For our final episode of the 2023 season, we’re heading to Kishtwar in northern India, an area of very dramatic granite peaks, most of which have only been climbed by one or two routes. One of these mountains is White Sapphire, a peak of 6,040 meters or just under 20,000 feet, that had only been climbed twice. Pete Takeda, the interviewer for this episode, had shared photos of an unclimbed big wall on White Sapphire with a young friend named Christian Black. In time, Christian recruited his friends Hayden Wyatt and Vitaliy Musiyenko as partners. They won a grant from the American Alpine Club ..read more

On October 12, climbers Matt Cornell, Jackson Marvell and Alan Rousseau summited 7,710-meter Jannu, or Khumbakarna, by a new route up the north face, climbed in alpine style. Jannu’s main north face had only been climbed once, in 2004, by a 12-man Russian team that spent nearly two months on the face and fixed over 10,000 feet of rope. The American trio carried a single lead rope and took only a modest rack and no bolt kit. Their route, Round Trip Ticket, was climbed and descended in one week. Years of preparation and innovation went into this remarkable ascent, and in this episode of the Cutt ..read more

In late September, Connor Herson and Fan Yang free climbed Hairline on the east face of Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the Lower 48. Hairline is a very steep, 13-pitch route originally climbed in 1987. The 55-meter crux pitch went at 5.13+ or 8b, at over 13,000 feet in elevation. The two other hard pitches go at 5.12 and 5.13-. Connor climbed 5.14c/8c+ at age 14 and became famous at 15 for free climbing the Nose of El Cap. He’s now 20 and a student at Stanford University. At age 36, Fan is also a 5.14 climber, and he’s an M.D., an engineer, and a researcher in the field of artificial intelli ..read more

This episode is all about Tirich Mir in Pakistan’s High Hindu Kush. This past summer, two Japanese climbers completed an ascent of the secretive north face of this 7,708-meter mountain—an isolated wall that probably had never been attempted before. For the last decade, Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima have formed one of the most successful partnerships in the world for lightweight, alpine-style new routes on high 7,000-meter peaks. Kazuya had dreamed of climbing Tirich Mir for more than 20 years, and the route they pieced together was a creative and committing solution to a very complex mount ..read more

Often described as one of the most beautiful mountains in North America, Mt. Huntington has been drawing top alpinists to the Alaska Range ever since the peak's first ascent in 1964, led by the great French climber Lionel Terray. In April 2023, Dane Steadman (USA), Zac Colbran and Grant Stewart (both from Canada) flew to the Tokositna Glacier for their own adventures. The three of them climbed a cool new route up the west face of Huntington, and two of them then made a second foray onto the west face, repeating a rarely climbed variation to the Harvard Route and freeing the classic Nose pitch ..read more

Sarah McNair-Landry and Erik Boomer only started climbing a few years ago, and their technical level maxes out around 5.11. Yet their extended, multi-sport expeditions all over Baffin Island are without a doubt cutting edge. This year, they made three separate trips: one for climbing, skiing, and kiting on Baffin Island’s remote east coast; one to explore a new zone of beautiful walls near Baffin’s southern tip; and a third to fulfill the dream that got them into climbing in the first place: climbing the mighty peak of Mt. Asgard. (They climbed it twice.) Chris Kalman spoke with Sarah and Erik ..read more

This summer, Matt Segal recruited his old friend Jesse Huey and an alpine newbie, Jordan Cannon, for an attempt on Trango Tower in Pakistan. And not just by any route: Segal dreamed of free climbing the unrepeated Cowboy Direct, first climbed way back in 1995. The El Cap–size wall route goes at 5.13a and summits at over 20,000 feet. The trio made a powerful combo: Matt, a solid 5.14 climber; Jesse, an all-around master; and Jordan, a big-wall free climbing ace. In this interview, led by Chris Kalman, the three climbers describe their 15-day final push on the route, the superb partnership they ..read more

Have you ever wondered how ordinary climbers manage to put together an expedition to the Himalaya? Our guests Ethan Berman and Maarten Van Haeren just made the first ascent of the northeast face of Khang Karpo (6,646 meters) in Nepal during their very first expedition to the mountains of Asia. In this episode, AAJ editor Dougald MacDonald interviews the pair about their beautiful new route, and then asks them to go into detail on the ins and outs of planning an expedition. The Cutting Edge is presented by Hilleberg the Tentmaker, with additional support from Polartec, Gnarly Nutrition, and Low ..read more

In July 2023, four climbers from New England—Will Carey, Taki Miyamoto, Ray Rice, and Mark Richey—completed what just might be the longest pure rock climb in Africa. Their 800-meter route climbs straight up the middle of the upper face of Chambe, a huge granite monolith in Malawi. For this episode, AAJ assistant editor Michael Levy (who climbed on Chambe himself for several weeks in July 2022) spoke with Will and Mark about their adventures. Although both climbers have done many new routes (Mark is a two-time Piolets d'Or winner for his first ascents in the Karakoram), ground-up bolting a huge ..read more

In mid-September, American Colin Haley, 38, added another impressive solo ascent to his long list of ground-breaking alpine climbs (both roped and unroped). During an impromptu late-winter trip to Patagonia, in a round-trip of around 21 hours, Haley climbed the Supercanaleta route on Cerro Chaltén (Fitz Roy), the first time this 1,600-meter climb has been soloed in winter. And by solo, we really mean alone: Haley never saw another climber during his five trips into the high mountains. In this episode, Michael Levy quizzes Haley not only about the physical aspects of such a difficult, lonely cl ..read more