Features

Mountain Profile

Not far from the famous Tetons, much of the Wind River Range of Wyoming remains relatively quiet, small figures of human travelers easily lost within its intricate corners and vast massifs. Joe Kelsey, great chronicler of these mountains, once wrote: "There isn't much reason to make the effort to visit the Wind Rivers unless you believe in something—something encompassed, however imprecisely, by the term wilderness." Paula Wright recounts moments from its written and unwritten histories, from Native American inhabitants and European explorers to environmental activists and big-wall free climbers. Royal Robbins, Doug Robinson, Jeff Lowe, Raymond G. Jacquot, Sibylle Hechtel, Joe Kelsey and Dick Dorworth offer glimpses of their own adventures in this mysterious, but fragile range.

Stillness and Storms

A little more than a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a German expedition traveled to Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia to establish a new climb on the Torre Central. For East German team member Bernd Arnold, the trip also symbolized the regaining of his own freedom with the end of his region's former communist regime. The resulting route, Riders on the Storm, included some of the hardest free pitches in the region—luring others to try to eliminate the rest of the aid. Twenty-five years later, New Zealand big-wall climber Mayan Smith-Gobat joins German alpinist Ines Papert to attempt to finish their dream. Amid the rockfall, the ice and the heavy storms, Smith- Gobat strives to find her own way in the wild.

Departments

The Sharp End

Of visible and invisible maps.

Letters

A reader shares the climbing journals of her late son.

Climbing Life

Helen Mort extols a woman climber's best (imaginary) friend. Devi Lockwood follows her mother's paths. Kai Lightner explores the old and the new. Jamie McNally dreams of vanishing landscapes. Mark Jenkins contemplates quitting, and Henry Tyce decides he won't.

Wired

Award-winning poet Helen Mort searches for the reasons why writing poetry about climbing experiences can be so challenging—and she presents some of her favorite authors' solutions.

Full Value

Derek Franz peers into the dark side of the dirtbag dream.

Local Hero

James Edward Mills honors Steven Shobe, role model and pioneer.

Off Belay

Kristen Rowe and Mike McMahon recount their quest to capture an image of a climber atop Ancient Art in the Fisher Towers, silhouetted against the full moon—the story behind the cover of this issue.