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How do you predict the weather at the top of the world? Ask a highly unconventional meteorologist.
APRIL 25I just got back to Everest Base Camp after spending 5 nights up on the mountain. On April 20, we climbed up through the Khumbu Icefall to Camp I. We departed our base camp at 4 a.m. and arrived at Camp I around 10 a.m. and…
Climbing is an intrinsically risky sport, so it's important to buy a little insurance wherever you can, especially where your kids are concerned.
Two American climbers started the Centro de Escalada Urbana with a vision: to give kids from one of Rio de Janeiro’s poorest neighborhoods a leg up by teaching them to climb the cliffs near their home. Before they were done, they would blaze new routes up Rio’s granite walls, weather the death of a friend, and see the social order of one of Brazil's biggest slums turned upside down.
Travel to these destinations for tons of open space—and it's all yours
The traditional climbing gym is about to evolve—or at least that’s what the owner of Brooklyn Boulders believes. With a second, satellite location slated to open this spring in Somerville, Massachusetts, the company is planning to house an unusual and disparate blend of climbing, retail, working, and community spaces under one roof.
Several near deaths on the world’s highest peaks have shed light on a dangerous trend in mountaineering: rampant use of performance-enhancing drugs, particularly the powerful steroid dexamethasone
The weather's been bad, and all I've been doing is sitting at home and practicing my knots. Is there an app for that?
I want to climb one of the Seven Summits and have narrowed the list to Aconcagua or Kilimanjaro. I’m in excellent shape and an experienced hiker, but not a mountaineer. Which one would you recommend?
The upstart climbing phenomenon reveals the secrets to his success
Indoor climbing could soon replace spin class as the urban professional’s sport of choice—and that has marketers salivating
The profile on Team ABC Boulder of 11-year-old climbing sensation Brooke Raboutou—which was last updated in December 2011—lists more than a few hard-to-grasp facts about the phenom. Raboutou first climbed at the age of one. She began climbing regularly at four or five years…
Ali Carr Troxell spoke to Climbing's Julie Ellison and Jes Nelson, a manager at Bent Gate gear store, after they climbed the 5.7 route about the experience and what pieces of gear were pivotal
“As a professional climber I like to say that my gift in life is the ability to relentlessly beat my head against a wall. I live by the ethos that if you hit your head hard or long enough, it really feels good when you stop.” —…
You’re reading it here first. In a few days, Black Diamond Equipment will unveil its new collection of clothing to media and retailers at the Outdoor Retailer Trade show in Salt Lake City, Utah. The clothing has been under development for two years,…
What things does a great climber keep in his gear room? Conrad Anker answers that question in the video embedded above, in which he offers Black Diamond a tour of his basement lair. There's plenty of new climbing equipment,…
Juneau climbers Ryan Johnson and Samuel Johnson will attempt Mount Hayes, Alaska. Photo: Glacier Fed/Flickr The Alpinist and their partners announced the winners of the 2013 Mugs Stump Awards today, offering up…
Yes, this video of climber Dean Potter walking a highline at Cathedral Peak as the sun sets and the moon rises is old. It originally appeared as part of “The Man Who Can Fly,” a National Geographic special. But the full clip…
FalconGuides just announced the first 12 titles in a new line of interactive outdoor guides the company developed in partnership with Inkling, a platform for interactive learning. For the price of the download, readers get expert content optimized for iPhone, iPad, and Web, with…
Senior year at the University of Colorado, Boulder was a big one for Jeff Popp. That was the year when, as captain of the U.C. snowboard team, he was honored as a first-team All-American. It was also the year that he decided to avoid the “white collar…
In 1973, Lowe Alpine was born in climber Greg Lowe’s garage. Greg and his brother Mike Lowe started the company to make the gear that Greg needed for alpine climbing, ice climbing, and expeditions that simply…
Annapurna. Photo: BrewBooks/Flickr French mountaineer Maurice Herzog, who led the first documented summit of an 8,000-meter peak,…
Everest. Photo: Daniel Prudek/Shutterstock On Thursday, climbing blogger Alan Arnette posted a new analysis of the dead on Mount Everest. “Around 225 climbers have died on Everest…
In the 1990s, Dan Coyle started making wooden helmets for himself and his buddies for whitewater kayaking, as well as wooden eyeglass frames and paddles. It was a hobby, a use for Coyle’s chainsaw and grinder. Coyle noticed that, structurally, wood is similar to rigid, closed-cell…
The Drygalski Mountains. Photo: Berghaus.com The realities of an expedition to Antarctica, where temperatures fall to -50 degrees and the wind can reach speeds of up to 100 miles per hour, are harsh. At night, for example, explorers must pack all…
In 2003, climber Asa Firestone traveled to Rio de Janeiro to climb “Two Brothers,” twin peaks surrounded by favelas—shanty towns harboring many of the city’s poor. Many locals warned him against climbing in such a dangerous…
When world renowned alpinist/speed climber Ueli Steck has a new gear idea, his sponsors hit the drawing board to turn that idea into product. So when Steck told Scarpa he wanted the lightest insulated boot…
The American Alpine Club is now accepting applications for the 2013 Copp-Dash Inspire Awards. The awards honor the late climbers Jonny Copp and Micah Dash, who were killed—along with filmmaker Wade Johnson—in May 2009 by an avalanche in China's Sichuan province. This year's…
Ascending Mount Lenin. Photo: Hari Mix Is Hari Mix a mountaineer with a science habit or a scientist with a mountaineering habit? “I'm not sure,” says the 27-year-old Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Earth Systems Science at Stanford University. “They're definitely related,…
It would be hard to dream up a better combo for an adventure movie that raises awareness about a water crisis than filmmaker Peter McBride and climber Jake Norton. McBride's film Chasing Water…
Mountains test your resilience. Cliffs and cold and striving for the summit push your physical and mental limits. Gravity and fear pull you down, while passion and determination push you higher. It is for these moments, these experiences, that the climber/mountaineer founders of American Mountain Co.
World's youngest ski patroller? Taylor Justice on the job at Aspen. Photo: Taylor Justice There are overachievers, and then there is Taylor Justice. The 12-year-old skier/climber/straight-A student started shredding double-black diamond chutes when she was eight. Three years later, she joined the…
The movie poster. Photo: Courtesy of Messner One of the biggest films that screened at the 2012 Banff Mountain Film Competition was Messner, a 108-minute German documentary with English subtitles directed by…
Waiting out the storm. Photo: Lonnie Dupre Lonnie Dupre has attempted to climb Denali in January each of the last two years. Both times he hit bad weather. So he huddled inside…
When it comes to producing climbers, there's one college that stands above all the rest
Romero near his home in Big Bear Lake, California. Photo: Jennifer Briggs What do you do when you’re 15 years old and you’ve already climbed the highest mountain on every continent? If you’re Jordan Romero, you launch a nationwide campaign to scale the tallest summits in…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=dfjn3YNZf0Y%3Frel%3D0 If Japanese climber Tomoko Ogawa looks like she's been practicing the problem in the video above for years, it's because, well, she has. Ogawa, 34, starting working Catharsis, a V14 in Shiobara, Japan, three years ago. At the time, no woman had ever climbed a boulder problem harder than…
When climbers Jarem Frye, Craig DeMartino, and Pete Davis met at the 2006 Extremity Games, an X Games-style event for amputee athletes, one of them proposed tackling a big wall…
At points in the video This Way: Episode 4, it looks like ice climber Will Gadd is fighting his way across the frozen belly of a large white poodle. He's almost perpendicular to the ground and swinging his pick at thick white overhanging…
Versatile. That’s how our East Coast tester described Brooks Range's four-way stretch, water-resistant Isto softshell jacket. He spent 100 days last winter and spring skiing, hiking and ciimbing in snow, rain, slush, sleet, freezing rain, some more snow, sun, blue skies, and any other…
Red line represents the West Ridge route, Spring 2012. Illustration: Grayson Schaffer On Wednesday morning around 10:00 EST, Japanese climber Nobukazu Kuriki made it clear that he plans to push on toward the summit of Mount Everest. “Then left towards…
Nobukazu Kuriki on Everest. Photo: Nobukazu Kuriki/Facebook On Tuesday, Japanese climber Nobukazu Kuriki’s Twitter account said he set off for Camp IV in his attempt to summit…
Benedikt Böhm on Manaslu. Photo: Dynafit Roughly a week after the deadly avalanche that claimed at least 11 lives on Manaslu, German climber and skier Benedikt Böhm summited and skied down the world's eighth highest peak without the use of supplemental oxygen in less than…
ext_script = "//player.ooyala.com/player.js?embedCode=5lMGIzNjoWddYOMDD281bMCiSeUUCOus&deepLinkEmbedCode=5lMGIzNjoWddYOMDD281bMCiSeUUCOus&height=360&width=640&video_pcode=1jZG06vQqWlGOe2jr1WK6VaYFHtK" The world's first 5.15c route is here—and it's not in Spain. Adam Ondra pushed the grade scale a little higher this morning when he sent his project Change, a severely-overhanging 180-foot sport line in Norway's Flatanger Cave for which…
Tips for surviving seven of the world's deadliest adventures
We’ve all got that buddy—the one who executes an epic ski or raft mission every year. Reader Keith Pearen is one of those guys. For the past 10 years, the 32-year-old Boulder, Colorado, aerospace engineer has been organizing trips for groups of up to 20 friends. Here’s the formula he applies.
Wild Things was founded 31 years ago to provide alpine climbing apparel and hardware for the world’s most extreme expeditions. The co-founder, Chamonix-born Marie Meunier, wore Wild Things on the first ascent of the South Face of Chacraraju, Peru,…
Climbers looking for funding help on fast and light alpine expeditions can now apply for a Mugs Stump Award. This year’s winners will receive a portion of $25,000 in total funding. The grants will go to “individuals and teams whose proposed climbs present…
Manaslu. Photo: Switchback Travel/Flickr Multiple expeditions reported Monday that they summited Manaslu. The successful bids come a little more than a week after an avalanche swept through Camp III and…
Makalu. Photo: Ben Tubby/Flickr Mountaineer and journalist Billi Bierling drops a pretty impressive list of names while witing about her attempt to climb Makalu, the world's fifth highest mountain. She regularly assists…
Just before an avalanche swept through Camp III on Manaslu this past Sunday morning around 4:30 a.m., skier Glen Plake was resting inside his tent with teammate Gregory Costa. Strong wind gusts kept them awake. Their teammate Remy Lécluse was in another tent. The three…
Debris field on Manaslu. Photo: Garrett Madison/Alpine Ascents International In the wake of the deadly avalanche that swept through Camp III on Manaslu this past Sunday, climbers shaken by the events have decided to pack up…
Nine climbers are reported dead following the massive avalanche that swept through Camp III on Manaslu this past Sunday, according to both the Associated Press and The Guardian. A local police chief said…
A slab of snow broke loose, wiping out Camp III high on the world's eighth-tallest peak in what could be among the deadliest avalanches in Himalayan climbing history
ext_script = "//player.ooyala.com/player.js?embedCode=MzY3h4NTrQC8bniUW2NFBinDNMdE5VCB&height=360&deepLinkEmbedCode=MzY3h4NTrQC8bniUW2NFBinDNMdE5VCB&width=640&video_pcode=1jZG06vQqWlGOe2jr1WK6VaYFHtK" I've written before about Jonathan Siegrist, the Colorado sport climber who's been establishing hard new routes in the United States while many of his peers have focused their efforts on destinations like Spain. This month, Siegrist was at it…
Dealing with your climbing rope at the crag is often a tangley affair. Most rope bags are some sort of sack that holds a detached tarp. While you’re climbing, the tarp is out of the bag with the rope piled on top of it, protecting the rope…
EPSON DSC picture Larry Gibson, keeper of Kayford Mountain. Photo: Vivian Stockman The Appalachian Mountains lost a hero on Sunday, September 10. Larry Gibson, the face of the fight against mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia, died of a heart attack while…
I’m staying at a cabin outside of Lake Placid, New York, for a short vacation. What should I do in the Adirondacks while I’m there?
ext_script = "//player.ooyala.com/player.js?height=360&deepLinkEmbedCode=B4amp1NTrCIQBfaeuqn9NpIaD6_jF929&embedCode=B4amp1NTrCIQBfaeuqn9NpIaD6_jF929&width=640&video_pcode=1jZG06vQqWlGOe2jr1WK6VaYFHtK" There are only three days until the world premiere of Reel Rock 7, the country's biggest touring film festival dedicated to climbing. Earlier today, Sender Films and Big Up Productions…
Climber hanging. Photo: Rudall30/Shutterstock Scientist Daniel Lack used experience as a motivator for his study on climbing rescues, deaths, and accidents in Boulder County, Colorado. Lack started climbing at 24 at the Kangaroo Point…
Grizzly print, and a notebook. Photo: Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation Rachel Carson earned a master's degree in zoology from John Hopkins University and spent most of her career working as a marine biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife…
Climber Alex Honnold and filmmaker Peter Mortimer talk about their new collaboration and the pressures of fame
Ashima on Steady Plums Direct. Photo: 27crags Last we heard from fifth-grade climbing wunderkind Ashima Shiraishi, she was fresh off a spring bouldering trip to Hueco Tanks, Texas, and getting some serious press. The New York Times gave her front-page sports coverage (and…
Benedikt Böhm leads the charge. Photo: Dynafit One of the next big high-altitude speed feats will take place on Cho Oyu. In late September, German mountaineers Benedikt Böhm, 34, and…
K2. Photo: Kevin Mayea/Wikimedia Commons Roughly a week after Explorers Web reported that 28 people reached the summit of K2 in a single day, at least one expedition found themselves trapped…
Outside reviews the the best gear of Outdoor Retailer, including the Petzl Sirocco helmet.
The goal: cover 15 mountains in fewer than four days and 11 hours. If Sean O'Rourke succeeds, he'll hold the record for the fastest ascent of California's 14ers.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/bJY8GTV88j0 Gil Weiss free-soloing Blitzen Ridge in Rocky Mountain National Park. “Ugh, not 2 more,” wrote one commenter on SuperTopo yesterday in response to news that two climbers from Boulder had gone missing…
The goal: Cover 15 mountains in six days. If Crawford succeeds, she'll hold the record for the fastest female ascent of California's 14ers
“You might even live if you fell off of it,” says Squamish pioneer Perry Beckham. But that doesn't make this gorgeously-edited film of 25-year-old Canadian climber Will Stanhope free-soloing British Columbia's Zombie Roof (5.12d) any less gripping to watch. While the tone of the video is more soulful than…
Climbers have a lot to look forward to in spring 2013. Check out the gear you’ll be taking to the crag or cliff next year in this, our first preview post leading up to the Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City. Gram-counting purists will be elated by…
A titanium bike with swooping lines and parallel triangles for added flex and greater shock absorption.
Way back in 2007, filmmaker Dave Ohlson was in Namche Bazaar talking to climber Fabrizzio Zangrilli about Luigi Amedeo di Savoia's 1909 expedition to K2. Savoia, better known as the Duke of Abruzzi, led a team to 20,500 feet, the…
In May of 2009, climbers Jonny Copp, Micah Dash, and filmmaker Wade Johnson were killed in an avalanche while climbing China's Mount Edgar. Copp frequently shared photos and stories with our magazine and website in the years before he died, and all of the men shared…
Part of what makes leading ice so hazardous is the fact that, unlike rock, ice melts. For a scary illustration of that point, watch this viral video of a late-season ice climber on Kennedy's Gully (WI5, six pitches) in…
This is the third in a three-part series excerpted from Laurel Holland's forthcoming book, Spindrift. Her father, Bill Holland, was killed while attempting an unroped descent of Slipstream, the 3,000-foot frozen waterfall in Alberta, Canada's Jasper National Park. His body was discovered 21 years later, a mile from the estimated site of his fall.
This is the second in a three-part series excerpted from Laurel Holland's forthcoming book, Spindrift. Her father, Bill Holland, was killed while attempting an unroped descent of Slipstream, the 3,000-foot frozen waterfall in Alberta, Canada's Jasper National Park. His body was discovered 21 years later, a mile from the estimated site of his fall.