Profile

Mountain Profile: Latok

To many climbers, the name "Latok" conjures up one of the world's most famous unclimbed routes. But the massif contains more than just the North Ridge of Latok I: a series of spires like "a row of El Capitans," and a history of varied dreams from the alpinists who have attempted—and sometimes even summited—these walls. Conrad Anker explores the blanks on the map, while Don Arturo Bergamaschi, Jeff Lowe, Tsuneo Shigehiro, Christian Schlesener and Mark Richey fill in their lines. Conrad Anker

Sharp End

Booty

The approach: a vanishing art. The Editors

Editor's Note

Memory and desire. Michael Kennedy

Namesake

Ron Kauk dreams his Separate Reality. Keese Lane

Contributors

Contributors

Letters

Letters

Our readers remember.

Climbing Life

The Climbing Life

A writer visits heaven, a climber goes savage, and a journalist finds extreme protection.

Wired

Full Value

In 2009, the Taliban invaded Pakistan and began posting executions on YouTube. Many Western alpinists canceled their Karakoram expeditions. Pat Deavoll didn't. Patricia Deavoll

Off Belay

On the 30th anniversary of the first ascent of Latok IV, a nod to its climbers—and to all the Japanese contributors of Issue 30.

Wired

Today, the images of Yosemite's Golden Age illuminate climbing publications and Web forums with a glow of myth. But can the desire to reconnect with an iconic past actually create a greater distance between it and the present? Peter Beal takes a critical look at the paradoxes of our history. Peter Beal

Features Content

A Simple Line

When Maxime Turgeon experiences too much routine on a faraway expedition, he wonders whether modern alpinists are becoming overly conventional. To recapture a sense of discovery, he tries an unexpected environment: today's Alps. Amid cable-car-covered mountains, curious tourists and crowd-jammed routes, he bikes and climbs his way across the range, learning to see with his imagination and to find an inner solitude. Maxime Turgeon

Drawn South

An artist travels to Patagonia with the intention of summiting Fitz Roy, participating in a new route and drawing every day. Jeremy Collins achieves two of his goals; in the process, he discovers that the art of suffering can take colorful forms. Herein, some results of his quest. Jeremy Collins

Into the Shadow

For more than nine years, a British prison guard fantasized about escaping his brutal surroundings for high peaks and undimmed night skies. After he finally quit his job, Nick Bullock begins a long odyssey that finally leads him up the labyrinthine North Face of Chang Himal—and into the shadowlands between dreams and reality, thought and act. Nick Bullock

New Sharp End

On Belay

Looking for "authentic" Adirondacks epics, historian Don Mellor gets lured into a real one that has been ongoing for 49 years. Meanwhile, Albert Leichtfried takes a Moonwalk in the Zillertal Alps; Ron Kauk dreams his Separate Reality. Albert Leichtfried and Don Mellor