-climbing the lower stretch of the Koven Route, they looked uncomfortable and sketched out so Cvet and I decided to bring one 50m rope and rap the route as opposed to down-climb it, which also gave us the option of roping up if we felt we needed it. We soloed up to the top of Owen and at the final summit block missed the small gash that gains the final chimney to the proper summit.  We walked to the north side of the summit block which provided an extremely exposed and unprotected mantle move to the summit. Backing off of this particular move we turned back, preparing to go down the route and keep moving towards the Grandstand when we found the correct chimney and gained the summit.

Awesome bivy site at 12,300 feet on the south ridge of Owen. The North Ridge of the Grand Teton beckons.

Near Miss #2: Returning to our packs after a few raps down the Koven Route we did a double 50m rap down what was probably the worst and most sketchy rap I had ever done. The rappel was through a choss filled death gully and the entire time I was going down I was terrified of the rope knocking a basketball sized block down on top of me. As soon as I was off rappel I ran far out of the path of the gully as Cvet came down knocking rocks down as he went. We continued navigating the terrain towards the gunsight and found a bivy site on the Owen side of the notch. It was about 7pm at this point, we still had about 2 hours of light left but we were both exhausted and decided to bivy there that night as opposed to getting up to the base of the north ridge that evening. This was the right call as the next morning it took us a solid 3 hours from that bivy just to reach the Grandstand which involved several double rope raps into the gunsight followed by a couple of pitches and more scrambling to reach the Grandstand. 

During this first day due to the amount of exertion from the elevation gain and altitude, both Cvetomir and I drank about 6 Liters and were still struggling to stay hydrated. We topped off 3 L of water each from the Owen snowfield with the hope of having 1L for dinner and breakfast and 2L of water for the North Ridge of the Grand the next day. 

Day 2 Moving Time: 13 hours 44 minutes

Starting out from our bivy spot at a leisurely 0640 we moved to the top of the gunsight and proceeded to do three full 50m raps to the bottom before I led up the first pitch out of the notch towards the Grandstand. Cvet swung leads and took point on the second pitch which was fun mellow climbing up large holds on golden granite. Scrambling the remaining several hundred feet of elevation brought us to the top of the Grandstand and the start of the North Ridge. Cvet and I swung leads on the ridge.  We reached a large chossy shelf and decided to take the Italian Crack variation of the ridge as opposed to the classic Chock Stone Chimney. This decision was made in the interest of saving time but ended up likely taking more time to complete than had we stuck with the original route plan. 

Setback #6: We had done our route research for the standard Chock Stone Chimney and didn’t have a solid grasp on where the Italian Crack variation was. Looking at topo’s and route beta for the Italian Crack we thought we saw the correct route. Jackson and Naphun also arrived and between the 4 of us, looking at the same topo and different guide book sources we had brought, we decided we had identified the correct line for the start, which should have been a 5.5 face up to a 5.6 roof. In reality our respective teams put up some interesting variations to the north ridge…neither variation is recommended. Because Jackson and Naphun were moving faster than us we let them lead up the route and figured we would follow them. It cost about 1.5 hours of time and seeing Jackson struggle on their line we took another line to the immediate left of theirs. 

Not The Italian Cracks! Grand Teton North Ridge Jackson-Naphun variation in red and the Cvetomir-Mason variation in yellow. 5.10b; Not recommended.

Cvetomir was taking the lead for this pitch and started up a small rock pillar to gain the face. Moving up the face the terrain quickly entered 5.7 and 5.8 territory before reaching a roof move which we both felt was around the 5.10a/b grade. We were very much off route and our only option was to continue up, as bailing from our position would have been more time consuming and dangerous than proceeding. I took the next lead up bulging 5.7 terrain trending left to a small alcove of dark rock. Out of rope and most of my pro, I finagled a solid anchor out of micro cam, a nut, and a tricam, and brought Cvet up. Cvetomir launched up the next pitch which was a grade more mellow and brought us to the second ledge of the north face. This allowed us to traverse west to resume the proper N. Ridge route. 

I took the next lead up the first set of chimneys trending left then around to a dual chimney system both of which had a chock stone in them. I went to the left for a full 50m pitch. Cvet swung leads and continued up the chimney for another cruxy chock stone feature topping out at a field of steep boulders in 4th class terrain at the top of the chimney. At this point we put the ropes in our packs and scrambled to the summit. Getting off route cost us valuable time and resulted in us taking 8 hours to complete the north ridge.

Despite being on the summit so late in the day, we still were stuck behind a couple parties rapping off after completing the Exum Ridge, they said there were 7 or 8 parties doing the Exum Ridge that day. We finished the raps off the Owen Spalding (OS) route at 1950 and started down the OS gully towards the lower saddle. It took us 1 hour to get down from the upper saddle to the lower saddle and during which time a strong wind and rain storm rolled through with gusts up to 35mph and intermittent heavy rain. We found a boulder bivy spot near the lower saddle water source and passed out for the night after another long day. Neither Cvetomir or I had any appetite and had to force down our dinner rations before turning in. 

Approximate line of route taken on North Ridge of the Grand. The middle section we were off route but made it go. The actual Italian Cracks route goes much further left on the northern aspect of the ridge.

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Day 3 Moving Time: 15 hours 15 minutes

The alarm went off at 0430 after another unrestful night of tossing, turning, waking up due to occasional rain pours, gusting winds and later by loud hikers ascending the OS route. As we woke up and looked down from the lower saddle we saw what seemed to be upwards of 30 to 40 headlamps hiking up from the moraines and to the OS gully. I woke up with a decent appetite and ate my breakfast ration and the dessert I meant to eat the night before but couldn't. We forced ourselves to drink a full liter of water and filtered another 2L each before starting up the Middle Teton at 0555. We reached the apex of the notch separating the Bonnie pinnacle from the north ridge of the Middle Teton at 0645 and simul-climbed the North Ridge up to the crux 5.6 crack pitch at the apex of the black dike running through the center of the Middle. 

Setback #7: We reached the summit of the Middle at 0815 and had good momentum going. Jackson and Naphun also caught up with us on the Middle Teton and we started down together. We promptly botched the descent and instead of heading towards the west end of the summit and the correct 3rd class descent, we went due south attracted by rap gear. We did a couple of 50m raps before realizing we were completely off course and cliffed out to our south and eastern aspects. We climbed back up to the summit of the Middle and found the correct descent path but wasted a good 2 hours in the process.  

Cvetomir and I scrambled up the South Teton which was just 3rd and 4th class terrain and then dropped down to the base of the Ice Cream Cone. The Ice Cream Cone had a fun 5.7 pitch which led up to the exceptionally exposed summit spike. We thought we were on easy street for the rest of the day with nothing but 4th class scrambling along the ridge, however route finding issues and the occasional 5.4 to 5.6 X rated move on these exposed ridges kept our progress fairly slow and methodical. 

Peak Number 7 - Cvetomir and Mason on the Summit of the South Teton

Near Miss #3: Between the Ice Cream Cone and Gilkey Tower we opted to rappel down to a notch as opposed to soloing up and over the first gendarme protecting the summit. Cvet saw a rap anchor, I looked over the cliff down into the notch and it didn’t look that bad, but once I rapped into it I found myself on another death slope of hard summer snow terminating in a boulder field 1,000 feet below me. I stayed on rappel as I climbed up the notch to get off the ice and onto chossy, loose death blocks to regain the notch. I should have yelled up to Cvet to go a different way but was too focused on not dying. 

Looking east from the summit of the South Teton, the remaining obstacles for the traverse: Ice Cream Cone and the Gilkey Tower in the foreground, Cloudveil and Nez Perce in upper center. Spalding peak is hidden by Gilkey Tower. The left sloping snow field peaking out from behind the Ice Cream Cone is part of the death gully where the rappel went poorly and we lost a rope.

He followed down on the rappel and did the same. I moved as carefully as I could on the steep loose rock to prevent sending a boulder down onto Cvet. Cvet dropped his belay plate at the rap and came down on a munter hitch. Once off rappel he attempted to pull the rope but due to having to climb up from the ice slope and the twists in the rope from the munter hitch, the rope didn’t budge. We looked at each other and in about 2 seconds both agreed to split the cost of the rope and abandon it, figuring it would easily cost us an hour or two to recover, precious time which we couldn’t afford to lose.  We were climbing on two 50m half ropes and still had one more 50m half rope if we needed to rappel anything else, which we did later on Cloudveil dome.  

After spending hours of solo down climbing and scrambling the 4th and low 5th class terrain on the ridge to Cloudveil dome we reached it’s summit by 1550. We were both fairly tired and I was mentally fatigued more than anything else: being hyper focused while soloing exposed terrain for hours on end really drains you. 

Cvet and I looked at Nez Perce. We looked at our watches. We looked at the sky. 

Setback #8: Clouds were rolling in from the west, we were still at least two solid hours away from the summit of Nez Perce and we only had one of our ropes left. We decided to get off Cloudveil Dome and descend. 

Having successfully hit 11 of the 12 peaks on the Traverse, and survived with minimal gear on the mountains for 3 days, we were satisfied with our effort. That was the right call. Forty minutes into our descent a thunderstorm rolled in with lightning hitting the ridge we were just on and rain pummeling us. 

We got back to the van at Lupine Meadows just as the last light was fading around 2115. By 2200 hours the storm front rolled in with strong winds and heavy rain for the next three days. A solid foot of snow dumped on the top of the Grand with that storm shutting the upper mountains down for the next week. Cvetomir and I met up with Jackson and Naphun the next morning having a late breakfast at Bubba’s in Jackson, celebrating our successful traverse and thinking about the next climb.

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Data for Future Success

The main things I wish I had done beforehand was more route research, which possibly could have prevented the slow down on Owen, getting off-route on the Italian Cracks, and descending the Middle. It is a complicated environment and it’s easy to be tempted into following an obvious line which leads you off-route, or a tat anchor that sends you on a dangerous rappel, or another climbing party which may or may not be on the route you intended to follow.

Even with all of the setbacks and near misses, we learned a lot. Mistakes are what give us the data for future success. Making tough gametime decisions in the mountains just sharpened our craving and capacity for safer, more streamlined, epic adventures.

Elevation profile of the Traverse.

The Live Your Dream Grant is powered by The North Face.

CLIMB: World Champion Natalia Grossman Talks Community and Trying Hard

Episode 03

CLIMB: World Champion Natalia Grossman Talks Community and Trying Hard

Bouldering World Champion Natalia Grossman is one of this year's winners of the Robert Hicks Bates Award, an award we celebrate at our upcoming Annual Benefit Gala. We decided to sit down with Natalia and talk competition, community, and trying hard, to get more of a picture of how she thinks as a competitor that has immense potential to keep taking the climbing world by storm.

A Day of Climbing: Climb United Highlights A Day of Climbing for 5 Climbers Across the Country

Climb United is about bringing us all together, through the thing that unites us: our passion for climbing. In many ways, fully sharing our passion for climbing requires us to break down the barriers that make it harder for some individuals and communities to access climbing. In other instances, it means highlighting that we are all climbers. But even as we are all climbers, we each experience climbing, and any given climbing day, in our own way.

Below, dive into a day of climbing, with our friends Eddie, Genevive, Mario, Sonya, and Rodel.

CLIMB: Soloing El Cap With Adrien Costa

That’s right. You can now take a deep dive into your favorite American Alpine Club content via your headphones, car stereo, and more. The drive to work—or your favorite hang board routine—just got way more interesting.

Episode 02

CLIMB: Soloing El Cap with Adrien Costa, Catalyst Grant Winner and Adaptive Climber

Adrien Costa never imagined he would be looking up at El Cap, ready to put in his own attempt on the wall, with one leg of flesh and bone and the other made of metal and hydraulics. In this episode, the AAC interviews Adrien about his journey from pro cyclist to daring adaptive climber with a taste for soloing, and digs into the details of his proud rope solo ascent of El Cap funded by an AAC Catalyst grant.

“That’s all anyone really wants is just to be seen for who you they are, and not to be judged by the way they look or the things they struggle with. Cause at the end of the day, we all struggle with things, just some struggles are more visible than others.”

— Adrien Costa

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Show Notes:

Adrien’s Trip Report: Soloing Tangerine Trip, on El Cap

Oregon Adaptive Sports

Apply to the Catalyst Grant

Apply to all AAC Grants

Learn about Lauren Delauney Miller

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Episodes will typically fall into four categories: Climb; Protect; Educate; Connect.

Climb episodes will be just that—about climbs big and small, and the things they make us realize, in conversation with AAC community members.

Protect episodes will dive into the nuances of policy and advocacy issues that matter most to climbers.

Educate episodes will span the logistics of safety and accidents, as well as the history of climbing and how it can inform our present.

Connect episodes will cover the social side of our climbing community, including important conversations about equity and inclusion that have emerged from our work with the Climb United initiative.

Check back here, the AAC Stories Archive, to find the latest episodes and show notes, and subscribe to the American Alpine Club Podcast at your favorite podcast source: Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.

A Trip To Remember: A Story From the Catalyst Grant

Adapted from the 2021 trip report written by Adrien Costa.

The Catalyst Grant awards funds to individuals and teams who face barriers in accessing the climbing community and identify with an underrepresented group.

I free-wheeled down the tree-lined road, shaking out the legs that had just taken me up and over Tioga Pass from Lee Vining on yet another 5+ hour training ride. Up high, much higher than the tallest pines, loomed the world’s most famous granite wall. And up on El Cap, one could make out tiny dots stubbornly inching their way up, giving massive scale to the wall. At night, the dots turned into a constellation of stars, almost indistinguishable from the night sky. How I longed to be one of those dots, to feel the air and the wind below my feet, to see the trees in the meadow below as little crowns of broccoli, to have no concerns more pressing than scaling this cliff. But I had other things to do with my life. It was only 2014. My dream of becoming a professional road cyclist was turning closer to reality every day. All I had to do was keep pedaling. This improbable, half-insane climbing desire could find a resting place, for now, in the deepest corners of my brain.  

Seven years later, I whipped my truck into the small pullout below the boulder and scree field leading up to El Cap’s shorter, but ridiculously steep, southeast face. The clock reads 4:46 AM. I step out and stand on one leg of bone and flesh, the other of metal and hydraulics. I am no longer a professional road cyclist. I no longer have two legs. Looking up at the dark  outline of El Cap, I wonder whose life I am now living. I sure as hell never expected mine to look like this.  

Adrien on a previous climbing adventure.

The universe has this rather bothersome tendency to remind us that the only constant is  change, the only sure thing is that nothing is certain. I learned this the hard way. Us humans fight this, often subconsciously. We try to fight change by controlling everything we can, including our accomplishments and our material possessions. It can quickly become dangerously difficult to parse the imagined from the real, the tangible from the illusion.

I felt that I needed an adventure to shake myself out of the daze of daily life I found myself trapped in. I wanted to see if I could find a sliver of peace or wisdom up there. But I mostly just wanted to simplify my existence. It would be just me, my gear, and this rock. No illusions. Only, as I was about to find out, a whole lot of work.  

Climbing a full-length, Grade VI route on El Capitan, by myself, was my big goal for the second half of my rock climbing season. I see and feel, on a daily basis, how much assumption goes on in the climbing world around ability and disability. I wanted to shatter this paradigm; to prove that, with the right support, anybody can accomplish anything they put their heart and soul into. I wanted this climb to be a call for much-needed inclusion and open-mindedness in our climbing community.  

For me personally, this climb represented a big stepping-stone in my climbing, moving towards more committing, more involved multi-day objectives as I seek to continue developing myself as a versatile climber, comfortable in all media.  

Zodiac, Adrien’s original plan, was too wet.

I finished shuttling my two loads to the base just as the sun was rising. My original plan was to climb Zodiac (C3), a 16-pitch route of moderate, clean aid that has frequently been referred to as a good introduction to “real aid” on El Cap. But a recent storm had soaked the first few pitches of the route, and I didn’t want to start a 4-day odyssey soaking wet. Luckily, I had a topo and gear for the nearby Tangerine Trip (5.9 C3+), which appeared steep enough to be completely dry. Between its consistent overhang, a huge traverse on the fifth pitch, and the fact that this route sees a bit less traffic than Zodiac, it was all starting to feel much more committing, and exciting, than my original plan.

I decided to start the trip via the first pitch of Lost in America, shown as “C3F Bad Fall” in the  topo, which proved to be one of the cruxes of the route. I built my first anchor, cloved off a couple pieces low, and started up the pitch. My last piece of good protection was only 20 feet off the ground was well aware that blowing any piece on this first pitch could result in a ground fall. Very gingerly I inched my way up, breathing a huge sigh of relief upon regaining moderate terrain. I looked at my phone and realized that close to two hours had gone by. The next couple leads took some time as I got back in the rhythm of “real” aid climbing. I got my ropes fixed to the top of pitch 4, and having found a small ledge system below, decided to bivy there. It was a bit demoralizing to be just a couple hundred feet off the ground after a very long  day of work, but I set my alarm for early and tried to enjoy the opportunity to rest.  

The next morning, I broke down the portaledge, sipped my coffee, pooped in a homemade WAG bag, and jugged and hauled to my high point. Here, I finally joined Tangerine Trip proper for the committing 160-foot leftward traverse pitch. The lead was fine, albeit long, but rapping the lead line, and then cleaning the pitch, was as demanding as leading itself. The next couple pitches went well, but still slower than I would’ve liked.  

I forced down some plain ramen for dinner, and was stoked to be able to hang my prosthetic leg with me inside my small portaledge’s fly to charge its battery for the night. This is something I have to keep tabs on during any overnight adventure, and is something I have paid the cost of being complacent with.  

By the end of the following day, I was really starting to feel the stress simmering. A stuck tag line had cost me a lot of time and mental energy earlier in the day. I was also running out of water and knew I needed to top out the next day. But in order to do this, I’d need to fix one more pitch in the dark. The issue was that my headlamp was running out of juice, and my spare batteries were already dead. The stress and pressure was compounding. I had to act.

So I set off, keeping my headlamp as dim as possible, and hoping I wouldn’t get led astray. I tried to climb as efficiently as possible. It turns out that this pitch is also the route’s chossiest. It’s hard to believe there could be any loose rock up there, but I found it in spades as I quested upwards, always upwards, into the dark.  

This was by far the mental crux of the climb. I felt so alone, so vulnerable, so close yet so far from the top, with very little margin for error. I cannot describe the relief that swept through my body once I could faintly make out the line of bolts of the anchor.  

I tucked into my sleeping bag just before midnight, but was stoked on a good day of work, and confident that I’d be standing on top the next day.  

I definitely had not anticipated the nonstop focus that I had to endure for four days straight. It wore me down, but by the last day I found a good rhythm, and started letting my body move on autopilot through the steps. Stack haul line. Stack tag line. Set up lead anchor. Select gear for pitch. Put on GriGri and Microtrax. Climb the pitch. Tag up anchor and haul kit. Fix lead and haul lines. Rap the pitch. Release the bags. Clean the anchor. Jug and clean the pitch. Haul. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

While free-climbing on the last couple pitches, I finally let myself have dreams of pizza.  Touching the tree on top was surreal, and walking felt foreign, but more pressing at that moment were water, food, and figuring out how to get my 100+ lbs of gear, sprawled into various growing piles, off the mountain in one load.  

What ensued was hell. With my haulbag on my back, a light backpack on my chest, a trekking pole in one hand and my portaledge in another, I stumbled and yardsaled my way down the East Ledges descent. I broke my prosthetic foot on the descent—under so much weight, the carbon fiber splintered from nothing more than a little trip. I could still walk (or hobble), but I could hear the fibers crackling with every step.  

Four hours after leaving the tree on top, I walked in disbelief into the El Cap picnic area. The Trip was complete. 

Looking back, I realize that aid soloing is a lot like pressing the fast-forward button on life. Every minute action, every decision you make has consequences that are felt, and must be dealt with, without delay. And these consequences range from a minor inconvenience, and time wasted, to time not really existing anymore for you. The constant low grade stress for days on end was exhausting, and yet there was no room for fear, nor any time to sit back. Only action could push my ropes further up the wall. Perhaps this is indeed an apt metaphor for life.  

I have also come to realize that we have no option but to embrace change and make the most of the circumstances we are presented with. Life has taken me in directions I could never have envisioned as that fresh-faced boy riding his bike through the Valley. But by adapting and trusting the process, I was able to become, for a short little while, one of those tiny dots on that big, big wall.  

A Note of Thanks:

To see the AAC come out with the Catalyst Grant, promoting inclusion and diversity in a sport which needs it so desperately, was incredibly meaningful and motivating. I deeply value what results when we invite more diverse folks into our community. When we do, we strengthen and deepen the human connections we share while recreating in the natural world we all love.  

And I can honestly say that the folks at High-Fives Foundation are changing lives. Their work greatly decreases the barriers to adaptive athletes’ participation in our favorite outdoor sports. Having worked in the adaptive sports world, I cannot overstate the importance of the sense of agency, independence, and community that sport can bring an individual, and how these experiences can transform the course of someone’s life. Rock on!

From Ocean to Peak: A Story from the Live Your Dream Grant

Sinclair is a dramatic, 6,800-ft granite peak rising above the Lynn Canal, across the water from Haines, AK. Reaching the top involves kayaking across the canal, landing on the beach by Yaldagalga Creek, bushwhacking to the back of the valley, and scrambling to the ridge where the technical climbing begins.

In this exhibit, Ceri Godinez shares the story of her ascent of Sinclair through the Live Your Dream Grant. The epic pictures will have you begging to climb it yourself.

The Live Your Dream Grant is powered by The North Face.

Overarching Community: A Story from the Live Your Dream Grant

Adapted from the 2019 Live Your Dream Grant trip report by James Xu.

In November 2019, a team of Americans and Canadians, including AAC Member and Live Your Dream Grant recipient, James Xu, met up with a team of Chinese highliners and embarked on a trip to the Getu River village, located in the province of Guizhou, China. Located south of the provincial capital of Guiyang, it is home to the ethnic Miao Chinese and large karst-limestone mountains with massive caves carved out by ancient rivers. This beautiful rural region of China experienced a boom in climbing development in 2011 with the Petzl Roctrip, and since then has seen more development catering to climbers and tourists. The team’s goal was to connect with the Chinese highline community and to rig an aesthetic line in the Great Arch and another highline between the CMDI Wall and Pussa Yan, as well as climb around the area.

Explore the exhibit below to get a taste of James’ epic trip.

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You can experience James’ trip in video form thanks to Canadian-Chinese slackliner Gerald Situ, who captured a beautiful snapshot of the experience.

The Live Your Dream Grant is powered by The North Face.

Buried Treasure

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Symon Welfringer during acclimatization for the south face of Sani Pakkush in Pakistan. The view is over the Toltar Glacier and up the Baltar Glacier, looking into the heart of the Batura Muztagh and beyond. Photo by Pierrick Fine

11 Minute Read

A Personal Guide to the 2021 AAJ

By Dougald MacDonald, Editor

Even though COVID-19 forced an abridgment of the American Alpine Journal—about 150 pages shorter than normal—it’s still very unlikely anyone has read the 2021 edition cover to cover, except for the editor in chief. That’s me. Each year, while editing the AAJ, I see gems in these pages that many readers may miss. So, here’s my annual insider’s guide to some memorable pieces from the 2021 edition, plus bonus photos that appear exclusively online. (To see the Buried Treasure guide to the 2020 AAJ, click here.) I hope these notes inspire you to take a second look at that AAJ sitting on your bedside table or in the reading basket in your bathroom. You never know what you might find!

This online feature is made possible by Hilleberg the Tentmaker, lead sponsor of the AAJ’s Cutting Edge Podcast. 

North Howser Tower, Canada

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Enticing double cracks on Voodoo Chile, a new route in the Bugaboos. Photo by Alik Berg

If you judge by Instagram likes, the most popular AAJ story of 2021 was Uisdean Hawthorn’s report about a new route up North Howser Tower in the Bugaboos. Yet I’m betting most people didn’t even notice the short report in the AAJ, mainly because this cool photo of an alluring double-cracks pitch—which attracted all the Instagram attention—appeared only online. With 11 pitches and a short 5.11+ crux, Voodoo Chile is a relatively accessible route up North Howser’s daunting west face—at least compared with the huge routes farther left. Every AAJ is packed with enticing objectives, but nothing is more enticing than a route one might actually try someday!

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Photo by Bradford McArthur

Call of the Sirens, Canada

The AAJ is filled with great writing, but unless you’re interested in a particular climb or region, you might never read many stand-out pieces. Lots of readers likely missed Jacob Cook’s saga about his three-year quest to climb a multi-pitch slab testpiece in Squamish, British Columbia, originally bolted by the late Marc-André Leclerc. In my opinion, no writer has done a better job of capturing the frustrating and occasionally magical intricacies of high-end slab climbing. Plus, the story has a cool surprise ending. If you didn’t see it, turn to page 103 of this year’s AAJ or read the full story here.

Sani Pakkush, Pakistan

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Symon Welfringer during acclimatization for the south face of Sani Pakkush in Pakistan. The view is over the Toltar Glacier and up the Baltar Glacier, looking into the heart of the Batura Muztagh and beyond. Photo by Pierrick Fine

It’s difficult to publish panoramic photos effectively in the AAJ, especially when there’s a climber or other key element right in the middle of the photo, as is the case with the gorgeous image above. To make the most of a panorama in our 6-by-9-inch format, you’d have to run it across a full spread in the book, and in this case the climber would have disappeared into the “gutter” between the pages.

I always encourage readers to visit the online versions of stories like Symon Welfringer’s article about the south face of Sani Pakkush, because most of our stories have extra photos at the website. Pro tip: Drag photos of interesting peaks and walls to the desktop of your computer to blow them up for close examination.

 Pik Communism, Tajikistan

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Iron-hard ice on the bitterly cold north face of Pik Communism in January 2020.

While editing the AAJ, I often think of the classic essay “Games Climbers Play,” by Lito Tejada-Flores, originally published in the 1967 Ascent. In a concept that seems obvious today but was novel at the time, Lito proposed that climbing was no longer one sport but instead “a collection of differing (though) related activities, each with its own adepts, distinctive terrain, problems and satisfactions, and perhaps most important, its own rules.” The games he outlined included bouldering, crag climbing, big walls, super-alpine, and more. Since then, the “games climbers play” have continued to expand in number and complexity, often providing new ways for climbers to enjoy mountains relatively close to home. 

All of which is a roundabout way to call attention to a report from Tajikistan in AAJ 2021, describing a new route up 7,495-meter Pik Communism, climbed by a Kyrgyz and Russian team in January 2020. The story also reveals a new “game” pursued by certain climbers in the former Soviet Union: the Winter Snow Leopard. Traditionally, Snow Leopards are mountaineers who have climbed the five great high-altitude mountains of the former USSR. Until 2020, this feat had never been completed in winter, though Kazakh climber Valery Khrishchaty climbed four of the five during the late 1980s and early ’90s. With his ascent of Pik Communism in January 2020, Sergey Seliverstov completed the quintet, followed shortly thereafter by Alexey Usatykh and Mikail Danichkin during the same expedition.

Mt. Logan, Canada

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A long way from anywhere during the 2019 ski around Mt. Logan. Photo by Thomas Delfino

We used the COVID-19 travel hiatus to catch up on some expeditions in the AAJ that we had missed earlier. Among these reports, my personal favorite is one that I’d been chasing for a couple of years: an extraordinary French expedition to Mt. Logan in Canada in the spring of 2019. Thomas Delfino, Grégory Douillard, Alexandre Marchesseau, and Hélias Millerioux started from the village of Yakutat, Alaska, and over the next 48 days, team members walked, skied, and rafted more than 650 kilometers in a great arc around Mt. Logan. Along the way, three of the climbers summited Canada’s highest peak and made the most complete ski (and snowboard and monoski) descent of the enormous and technical east ridge. It was a tour de force, and as often happens in the AAJ, we had nowhere near enough pages to highlight their incredible story, but at the AAJ website you’ll find a map, lots of good photos, and a wonderful film of the expedition.

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Oso Scary, Wyoming

The roped-solo first free ascent of the north face of Sundance Pinnacle in the Wind River Range was impressive. But it’s the subsequent bear story (and the brilliant route name) that’s most memorable in Kevin Heinrich's short report in AAJ 2021. His topo is pretty classy, too. Find Kevin’s Oso Scary story at publications.americanalpineclub.org.

Joe Brown, 1930 – 2020

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Photo by John Cleare

In AAJ 2021 we published In Memoriam tributes to three great mountaineers from the United Kingdom: Joe Brown, Hamish MacInnes, and Doug Scott. The Joe Brown tribute was written by Ed Douglas, the leading mountaineering journalist in Great Britain in recent years. As with many of Ed’s articles, it is filled with insights and personal remembrances made possible by a long career of writing about (and climbing with) legends of the sport. I encourage you to read it at page 210 of this year’s book or at our website, or check out the longer version from which our piece was adapted, originally published at the British Mountaineering Council website. Ed serves as editor of The Alpine Journal, the annual publication of the Alpine Club in the U.K., which has been published since 1863—that’s more than 65 years older than the American Alpine Journal. Each year, Ed helps out the AAJ in many ways—it’s an honor to collaborate with him. 

Gros Morne National Park, Canada

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Casey Shaw and Joe Terravechhia in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland.

Since the 1990s, successive editors of the AAJ have been hoping to publish a comprehensive article on the gigantic ice climbs of western Newfoundland. Joe Terravecchia and Casey Shaw, the leading protagonists of ice climbing in Gros Morne National Park, weren’t exactly opposed to publishing their climbs, but they did seem to stall for quite a long time—just long enough to climb all the plums. More recently, they’ve both been too busy with work and other pursuits to invest much time in writing an article. It took a third party—Alden Pellett from Vermont, himself one of the leading activists in Newfoundland ice climbing—to herd the cats and make this story happen.

I was especially happy to cajole Casey Shaw and Bernie Mailhot into writing personal accounts of some of their Newfoundland climbs. Both are delightful stories—Casey’s a loving account of the 1999 first ascent of  Captains Courageous, the tallest ice climb in eastern North America, and Bernie’s a very funny tale about a 2004 trip that epitomized the area’s difficult and rapidly changing conditions. Both pieces focused on the Newfoundlanders the two men befriended—a rich reminder that climbing expeditions are almost always as much about the people you meet as the routes you climb. 

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This year in review and the AAJ’s Cutting Edge podcast are both presented by Hilleberg the Tentmaker. 2021 was Hilleberg’s 50th year in business; it started as a forestry products company in Sweden and morphed into the tent maker we know today. Visit Hilleberg’s website to order “The Tent Handbook,” their uniquely informative catalog.

Together We Expand: A Story from the McNeill-Nott Grant

Jewell Lund and Chantel Astorga are known for their impressive ascent of the Denali Diamond (7,800’, WI5+ 5.9 A3 or M6 A1/ M7) on the southwest face of Denali in 2015. According to the AAJ, this was the seventh reported ascent of the route and the first time it had been climbed by an all-female team.

A look into the vault of AAC-grant-funded trip reports reveals that Jewell and Chantel’s partnership was truly cemented in 2014, a year prior to the Denali Diamond, thanks to the AAC’s McNeill-Nott Award and their ascent of Polarchrome (5.7 A1) on Mt. Huntington in the Alaska Range.

This is the story of their Polarchrome adventure.

*This story is best told with the help of vibrant and dynamic photography. Dive into this Spark Exhibit to see these photos come alive alongside this story.

All the Sweeter: A Story from the Jones Backcountry Adventure Grant

A misty morning bike ride to camp. The remains of an earlier avalanche to keep you on your toes. The whisper of a rogue bear roaming the Park...

Backcountry snowboarding in Glacier National Park never felt so good.

In 2018, amateur splitboarders Jaimie Vincent and team members Kaitlyn, Bryant, and Amanda were able to tour Glacier National Park (GNP) via bike and splitboard, thanks to the Jones Live Like Liz Award. Explore epic images and a thoughtful retelling of their adventure below.

*This story is best told with the help of vibrant and dynamic photography. Dive into this Spark Exhibit to see these photos come alive alongside this story.

Whiskey-Fueled Hopes: A Story from the TINCUP Partner in Adventure Grant

Our adventure partners are our life-savers, our hype-men, our drinking partners, our mentors and educators. We share rain-soaked tents with them, laugh with them, and trade epic stories with them. Our partners in adventure make it all happen.

Thanks to the Partner in Adventure Grant, sponsored by TINCUP Mountain Whiskey, Jamie and Sam made the adventure happen. The two joined forces to take a ski mountaineering course on Mt. Baker, and though there was plenty of learning happening, shenanigans also ensued.

Explore the exhibit below to experience the shenanigans for yourself!

*This story is best told with the help of vibrant and dynamic photography. Dive into this Spark Exhibit to see these photos come alive alongside this story.

The First Ascent of Link Sar: A Story from the Cutting Edge Grant

Photo by AAC Board Member Graham Zimmerman

Link Sar is a 7,041-meter peak in the Kondus Valley of the Pakistan Karakoram, rising above the Kaberi Glacier. By the time Steve Swenson's team arrived in June 2019, at least eight previous expeditions had failed in attempts to make the first ascent of this peak. Finally, in 2019, the dream team of Steve Swenson, Mark Richey, Chris Wright, and Graham Zimmerman made the first ascent of Link Sar, partially funded by the Cutting Edge Grant.

Explore the exhibit below for a first-hand account and breathtaking pictures of the ascent.

*This story is best told with the help of vibrant and dynamic photography. Dive into this Spark Exhibit to see these photos come alive alongside this story.

The Fine Line of Insanity: Stories from the Mountaineering Fellowship Fund Grant

Mountaineering, like most disciplines of climbing, turns out to be a lot more about failing than success. The Mountaineering Fellowship Fund Grant offers opportunities for young mountaineers to cut their teeth on the extraordinary and bold limits of alpinism. But before the cutting edge can be tested, mountaineers have to come to terms with the immense amount of respect, strategy, grit, suffering, and failure that is central to this discipline. In 2013, Mountaineering Fellowship Fund Grant (MFFG) winners Zach Clanton, adventuring in the Alaska Range, and Amy Ness and Myles Moser, adventuring in Patagonia, each respectively took a long look at the “fine line of insanity” that is the flip side of the coin of adventure alpinism. On one side of the coin is the glory of exquisite rock, ice, and a clear summit. The other side is mortal danger. The cutting edge requires riding this fine line of insanity, and doing so with eyes wide open.

Explore the exhibit below to experience the fine line alongside Zach, Amy, and Myles.

*This story is best told with the help of vibrant and dynamic photography. Dive into this Spark Exhibit to see these photos come alive alongside this story.

Ripple Effects: A Story from the TINCUP Partner in Adventure Grant

Thanks to the TINCUP Partner in Adventure Grant, leadership at Chicago Adventure Therapy are making waves to increase equitable access to outdoor climbing. By putting safe rock climbing knowledge in the hands of an organization that is already getting Chicago youth outside, a simple anchor building class can have huge ripple effects that shape the future of our climbing community.

Explore this exhibit to see how the magic happened.

*This story is best told with the help of vibrant and dynamic photography. Dive into this Spark Exhibit to see these photos come alive alongside this story.

Accidentes de escalada en Norteamérica

Bienvenido a la inauguración de la edición en español de Accidents in North American Climbing. 

Desde 1949, American Alpine Club ha publicado este libro anualmente. Nuestro objetivo es ayudar a que nuestros lectores escalen de manera más segura, es por eso que compartimos historias y lecciones de accidentes de escalada en todo Norteamérica. Hoy, con esta traducción hecha por primera vez del libro de Accidentes, buscamos compartir estas lecciones con escaladores de habla hispana en todo el mundo. 

Los reportes en este libro documentan y analizan accidentes de escalada técnica y de esquí de montaña que ocurrieron durante el 2019. No incluimos todos los accidentes de escalada, no obstante, intentamos reportar los incidentes más educativos. (Las “Tablas” en la parte trasera de este documento brindan información básica de más accidentes). La traducción al español es un poco más corta que el libro en Inglés. Sin embargo, todos los reportes que hemos publicado en inglés se pueden encontrar en publications.americanalpineclub.org. 

Nuestros traductores utilizaron los términos y frases de escalada que se escuchan más frecuentemente en México. En el futuro, planeamos incluir un glosario de términos de escalada empleados en varios países de habla hispana. 

Adidas Outdoor patrocina generosamente Accidents in North American Climbing en español. Estamos muy agradecidos con adidas por apoyar la educación de escaladores en todo el mundo. 

Favor de compartir este PDF con amigos, cordadas y organizaciones de escalada. Las correcciones y solicitudes para enviarnos reportes de accidentes en México, Estados Unidos y Canadá son bienvenidas. Usted puede ponerse en contacto con nosotros por medio del correo: [email protected]. 

Le deseamos una escalada segura y feliz.

Welcome to the inaugural Spanish edition of Accidents in North American Climbing! 

This book has been published annually by the American Alpine Club since 1949, sharing stories and lessons from climbing accidents throughout North America. Now, with this first-ever translation of the Accidents book, we aim to share these lessons with Spanish-speaking climbers throughout the world.

The reports in this book analyze technical climbing and ski mountaineering accidents during the year 2019. The Spanish edition is slightly shorter than the original English book. You can find every report we’ve ever published, in English, at publications.americanalpineclub.org.

Our translators used the climbing terms and phrases commonly used in Mexico. In the future, we plan to develop a glossary of climbing terminology for various other Spanish-speaking countries and regions, including Puerto Rico. 

This project received generous sponsorship from adidas Outdoor. We are very grateful to adidas for supporting the education of climbers around the world. 

Please share this PDF with your friends, climbing partners, and climbing organizations. For more info, contact us at [email protected].

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¡Descarga el libro aquí!

Este PDF se puede descargar de manera gratuita. Favor de compartirlo con amigos y cordadas.

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Los Voluntarios

La edición en español de Accidents in North American Climbing fue traducida por un equipo muy dedicado de voluntarios de tres países. Sus nombres están enlistados a continuación. ¡Sin ellos, esto no habría sido posible!

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Download the book here!

The Spanish PDF is free to download. Please share this book with your friends and climbing partners.

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Volunteers

The Spanish edition of Accidents in North American Climbing was translated by a hard-working team of volunteers in three countries. Their names are listed below. We could not have done this without them!

Omar Gaytán, director 

Symon Ardila

Austen Bernier

Bernardo Beteta

Néstor Y. Durán Nungaray

Alma Esteban

Tiffany Hensley

Molly Herber

Jasna Hodzic

AAC Announces 2021 Cutting Edge Grant Winners

Photo credits: Kurt Ross of Jess Roskelley on Baba Hussein, 2018 Cutting Edge Grant Recipient

The American Alpine Club and Black Diamond are pleased to announce the 2021 Cutting Edge Grant recipients. The Cutting Edge Grant continues the Club’s 100-year tradition and seeks to fund individuals planning expeditions to remote areas featuring unexplored mountain ranges, unclimbed peaks, difficult new routes, first free ascents, or similar world-class pursuits. Objectives featuring a low-impact style and leave-no-trace mentality are looked upon with favor. For the 2021 grant cycle, Black Diamond is a proud sponsor and partner in supporting cutting-edge alpinism. $25,000 has been awarded to six recipients.

Ryan Driscoll will receive a grant to attempt the North Face (aka The Medusa Face) of Mount Neacola in Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.

Nick Aiello-Popeo will receive a grant to attempt the unclimbed 6,000-vertical-foot West Face of Ganesh I (7,422 meters/24,350 feet; also called Yangra). This Himalayan giant is the highest peak in the Ganesh Himal in eastern Nepal, on the Tibetan border. The mountain has only seen one recoded ascent, from the north in 1955. Himalayan historian Damien Gildea described the objective as “one of the biggest unclimbed faces in the Himalaya.”

Matthew Cornell will receive a grant to attempt the West Face of the North Horseman, and the West Face of Pyramid Peak in Alaska's Revelation Mountains.

Vitaliy Musiyenko will receive a grant to attempt new routes on the North Face of Melanphulan (6,573 M) and the South Face of Nuptse in the Khumbu Region. Musiyenko had previously been awarded the Cutting Edge Grant in 2020, but the expedition was postponed due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

And lastly, Sam Hennessey will receive a grant to attempt the East Face of Jannu East.

The Cutting Edge Grant is sponsored by Black Diamond, who’s equipment has helped climbers and alpinist to reach their summits for decades. Black Diamond is an integral partner in supporting climbers of all abilities and disciplines, with a long history of supporting climbers and their dreams through grants like the Cutting Edge Grant. Applications for the Cutting Edge Grant are accepted each year from October 1st through November 30th.

For more information, visit americanalpineclub.org/cutting-edge-grant

For more information on Black Diamond, visit blackdiamondequipment.com

Partner In Adventure Grant Recipients Announced

What is the Partner in Adventure Grant?

The Partner in Adventure Grant, created in collaboration with TINCUP Whiskey, funds educational opportunities from local guide services for you and your partner to take your pursuit to the next level. Open to duos of all experience levels, the grant will award partners up to $1,000 for the educational opportunity of your choice.

2020 TINCUP Partner in Adventure Grant Recipients

The American Alpine Club and TINCUP Whiskey are pleased to announce the winners of the 2020 TINCUP Partner in Adventure Grant. In total, $20,000 was awarded to 20 partners in adventure.

A partner in adventure is there with you as you dream up the next big pursuit. They encourage you to push beyond your comfort zone and motivate you to explore the world in ways that are meaningful to you. They galvanize you to take on new challenges, grow your skills, and imagine new adventures, by their side.

Congratulations to the 2020 grant winners, and cheers to the many adventures that await them.

• Madeline & Katie – AK | NOLS Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician 

• Kit & Emma – AK | Avalanche Professional 1 Course

• Angela & Emily – NY | Multi-Pitch Climbing

• Mick & Kaiwen - WA | AIARE Level I Avalanche Course & Mt. Baker guided climb

• Daniel & Jessie – OH | Introduction to Mountaineering - Mt. Washington, 3-day guided climb

• Geoffrey & Dave - MA | Introduction to Mountaineering - Mt. Rainier, 4-day guided climb

• Alex & Jason – ID | AIARE Level I Avalanche Course

• Marissa & Mary – AK | AIARE Level I Avalanche Course

• Shauna & Idaliza – AZ | Introduction to Mountaineering – North Cascades guided climb

• James & Patrick – OR | AMGA Single Pitch Instructor Course

• Lucas & Manny – CO | AIARE Level I Avalanche Course

• Christopher & Andrew – MD | Accelerated Mountaineering Course

• Jamie & Sam – WA | Ski Mountaineering Course – Mt. Baker, 3-day guided course

• Andrew & Melissa – TN | Gym to Crag Course

• Janelle & Luke – CO | AIARE Level I Avalanche Course

• Jason & Jason – WA | Glacier Travel & Crevasse Rescue Course

• Laura & Andrea – IL | Anchors I, II & III Courses

• Amanpreet & Soyna – CT | Rock Climbing Development Series, Level II Course

• Adrien & Connor – OR | Guided Climb of Mt. Baker

• Ellen & Lindsay – AK | Glacier Travel & Crevasse & 6-day Mountaineering Course

TINCUP Partner in Adventure Grant recipients Angela and Emily.

“Emily and I have dreamed about traveling to my homeland, Vietnam to climb and share in the whole culture of the country my family is from. But in order to take a trip like this, we need to seriously step up our technical skills game.”

— Angela

Live Your Dream Grant Applications Now Open

This is your climbing club | This is your climbing grant.

Application period: January 15th through February 28th

The Live Your Dream grant, powered by The North Face (TNF), was founded on the belief that our definitions of exploration and our goals are unique to each of us. Meaningful exploration isn’t limited to the highest peaks in the farthest reaches of the world. Your local gym, crag, and backyard mountains are equally important resources to help stoke inspiration for adventure. When we search out new experiences, overcome obstacles, and connect with each other, through exploration, we change ourselves.

This grant supports the every-day adventurers who harness this mindset for their own exploration. We are looking for individuals who have a personally ambitious climbing goal, a desire to take their abilities to the next level, and want to share the power of exploration with their communities.

Open to all ages, all experience levels, and all climbing disciplines—from bouldering to big walls, alpinism to ski mountaineering, peak bagging to bolt clipping, and everything in between—we encourage you to dream big, let curiosity lead you, and apply.

Buried Treasure

An all-time base camp in the Khane Valley of Pakistan. Photo courtesy of Konstantin Markevich

A personal guide to less-visible highlights of the 2020 AAJ 

By Dougald MacDonald, Editor

The American Alpine Journal is a 368-page book, and there’s probably only one person who reads it cover to cover: me. As editor in chief, I see and read everything multiple times, and each year a few parts of the book are particularly memorable—because of the quality of the writing or photography, because of the thrill of opening a folder of photos from little-known mountains, or because of the detective work that may go into a single sentence. But even if you did read every page, you wouldn’t see it all, because we can’t fit everything into the book—some of the coolest elements of the AAJ reside exclusively online.

Here, I offer an insider’s look at eight gems buried within the pages of the 2020 edition or hosted only at the AAJ website. In this guide, I’ve purposely skipped over the featured articles in the book. So, this is not a “best of” or an editor’s choice. Consider it a treasure map.

This special feature is made possible by Hilleberg the Tentmaker, lead sponsor of the AAJ’s Cutting Edge Podcast. 

TANGRA TOWER, PAKISTAN

The Krasnoyarsk Route on the southeast face of Tangra Tower (5,820 meters). Photo by Konstantin Markevich

The AAJ’s 6-by-9-inch format does not handle panorama photos well, and the stunning photo at the very top of this page had to be cropped tightly for the book. At full width, it must be one of the most enticing photos for alpine rock climbers that we’ve ever published. The 2019 Russian expedition to the Khane Valley in the Karakoram climbed three peaks, including glorious Tangra Tower and the south summit of The Thumb (mislabeled as Trident in the photo above).

By the way, the first expedition to publish extensive photos of the Tagas Group, as this area is known, was a Bulgarian team in 2010. Their report and more photos were in AAJ 2011.

MT. BREITENBACH, IDAHO

One of the simple pleasures of my job is learning about unfamiliar mountains and ranges—even those within a few hundred miles of my home in Colorado. Marc Hanselman’s report about a new route up the north face of Mt. Breitenbach in Idaho’s Lost River Range, was one of these. I’d never even heard of Breitenbach, but for climbers who can nail the timing for good alpine conditions (this ascent was right after the summer solstice), the north face is an impressive target. Marc’s new route, climbed with Paddy McIlvoy, was possibly only the second line up this rugged face. All other known parties have climbed the original route, the Grand Chockstone Couloir, first done back in 1983. Talk about hidden gems!

Paddy McIlvoy on Cowboy Poetry (2,800’, IV 5.7 R AI2 50˚ snow) on the north face of Mt. Breitenbach (12,140’) in Idaho. Photo by Marc Hanselman

THE EIGER OF THE INYO, CALIFORNIA

Natalie Brechtel wondering what she got herself into as she completes the fifth pitch of the Northeast Buttress (1,300’, IV 5.9 R/X) of Pleasant Point. Photo by Richard Shore

AAJ colleagues know that I have an inordinate fondness for offbeat adventures (girdle traverses, kayak-and-climb extravaganzas, remote and arduous exploration, etc.). Climbing super-hard routes is impressive, but I also like to make space in the AAJ for creative climbing—even when the routes are highly unlikely to become classics. In AAJ 2020, a good example was Richard Shore’s exploration of “The Eiger of the Inyo,” the east face of Pleasant Point in the Inyo Mountains. Shore and Natalie Brechtel completed the first full route up the 1,000-foot wall of shattered limestone and dolomite. “[We] climbed what we deemed to be the ‘safest’ route on the far right side of the peak,” Shore wrote in his AAJ report. “Safe is a relative term on this cliff—torrents of climber-induced rockfall are inevitable, and the dolomite is so sharp that a fall by leader or follower seems likely to cut the rope. Steeper technical sections were interspersed with narrow alpine ridges, and most pitches took an hour or more to lead, due to navigational and protection difficulties in the choss. Soft-iron World War II Army surplus pitons proved to be most valuable—bolts were often worthless in the shattered mess, and hard steel pins would explode the rock into bits.” I can’t get enough of this stuff, and neither, apparently, can Richard Shore. He returned later the same year with Myles Moser for a harder, more direct line up the Inyo Mordwand.

JEBEL KHAZALI, JORDAN

Christian Ravier is a French guide who frequently works and climbs in Jordan (he also wrote the climbing guide to the Taghia Gorge in Morocco), and his report in AAJ 2020 brought us up to speed on some recent routes up the sandstone walls of Jebel Khazali in Wadi Rum. But it was his beautiful hand-crafted topos, complete with watercolor paintings (like this one of local guide and camp host Atayek Hamad), that really caught my eye. Christian’s unique topos weren’t suitable for our print edition, but three of these beautiful references can be seen with his report at the AAJ website. The rock looks pretty amazing, too!

LA GLORIA, MEXICO

We opened the Mexico section of AAJ 2020 with a scenic shot of La Gloria, a stunning mountaintop pyramid of limestone in the mountains west of El Salto in Nuevo León. As beautiful as Zach Clanton’s photo was, however, it didn’t convey the full allure of the climb: a 13-pitch 5.12 up the pillar splitting the south face. It’s an interesting lesson in the power of a route line drawn onto a photo—in this case, a photo that’s only available online. However you look at it, this is a fantastic piece of rock, which seems destined for popularity. Zach’s report at the AAJ website tells the full story of Rezando, the route he developed with Dave Henkel: “To me, the southern pillar of this peak was the Mexican Beckey-Chouinard, a line of perfect blue-orange limestone just begging to be the range’s first alpine sport climb.”

The south pillar of La Gloria (9,688 feet), showing the 1,500-foot route Rezando (13 pitches, 5.12). Photo by Zach Clanton

SIULÁ GRANDE, PERU

Luis Crispin leading out on the upper shoulder of the southeast ridge of rarely climbed Siulá Grande in Peru. Photo by Nate Heald

Nate Heald, a guide based in Cusco, Peru, has been a frequent contributor in recent years, climbing numerous new routes, mostly in the country’s southern ranges. In AAJ 2020, he reported on an ascent that was personally meaningful, in part because of the presence of his frequent partner Luis Crispin, who roped up with the teenage Thomas Schilter to become the first Peruvians to climb Siulá Grande in the Cordillera Huayhuash—and by a new route: Peruana Supreme (1,000m, TD AI4). In recent years, the AAJ has reported many new routes and first ascents of peaks by “local” climbers, throughout Latin America as well as in Pakistan, India, Nepal, and other mountainous countries. Many of these climbers work as guides but increasingly pursue their own ambitions in their local mountains.

Heald wrote in the Siulá Grande report: “I met Luis in 2011 on my way back to Cusco after a climb; he lives in a village at 4,300m below Ausangate and began assisting his uncle with tourist treks when he was 12 years old. He worked with me as I established my guiding agency, and since then we have done many climbs together. From my observations, Luis did not start climbing for any other reason than curiosity and camaraderie. He loves the natural world and has vast knowledge of it, and, at first, I think he just wanted to know what it would be like up there in the snow and ice. Luis and Thomas roped up together on Siulá Grande so no one could suggest they hadn’t made a purely Peruvian ascent of the peak.”

RAGGED RANGE, NORTHWEST TERRITORIES, CANADA

Amy Pagacz on top of a small peak in the Ragged Range after climbing Twisting Couloir (350m, AD). The high peak behind Pagacz is one of several mountains labeled Mt. Sidney Dobson on maps. This one is likely unclimbed. Photo by Wojtek Pagacz

Occasionally, AAJ editors get sucked down the rabbit hole of climbing archives. In AAJ 2020, we printed a short report about an interesting expedition to the Ragged Range in northwest Canada’s Logan Mountains—very few climbers have visited these mountains, which lie south of the popular Cirque of the Unclimbables, at the headwaters of the Fool’s River. The 2019 team climbed a few summits but couldn’t find a good approach to one of their biggest targets, which is labeled “Mt. Sidney Dobson” on many maps of the area. During the editing process, we realized that this Sidney Dobson had in fact been climbed way back in 1952 by an extraordinary expedition of Yale University students. The Yalies spent two and a half months in the area, built a log raft to cross a lake and access the mountains, and subsisted in part on game they shot and smoked, en route to summiting nine peaks, mostly first ascents. A great account of their trip is in the 1953 Canadian Alpine Journal.

Digging deeper, we realized that at least four different peaks in this cluster of mountains, all around 2,600m in elevation, have been called Sidney Dobson by various maps and publications. I spent hours attempting to determine which of the “Sidney Dobson” peaks might be the highest and whether it had been climbed, but the surveys are inadequate and the 2019 team couldn’t tell which was highest from their vantage points. Amy Pagacz’s expedition report and my attempt to unravel the Sidney Dobson mystery are both at the AAJ website. Unfortunately, the 2019 team found mostly poor rock on these impressive mountains and walls. But the first ascent of at least one Mt. Sidney Dobson may still be waiting.

MT. RORAIMA, GUYANA

Edward James lowers out on the Great Northern Prow of Mt. Roraima, watched by Troy Henry. The two men are from a nearby Akawaio community and had never worn a harness before the expedition. Photo by Matt “Pikey” Pycroft

Leo Houlding is a polished storyteller as well as a great climber, and his three-page story in AAJ 2020 about a new route on the northern prow of Mt. Roraima in Guyana is an excellent read. One of the highlights of this expedition was the role of Troy Edwards and Edward James, who live in the Akawaio village of Phillipai, the nearest settlement to the mountain. After guiding the British team to Roraima, the two accepted the Brits’ invitation to carry on up the wall, despite the fact that neither had ever climbed, jumared, or even worn a harness. In the end, they became the first people of Guyana to summit their country’s most famous mountain.

Sadly, we had to cut a full page and a photo from Leo’s story at the last minute, and three pages in the book didn’t come close to being enough for this tale. In fact, no article is as good as hearing Leo tell a story in person, so I highly recommend Chris Kalman’s interview with Leo for episode 27 of the AAJ’s Cutting Edge podcast. It’s great stuff.

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