Sometimes we have to see it being done to believe it is possible.
January 1992: Alex Lowe during the first ascent of “Prophet on a Stick”, which is a variant to pitch two three (depending how you count) on Provo Canyon’s “Stairway to Heaven”. I’d done the free-hanging version of “Post Nasal Drip (“Snotty-Nosed Brat) but had never seen anyone mount up on such a stalactite.
April 1986: MFT leading up the summit pyramid on Kangtega. Alison Hargreaves and I looked at it and figured it was four pitches so we took four ice screws and a single piton for the rock band we could see from below. The ice was bulletproof and the wall was twelve pitches high but we didn't turn back and summitted at 4:30pm. After we ran out of anchors on the descent I learned to chop bollards — in the dark since it was before any of us knew about V-Threads.
January 1987: Leading the last pitch Jeff Lowe and I climbed on the south pillar of Nuptse during our winter attempt. This was shortly after the parasites attacked and Jeff had shit himself, and shortly before the same happened to me. We had no drugs so were forced to descend and after 48 hours of diarrhea in our high altitude suits even our cook and Sirdar wanted nothing to do with us when we reached the glacier.
February 1988: Randy Rackcliff approaching The Reality Bath during our successful visit. I think I was too scared during the first attempt to break out the camera - we were running and shitting ourselves at the same time, especially after the seracs calved and we were rappelling for our lives. A few people comment to me after seeing the route up close, commonly suggesting we must not have wanted to live. And it may have been true. Or we may have been truly tuned-in to the cosmos. Or we were over-the-top arrogant and believed we could get away with it. The route received its second ascent 37 years later.
Late winter 1989 or 1990: Thierry Renault attempting a route that would eventually become "Nuits Blanches" above the Argentiere Glacier but this day it was too warm and that pillar was making noises like it wouldn't be standing for long so we bailed.
May 2008: Fro, Reeves, Rolo, Bill and John on the west buttress of Denali after summitting in a one-day trip from the 14k camp. Three years later a couple of these guys were killed when the Extortion 17 helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan.
Rolo having déja vu: we’d been to the top of Denali from the 14,000-foot camp already, took one rest day, and started up again. Caffeine was of little use ...
August 2013: Ben Saunders in the Stonor Valley near Henley. We had some good rides together on that trip.
Late-90s: Scottie Ewing ripping in Crested Butte
April 2013: Mike Alkaitis, Vince Anderson and Dave Ahrens just below the summit of Mount Sneffels.
Spring 2013: Vince Anderson knew I was game for some ski touring and asked if I wanted to be a “client” during a guide’s exam ... approaching Mount Sneffels.
April 2013: Vince Anderson dropping in to the Snake Couloir on Mount Sneffels. Even after the boys chopped it up the skiing was remarkably good.
Ace Kvale in the maze below Peak Korjenyevska in the Pamirs. After a complicated approach and a great bivouac bad weather turned us back - while our tough Russian companions continued up the nearby Romanov Pillar.
July 1990: Ace Kvale nearing the summit of “Peak of the Fourth”, aka Peak Chetireh, (6230m) in the Pamirs near Peak Communism, which has since been renamed Ismoil Somoni Peak. On our second trip to the summit we descended on telemark skis – it took about a decade before I saw the light and locked my heels down.
Alan Bradley in the Exit Cracks on the north face of the Eiger. The belay anchor was crap and the cracks above bottomed-out or were worn round by centuries of flowing water. A long way above us, when he was well run-out Eric and I heard him mumble, "I'd kill for a pizza right now," which made some sense since we had run out of food. It also made us think Alan was a total hardcase. Later when we asked him about it, over actual pizza he admitted, "No. I said, 'I'd kill for a piece of pro right now'" and that made even more sense given the circumstances.
Alan Bradley approaching the north face of the Grandes Jorasses in August 1985. It was too warm to try The Shroud but it was what we wanted to do (I'd done the Walker Spur earlier in the summer). We had a false start and chopped a ledge to wait for the rockfall to slow down but it never froze hard enough for the stones to stop falling so we bailed.
Alex Lowe (aka “The Lung with Legs”) carrying an injured Spaniard at 19,300’ on Denali, Alaska. A U.S. Army Chinook landed Alex, Scott Backes and I on the “Football Field” just below the summit to carry out the rescue. In doing so pilot Bill Barker set a high altitude record for that model of helicopter.
January 1992: Alex Lowe during the first ascent of “Prophet on a Stick”, which is a variant to pitch two three (depending how you count) on Provo Canyon’s “Stairway to Heaven”. I’d done the free-hanging version of “Post Nasal Drip (“Snotty-Nosed Brat) but had never seen anyone mount up on such a stalactite.
January 1991: Alexey Shustrov and Michel Fauquet below Peak Chapayev on a reconnaissance to the south face of Khan-Tengri (7010m) in the Tien Shan range.
May 1986: Alison Hargreaves approaching the summit of Kangtega (6782m) on day nine of our ascent. Earlier in the day Jeff Lowe and Tom Frost had climbed the northwest summit and began the descent toward base camp. Alison and I snapped a few pictures and began racing back to our snow cave on the summit plateau, an affair that lasted well into the night.
Late-90s: Andrew Bielecki at Loveland pass. He always found the perfect wave.
Late-90s: Andrew Bielecki introduced me to the idea of sandboarding. He’d done it on the giant dunes of the Great Sand Dune National Monument but we had better access and freedom in Little Sahara. With the right slope angle and fresh furniture polish on the base he could really wail.
Late-90s: Andrew Bielecki in Little Sahara. I was in love with my 20mm lens at the time so I shot everything close and wide.
Late-90s: Andrew Bielecki at Loveland pass. Victorinox had come on board as one of his sponsors and he wanted some images for them. This was one of the first real action shots I made with a Leica M6 rangefinder.
November 1989: Andy Parkin on the 5th pitch of what would later become a new route we named, “Beyond Good and Evil”, Aiguille des Pelerins, Chamonix, France. This was our first attempt, when we realized we weren’t going to run up it in a day, and that we needed more cams and fewer ice screws.
1989: Anne Smith in the Chere Couloir on the north face of the Aiguille du Midi, Chamonix, France. To save weight we were climbing on a 8.5mm half-rope – not much use for run-out lead falls but I wasn’t going to fall. Still, once the avalanches started pouring down on us that same rope made for some short rappels, and a lot of down-climbing.
1989: Anne Smith – ever in style or ahead of it - approaching the Couvercle Refuge, Chamonix, France.
1989: Anne Smith navigating the bergschrund below the Col de la Fourche. I wanted to do the Cretier Route on the east face of Mont Maudit but the ‘schrund beneath it was impassable – or maybe that was just an excuse – so we escaped via the Gabarrou-Steiner route on the southeast face.
1989: Anne Smith high on the Gabarrou-Steiner route, southeast face of Mont Maudit. The 1981 route was described in Mountain as the “South Face of the North Shoulder”. I believe ours was the first winter ascent, and a consolation after getting scared off the Cretier.
Bjorn Andersen and Michel Fauquet wishing they had a spare set of underwear but happy to have avoided the big ride. Bjorn cut the slab, Tchouky (Michel) and I took one for the team. I came out on top. He skied deeper into the slide, was partially buried but got a hand out so he was quickly recovered. If the slab had a little more momentum we'd have gone the distance, about 2000'. Glacier Grande, above Trient, Switzerland.
1996: Scott Backes on an acclimatization run in the Illampu massif. Pico del Norte, where we later climbed a new route we named, “Fuck ‘Em, They’re All Posers Anyway,” is in the background.
1996: Scott Backes navigating the unusual snow features that could make travel in Bolivia fairly time-consuming some days.
Scott Backes on a cold day in Deer Creek near Cody Wyoming. “Too Cold To Fire.”
June 2000: Looking down the ice ramp Scott Backes, Steve House and I used to bypass the headwall during our 60-hour single push ascent of the Slovak Direct. It’s close to midnight, 18 hours into the first “day”.
July 1988: Kevin Doyle and Barry Blanchard trying to find snow deep enough to dig a cave high in the Merkl Gully on the Rupal Face. We were about 1200’ below the summit of Nanga Parbat, thus 13,000’ up the biggest face in the world. We couldn’t get a cave, which is for the best because the storm lasted 12 days. Although we ran out of food that night we had a full tank of luck and spent every drop surviving.
Autumn 1991: Barry Blanchard high on the northwest face of Les Droites during the first ascent of the “Richard Cranium Memorial” route. Within the space of fifteen feet he broke two ice tool picks, and in this picture I believe he is following with one whole and one broken tool.
April 1998: Christophe Beaudoin in the "Poop Chute" on the south face of the Aiguille du Midi. I was shooting for a client and testing my Nikon F5 with a f2.8 20-35mm zoom against a Leica M6 with 28mm lens. Until I owned one, I always thought the Leica mystique was snobbish BS but the depth and richness of this Leica image blew the Nikon away – utterly – and I was totally converted.
Autumn 1993: Christophe Beaudoin on the summit of Mont Blanc du Tacul. We had just climbed the “Macho Direct”, which is actually the “Macho Couloir” with the “Barton-Shaw” finish. That season it was in great condition with several fine, tough ice and mixed pitches giving us our money’s worth after a storm plastered the face with new snow.
Spring 1998: Bernie Bernthal on the Glacier du Tour. I was in Chamonix to shoot pictures for a client and managed to get a day of touring with Bernie, Mike Hattrup and Bob Mazarei. Looking back, the skis seem really narrow and the heels decidedly free.
Winter 2012: I was told by doctors to avoid the sun as much as possible so the winter of 2012-2013 was pretty dark. I rode a lot at night, skied up and down the slopes at Brighton after closing and eventually did some ski touring on easier terrain. I learned that the bike industry is years ahead of the backcountry hike/ski/climb industry when it comes to lighting.
The day after our second trip to the summit the forecast “wind event” began. Under clear skies the wind gusted up to 60 mph at 14,000’ (snapping a 2x4 supporting the NPS radio antenna), and later that night up to 110 mph at 17,000’. We built higher walls, shoveled plenty, and hunkered down. It wasn’t bad at all.
1987: East Face of South Early Winter Spire in the North Cascades. The splash or white in the upper right corner of the face is a paraglider attached to Jonny Blitz who took an early downwind turn coming off the summit, lost control in the rotor and tumbled down the face like spilt fuck. One of very few trees snagged the glider and kept him from going to the ground. I borrowed a couple of ropes from Steve Swenson who happened to show up on top, rappelled down to Blitz and we jumarred out. We were far more freaked-out than he was.
1987: Jonny Blitz filling the wing on top of Liberty Bell in the North Cascades. The take-off was dicey: fill it, run a few steps, jump to a small ledge and if it wasn’t happening abort or fall off the West Face. I recall he took 17 tries before launching. I had to wait another 45 minutes before conditions were right, and took off just before nightfall.
Late-90s: I was in Crested Butte to shoot pictures for an article about Ski Conditioning. The subjects were among the best extreme skiers of the day: Wendy Fisher, Kasha Rigby, Alison Gannett, Heather Paul and a couple of others whose names escape me right now. We had two good days on trails, at the local soccer field, riding cruiser bikes, and visiting the taco shack for post-workout nutrition.
Spring 2013: Vince Anderson knew I was game for some ski touring and asked if I wanted to be a “client” during a guide’s exam. Of course! I don’t have to pretend to be a shite skier, and I can feign altitude illness as well as anyone. I’d always wanted to ski the Snake Couloir on Mount Sneffels and this was a fine opportunity. Here, Vince observes while Dave Ahrens of San Juan Mountain Guides takes what he can get - seconds.
We left the 11,000-foot camp at about 11:30pm in rather horrible conditions with near-zero visibility and between one and two feet of new snow depending on how the wind moved it around. We traveled from wand to wand, sometimes missing them, veering off route, fighting the tendency to turn out of the wind, and constantly checking ourselves against the compass and a few waypoints stored in the GPS. After traveling through the night we rolled into the camp at 7800’ to recover a cache we left there.
Striding out of the 7800-foot camp toward the day’s reward: a break in the weather. After 11 hours on the move we skied up Heartbreak Hill to the airstrip where a plane promptly landed and six of our guys got on. The rest of us waited for varying periods but all got out that day, rolled to Anchorage that afternoon, and a few sampled the local “rewards” typical to a Denali trip later in the evening.
May 2008: Just below the summit of Denali. It was my second trip to the top from the 14k camp in a three-day period. I was starting to feel pretty fit.
May 2008: Rolo Garibotti with Bill and Rob nearing the summit of Denali. A few of the guys from that trip were killed three years later when they went down with the Extortion 17 helicopter in Afghanistan. We shared a lot of time in the mountains and that loss was especially hard because a lot of former students were died at once, not the usual one or maybe two at a time, which is somehow easier to assimilate.
June 1990: Dominique Gleizes exiting the west face of the Eiger. It was his 50th base jump and almost his last as the snowboard flipped him upside down
June 1990: Dominique Gleizes at the exit on the north side of the Petit Clocher du Portalet. His trick to gauge how long he could freefall before tossing the drogue was to time how long an orange that he dropped would fall before impact. His descent basically followed the line of “Etat du Choc” a Remy brothers route from 1983.
June 1995: Ed and Betty Pope hiking to acclimatize above La Paz. The trips we took to some of the most beautiful mountain ranges in the world, and the experiences we shared there developed into lifelong friendship.
While Jon Krakauer and I were retreating from the north face of the Eiger in 1984 we crossed paths with Christophe Profit and Sylviane Tavernier. It was the first time I ever saw anyone short-roping. It looked dangerous. I had no idea that it was one key to swift movement in the mountains. The pair were absolutely blazing up the face. They retreated in the face of the same conditions that forced us down and on the deck at a Kleine Scheidegg café Profit told me about Chamonix, and that I should go there. I took his advice and it changed me forever.
July 1985: Eric Perlman and Alan Bradley below the Ramp on the Eigerwand. We began climbing as a Spanish team was being rescued from high on the 1938 route, having been caught in a three-day storm that plastered the face with snow and ice. We wore crampons for virtually every pitch and halfway down the west face.
May 2012: Rich Cetrone at the Paris Racing Club. He had never done any fencing but a lot of boxing and martial arts so he had no trouble with the foot movement or hand speed. Over the weeks we used the space I got to watch him practice with current and former Olympians, for which I felt incredibly fortunate.
Walking out of the 17,000-foot camp into an incredible sunset. Colors and textures were enriched by fatigue and a sense of accomplishment but also by the requirement for complete attention to detail for another couple of hours.
About 12 hours into the day, descending toward Denali Pass. I took our second team of guys to the summit from 14,000’ in a 15hrs 30min roundtrip. Despite it being a big day, I think this is the best way to climb via the West Buttress: hang out at 14k for a few days, take day trips with a light pack to 16k and 17k, rest well, then punch for the top. One avoids carrying a huge load to 17k and sleeping there, where recovery isn’t on the menu, only deterioration. Starting fresh and hitting the top from 14k carrying a day pack is no harder than starting wasted from 17k. One may need a bit better fitness, and certainly the discipline to pay attention for 15 to 20 hours straight, and the sense to take care of hydration and nutrition throughout the day. Still, it ain't easy ...
For hours these guys dug into themselves for something they'd never had to access before. A few steps and collapse. A hopeful look upwards to see if the summit came any closer while they had their heads on their knees. No. Damn. More work. More digging. More giving, everything. Effort upon effort. Until they could climb no higher.
Early-2000s: Zack Snyder was shooting TV commercials in this period and whenever he needed some guys to rig or look after mountain safety we helped him. If memory serves, this was a Chevy spot. Steve House was in charge of helo safety. Rolo Garibotti and I did the drilling and climbing – and falling.
Mid-80s: I was bivouacked on the porch of the old Cosmiques hut at the Col du Midi. They were pouring the foundation for the new hut, flying concrete up to 3800m one bucket at a time.
One of the scarier moments I've had. The helicopter dropped us atop an iceberg floating off the Antarctic Peninsula. We had no boat, an afternoon's worth of food and drink, and a bunch of camera gear. I recall some of us were wearing flotation devices, which seems a bit silly now ... I mean, why bother prolonging it?
July 1990: The Moskvina Glacier base camp is accessed by helicopter. The daily flights were good entertainment during the four weeks we spent there.
1990: On top of the Clocher du Portalet with Michel Fouquet, aka Tchouky. We were there to film Dominique Gleizes base jump off the northwest face. This was about the smallest summit I ever accessed by helicopter, and quite terrifying until we’d done it a few times. That summer, or the following, I climbed a fine route up the tower named “Chic, Chec, Choc” with Marie Hiroz and was once-again amazed at how small the summit truly is.
January 1991: It took three flights to ferry all of the personnel and equipment to our base camp on the South Inylchek Glacier below Khan-Tengri. The flight from Kegen covered 120km. We had no radio contact with the outside world, only the agreement that the pilot would return in four weeks so what we brought was all we had.
March 1998: Paul Roderick from Talkeetna Air Taxi delivering Jonny Blitz, Steve House and I to the Ruth Glacier where we went looking for the ephemeral ice lines we hoped would be there. After some hit and miss we eventually made the first ascent of “The Gift (That Keeps on Giving)” on the south face of Mount Bradley.
Steve House early during the first day on the Slovak Direct. The route sneaks up the ice runnel on the left of the tower. We were moving well and had already passed the Slovak team's first bivouac site after about two hours of climbing. It was a glorious weather window that opened long enough for us to blast up the face in 60 hours.
Steve House approaching the summit of Denali in June 2000 during the acclimatization trip we made to the top before launching on the Slovak Direct. It's always amazing to see how little gear one needs, and how little clothing when operating well within his threshold of competence and experience. As I have often said, "What if?" weighs a lot more than "Why not?"
January 2015: These days we live our lives far apart so we take advantage of whatever opportunities we might have to share some time together. Touring with Steve and Eva House in the Wasatch on a day when the conversation was way better than the skiing.
June 2000: Steve House traversing above “The Shield” on the Slovak Direct. We were trying to connect the dots on the south face of Denali, and the exposure at this point, 5000’ up the face, was exceptional.
June 2000: Steve House getting down to the business, certainly the technical crux of the Slovak Direct on Denali: solid grade 6 ice. The real crux though came later …
February 1997: Mark Wilford soloing in the Iceberg Cemetery near the Antarctic Peninsula. It was a beautiful and scary place. The ice shelf below the surface gave the illusion of warm Caribbean water but the reality is below freezing, 175 meters deep, and black as coal.
February 1997: There’s no instruction manual for climbing icebergs. We thought it might be better to solo wearing a life jacket, but hitting water from a hundred feet would be like decking anywhere. Because we used the rope, we carried knives to cut tools and rope away, which might let us tread water more easily. Neither of us had dry suits so we wouldn’t last long anyway. Under the 60th parallel the ocean is actually below 32˚ but salt content keeps it from freezing. The ice itself is weird. Compressed on the continent for several thousand years, after breaking off to become an iceberg , it tries to fall apart. Without support or geologic compression, gravity tugs from all angles while salt-water nibbles at integrity. Icebergs roll over without warning. People have seen them disintegrate for no reason.
February 1997: Mark and Lucas waiting for “Action” in the Iceberg Cemetery.
May 1986: Jeff Lowe approaching one of the steeper rock bands on day four of our pre-monsoon attempt on the south pillar of Nuptse. I aided half of a rope length on KBs, small wires, and a RURP or two (we called it old A4). We bypassed the aid on ice during our winter attempt. During a subsequent attempt a bolt was added to this pitch ... which is what you get when you “carry courage in your rucksack.”
Jeff Lowe leading the opening pitch of the headwall on the northwest ridge of Kangtega. I had never seen anything like it and felt quite over my head for a while.
May 1986: Jeff Lowe rappelling back to retrieve the heavy packs during the sixth day of our pre-monsoon attempt on the south pillar of Nuptse. What we thought would be an inconsequential afternoon thunderstorm turned into nagging precipitation that eventually caused us to retreat.
May 1986: Jeff Lowe climbing during the sixth day of our pre-monsoon attempt on the south pillar of Nuptse. The following day a storm shut us down, which preceded an entertaining exercise in gear conservation as it took 48 rappels to reach the base of the pillar.
July 1988: Kevin Doyle enjoying a four year-old Cadbury Fruit & Nut bar recovered from a tattered haul bag we found “clipped to a piton at 22,000 feet. Barry cut it open without expectation. 60 pitons spilled out, followed by a dozen ice screws, chocolate bars, and at the bottom, two brand new 50 meter ropes.” The bag was cached by Tsuneo Hasegawa in 1984. Three of his partners disappeared during a summit bid. And prior to returning to Japan, his team stashed the gear necessary to survive at the top of the Welzenbach Couloir; a chokepoint they’d have to pass if descending the face. Instead of saving them, it saved us.
July 1988: Kevin Doyle in the Welzenbach Couloir on the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat ... not exactly the safest place in the world, though an expedient line.
October 1984: Jon Krakauer in the "Ice Hose" that connects the First and Second Icefields on the north face of the Eiger in autumn 1984. Higher, we realized there was too much snow on the face so we bailed out. It had been the wettest September since 1864 and conditions didn't come good on the face for a month or so. When they did, Christophe Profit who turned back the same day we did, returned with Bruno Cormier to recon the face for Profit's 10-hour solo ascent of the 1938 route in March 1985.
June 1981: As the final exam during a Mountain Instructor Training Course offered by Exum (instructors included Chuck Pratt, Yvon Chouinard, Dave Carman, Kim Schmitz, Peter Lev and Harry Frishman), different teams of students were assigned routes to complete. I roped up with Les Lloyd and we followed Yvon who was leading Dave Kahn and a gal named Polly up steep ice runnels on the upper west face of the Grand Teton. Les had far more experience than I so led every pitch. The exposure was daunting to my young mind. Despite the top-rope, it was a fantastic, eye-opening experience that pushed me toward the greater ranges.
Lisa and I used to climb frozen waterfalls in Cody, Wyoming for Christmas. The most memorable Christmas dinner in the early-2000s came from a gas station after we returned too late from the South Fork to catch a better store open.
November 1984: looking down the north face of the Grands Charmoz from the Heckmair-Kroner finish. My experience on this route and the subsequent descent (described in the first chapter of Kiss or Kill) sent me packing after a good couple of weeks in Chamonix.
April 1998: Francois Marsigny in the "Poop Chute" on the south face of the Aiguille du Midi. I was in Chamonix to shoot some pictures for a catalog client and to test my Nikon F5 with a f2.8 20-35mm zoom against a Leica M6 with 28mm lens. This one was shot with the Nikon. The Leica won - by a long shot.
Summer 1991: ABC television came to Chamonix to shoot an episode of “The Extreme Edge” featuring me soloing the Frendo Spur on the north face of the Aiguille du Midi. David Breashears (who passed away in 2024) filmed me from various locations on the face using a small “lipstick” camera. I had a similar camera on my helmet. We both carried microwave transmitters that beamed the images to receivers at the base of the face. Peter Pilafian shot from the helicopter and covered the interviews. Marie Hiroz recorded the audio. Local legend Jean Afanassieff coordinated the project. He passed away in 2015.
October 1993: On the 2nd or 3rd pitch of Birthright. The ice was not really ice and quite thin but there was always just enough to coax us higher. The route offered some “memorable” climbing, specifically in the big corner where Scott could only place three pieces of protection on the entire 60-meter pitch.
December 1989: I was posing in front of Mark Shapiro's camera for an ad commissioned by Asolo. Posing always gets one in trouble. What appeared to be casual was, of course difficult and scary -- an awful lot like the real thing. Except the mind isn't in the mood for the real thing. And I can't think of a guy who deserves it more.
Winter 1994/95: I believe this is “The Pillar of Pain”, which you reach by climbing “High on Boulder” and doing a little hiking. Michael Gilbert snapped the photo. If memory serves he was partnered by Kevin Cooney with whom I took an interesting trip to the Alps about a year later.
October 1995: Charly Oliver, Cathy Beloeil and I hiked into the cirque below the Diamond on Longs Peak after a huge autumn storm. No one had ever seen or heard of ice forming in this location on the lower east face but it comes in more frequently now. I couldn’t finish it this day. It was later climbed and named “Crazy Train”.
September 1984: At Kleine Scheidegg after the foehn destroyed our camp. We found the tents about 400 yards from where they had been pitched and tied down to heavy logs. A dozen eggs were no longer in their shells but coated everything in my tent. At least the breakfast was intact.
July 1985: Following the crack above the Brittle Ledges on the north face of the Eiger. To quote Dougal Haston, “nothing harder than 5.7 says the man who has never been there.” It seemed hard at the time but both the pack and my discomfort (aka fear) were heavy. Eric Perlman snapped the picture.
October 1988: Above 8000m on the north side of Everest. Barry Blanchard and I were on our 3rd attempt of a new route that would have exited in the Pinnacles on the northeast ridge. Shortly after the photo was taken Barry began exhibiting symptoms of cerebral edema and we finished the day in a very tough fight to save his life.
October 1988: After our attempt on Nanga Parbat Barry Blanchard and I took a month off and then made three attempts on a new route up Everest. We tried it without O2, ropes, hardware, or bivy gear at first then added a tent on our 3rd go. Finally, on the 4th try we took a tent, shared a sleeping bag and still got skunked at 27,500'.
May 1994: Leading the steep ice pitch through the 4th rock band during the first ascent of “Deprivation” on Mount Hunter. It was genuinely hard. We called it grade 6. I ran out of screws. The belay anchor sucked. Hauling both packs was “fun.” We climbed through the night to reach the summit of the North Buttress at sunrise where we finally were able to stop and brew up before continuing up, over, and down the West Ridge to reach base camp after 43 hours on the move.
April 1986: Day 10, I think. Alison Hargreaves and I had reached the summit of Kangtega the day before. Arrived in the late afternoon in perfect weather, where we watched a magnificent sunset that meant a long descent into a long night. We ran out of anchors. I taught myself to chop bollards on the fly. In the dark, batteries in the headlamp barely hanging on. She frostbit her toes. I warmed them against my bare stomach back in the snow cave. After a few hours of bad sleep suddenly it was day 10 and we were rappelling down, and down, 43 total if memory serves. Down to warmth. Back to safety.
January 1991: Retreating off the south face of Khan-Tengri in the heat of the sun and under the gun. Absolutely terrifying.
January 1991: Tchouky and I left our tent at 7pm. The full moon allowed us to move without headlamps. Ace and John waited in the tent listening to the walkie-talkie. By 2am we stood half way up the face. We had climbed above the windbreak provided by the southwest ridge. The upper face was exposed to the jet stream. It was –17˚F in Ace and John's tent 5000' below. We’d nearly been killed by two different serac avalanches. It was time to go down.
Spring 1989 or ’90: When Ace Kvale, Mike Powers and I woke to sucking gray clouds in the Fourche bivouac hut we decided to bail back to the cable car. We had gone up to shoot pictures and although I thought the trip a waste it netted a Rock & Ice cover, and later the cover of Desnivel. Not this shot, of course, which depicts frivolous risk …
September 1989: I was posing in front of René Robert’s camera on the Aiguille du Midi. It always looks easier than it is and there’s always a rush to get the shot. I’m surprised I didn’t get hurt on one of the many photo and film shoots I did over the years. It would have been ignominious and, some would venture, appropriate.
April 1998: Nancy Feagin and I went to Chamonix with photographer Jim Martin to shoot the instructional pictures that illustrate the book, Extreme Alpinism. Desnivel magazine used this one on the cover of the issue announcing the book’s publication in Spanish.
April 1985: Many pitches up the Colton-Leach route on the north buttress of the Rooster Comb in Alaska. We climbed 16 pitches the first day, had a splendid bivouac during which we were treated to an intense northern lights show. The second day didn’t go so well.
June 1992: Soloing on one of the scariest seracs I have ever climbed. Though steep the climbing wasn’t hard but due to the heat the exit was soft, slushy, and insecure. Though not obvious the exposure is huge, about 3000’ to the glacier below. The serac is above and west of the Gouter Hut on the normal route up Mont Blanc.
January 1992: I was visiting Utah for and discovered the waterfall climbing in Provo Canyon. Alex Lowe had climbed “Post Nasal Drip” in what would have been “unformed” conditions, meaning the pillar was still a stalactite. He renamed the modern version “Snotty-Nosed Brat”, told me how good it was so I went to have a look.
January 1992: Climbing on free-hanging icicles wasn’t yet the norm when Bill Belcourt and I went to look at “Snotty-Nosed Brat”. With one bolt and a couple of cams in the rock for protection and the climbing not that hard, the whole affair seemed quite reasonable.
January 1991: Leading on the north face of Trident Peak in the Tien Shan. Stupid really, since it was so bitter cold and the face never got sun. I think we got about nine pitches up before pulling the pin. We wouldn't have topped out before dark and it was no place to be doing the "night naked" thing since the pitches were taking a while to lead. Accustomed to a diet of Chamonix granite, my partner wasn't dialed on the whole notion of loose rock and bad pro - or tied-off ice screws.
January 1991: To acclimatize for our attempt on the south face of Khan-Tengri, Michel Fauquet and I took a crack at the north face of Trident Peak. With temperatures well below zero (F), no sun on the face ever and really short days, the attempt was doomed from the outset. We quickly ran up the lower apron, ran into a few pitches of tough mixed climbing and with spotting advice radioed to us from below decided that discretion was the better part of saving our toes and fingers.
May 2008: I’ve seen a lot of things that made me scratch my head in the mountains but watching this overloaded fellow struggle up the headwall on the West Buttress of Denali made me scratch harder than usual. Contrasted to the little pack the leader carried when we climbed the Slovak Direct on the same mountain the mega-load is even more perplexing. On the Slovak Direct, three of us shared a total of 55 pounds in our packs when we started and 18 of those pounds were water. I would argue that the pack this guy is carrying weighs at least 80 pounds, which is crushing at any altitude.
July 1990: We met two guys at the Moskvina Glacier base camp in the Pamirs who were into paragliding. One had made his paragliders at home. He loaned one to a friend, explained the basics of take-off, which went fine, flight, which went OK and landing, which did not go well at all. I ran the motor-drive on my F3 as the guy stalled his wing above the LZ and burned in from about 80 feet, breaking both of his legs. The helicopter flew him out the next day but I doubt he ever walked the same after that.
Autumn 1987: New England isn’t prime paragliding terrain but we were into it and forced the issue and sometimes had to fight for it as happened here, on top of Mount Webster in New Hampshire. The pilot is one of Titoune Meunier’s nephews from France. Rick Wilcox is on the right. Dave Walters is keeping hold on the left. Andy Tibbets aka "Captain Adrenalin" is in the red coat further left, noted on this day for having forgotten his harness and flown the site using some 1" webbing tied into an 8 for his legs and a waistbelt. Ballsy.
April 1985: John Stoddard high on the Colton-Leach route on the north buttress of the Rooster Comb in Alaska, gunning for a bivouac site 16 pitches up.
April 1985: John Stoddard leading the 17th pitch of the Colton-Leach route on the Rooster Comb, which was graded 5.9 A2 or thereabouts. A little higher than he is in the photo John was aiding off an RP nut and when it ripped he fell. It was only a short distance but caught a frontpoint in the sling of a tied-off Lost Arrow below, which snapped his ankle. After 15 or 16 rappels we reached the glacier. John crawled behind me as I post-holed and widened the trail. The next two days – trying to make contact with the outside world to organize a rescue - were memorable.
March 1996: Tad Linn scouting terrain between the Matterhorn and the Eiger during the preparation to link the three great north faces using bikes and skis. Getting from one face to the next wasn't obvious so we had to rehearse. On this day we began in Blatten, skied up to the Kanderfirn, through a pass separating the Gspaltenhorn from the Breithorn and down into Stechelberg at the head of the Lauterbrunnen Valley. It was so cold and windy Tad suggested it was, "good conditions for drying meat."
February 1991: After we failed on the south face of Khan-Tengri, Tchouky, Ace, John Falkiner and I joined the Shustrov brothers to attempt the normal route. After one night in a snowcave we managed to reach 6300m before the wind drove us down. I’d been cold for so long and the fire of motivation I’d had when we arrived wasn’t warm enough to push me any higher.
February 1987: Thierry Renault - who held the speed record on The Nose for a while - during the first ascent of "Sueur Froide" across from Les Houches. He brought modern sport climbing movement, developed on limestone by he and Edlinger and Berhault to frozen waterfalls. He used plastic boots made by Trappeur that blended a plastic lower shell with a flexible leather ankle cuff much like what is presented as “modern” today.
July 1988: Ward Robinson in the Merkl Gully on Nanga Parbat. He wasn't well-acclimated when we began climbing so the higher we climbed the sicker he got. On this day -- the 5th -- we got as close to the top as we would but the storm, his illness, and a very strong desire to live drove us down. The descent left an indelible mark on us all.
July 1988: Ward Robinson leading in the Merkl Gully on Nanga Parbat. The storm that nearly killed us was apparent in every photo taken on the fifth day but none of us recognized it for what it was at the time, or we were way too invested in our effort to take heed. We should have started down long before the avalanches began because the terrain trap we climbed ourselves into was vicious indeed.
Late-90s: I was in Santaquin Canyon, Utah with Geoff Weigand and Tiffany Levine to shoot some pictures. Geoff had been working on a route he named “Drinking Gasoline” and he thought he could send it for the camera that day. He was in a period when he wouldn’t rate the first ascents he made, so I still have no clue how hard the climb was. mid-5.13 maybe. Anyway, I shot this on a warm-up route while we waited for the sun to heat the air enough for him to get on the real thing.
March 1998: Jonny Blitz and Steve House on the south face of Mount Bradley in the Ruth Gorge, Alaska. Days were short and frigid in base camp but warmer on the south facing wall. Over a three day weather window we made the first ascent of "The Gift (That Keeps on Giving)", which was a fairly hard route.
March 1998: Steve House leading the 11th pitch of "The Gift (That Keeps on Giving)" on Mount Bradley ... warm enough in the sun that the ice was gone the following day.
July 1990: Ace Kvale sheltering from the rotor wash at the Moskvina Glacier base camp in the Paris, Tajikistan.
April 1986: It feels terrible to be the last one standing from this expedition to Nepal in 1986. Alison Hargreaves (left) died on K2 in 1995, and oddly, Jeff Lowe (center) and Tom Frost (right) died the same day, August 24th, 2018. I often believe that my sadness is linked to death. Many deaths. But one of my witchy friends said, "You have always been sad. Before your first friend died you were sad. You carry it still within you." This picture makes me think of life lost and life missed. I feel sad, but also a strong sense of pride, joy, overwhelmed and grateful to have experienced all that we did together.
February 1997: Kevin Sweigert floating off the Antarctic Peninsula. There's an essay in "Kiss or Kill" about this trip, which wasn't easy but was terrifying, and also really good.
May 1994: Scott Backes racing the sunset in the fourth rock band on the north buttress of Mount Hunter. We had hoped to find a ledge to bivouac on above the rocks but steep ice said "no" so we climbed through the night, eventually stopping on top of the buttress as the sun rose.
October 1988: Barry Blanchard high on the north face of the northeast ridge of Everest. We climbed above 8000m on this attempt before Barry was overcome by cerebral edema. Only decisive action, injectable steroids and a bottle of oxygen we swiped from a team at the North Col saved his life.
February 1988: Some people used to ask if "Reality Bath" was really that dangerous and I'd say that a picture tells all and show them this. It's no wonder the route was not repeated until 37 years later. Randy Rackliff getting the full dose.
April 1992: Andy Parkin following the 8th pitch of "Beyond Good and Evil" on the north face of the Aiguille des Pelerins, Chamonix. All told, I made three attempts and Andy two over a two-year period before we finally climbed it. Now it's quite a classic, a test-piece for anyone who calls themselves an alpinist.
May 1986: Jeff Lowe on the south pillar of Nuptse. We tried real hard on two different trips to climb it and made these attempts in pure alpine style. Later some folks (Enrico Rosso among them) made good attempts that respected the style we originally used. Others fixed ropes but still failed, drilled bolts and also failed ... eventually it was climbed in a "hybrid style" with ropes fixed for the first 5000' of technical climbing and then a three day push above the ropes to reach the east summit.
July 1985: It was too hot to climb ice in the Alps that summer so Jeff Lowe convinced me to try the Bonatti-Ghigo route on the East Face of the Grand Capucin. He freed every pitch (5.12a) and I spent my only unplanned night out on a route: he got to sit on the rope while I put my feet in the pack. It was a long night spent one pitch below the summit.
December 1989: Soloing for the camera and an ad campaign for Asolo boots. As contrived as most advertising photo shoots are, especially in the climbing world, Mark Shapiro captured some amazing images that day above Zermatt.
May 1994: Having slept with my clothes on I was ready to go once out of the too-thin sleeping bag. Starting day two (that lasted 43 hours) on the north buttress of Mount Hunter during the first ascent of "Deprivation", with Scott Backes.
December 1988: On the Arete des Cosmiques, which can be quite trying in the wrong conditions. Anne Smith and I went up to climb something else but there was simply too much snow. To prove it to ourselves we climbed back to the cable car instead of hiking around.
October 1988: Barry Blanchard high on Everest just before the tunnel vision closed in and he felt "like iron spikes are being driven into my head." We were moving well, just 23 or 24 hours in, but it all went bad in the blink of an eye.
August 1988: Barry Blanchard and Ward Robinson near 22,000' at the top of the Welzenbach Couloir, on the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat, Pakistan.
October 1993: Scott Backes retreating from the west face of the Grands Charmoz. The weather was unsettled but we tried anyway, climbing the first three pitches of a route we eventually climbed and named, "Birthright". This day we fled because the spindrift was out of control but a week later conditions came good and we got through.
April 1986: Alison Hargreaves during the first ascent of the northwest ridge of Kangtega (6799m). In the company of Jeff Lowe and Tom Frost, Alison and I climbed the main summit in a ten-day alpine style effort. Jeff and Tom tagged the unclimbed west summit. She never touched that fixed rope either.
January 1991: Michel Fauquet rappelling from a natural ice feature on the south face of Khan Tengri, Tien Shan range, Kazhakstan. We have no idea how this icicle got here ....
August 1988: Kevin Doyle descending into the avalanche scoured Merkl Gully at 25,100' on Nanga Parbat's Rupal Face, Pakistan.
1985 or 1986: I used to telemark. In fact, I was one of those “Epoke 900 / Heel Locator” guys hanging around the Early Winters crew in Seattle in the early-80s (though I quickly graduated to Karhu Titans and Fabiano boots with a fabulous buckle across the forefoot. I skied on telemark gear for 20 years, except for getting around the mountains in climbing boots, which, in the Alps is a requirement. The best kit for that was a pair of 130cm Kastle Firns with old Petzl ULM bindings. When I moved to the Wasatch I quickly realized that a Dynafit set-up was WAY lighter than any telemark gear I owned and far more efficient so I made the switch and ever looked back.
April 1986: Tom Frost on the northwest ridge of Kangtega. He was a big influence on my path of photography, his images from Yosemite were very strong and watching him work during this expedition instilled in me that I must always have a camera with me because he did. And those Contax cameras with Zeiss glass are one of the reasons I often shoot Zeiss lenses today.
December 2001: Tom Frost wrote this letter after seeing a couple of the first Style Matters advertisements we ran to support Grivel North America. I thought it important to call out the best routes done in the purest style if only to educate the newcomers but also to preserve some of climbs that might otherwise have been forgotten.