Features

Royal Robbins: In the World of Granite and Light

Few other names conjure more images of the Golden Age of Yosemite than that of Royal Robbins, who passed away in March. Known in climbing history for so often being first, Robbins gave Tom Patey the last word in Advanced Rockcraft: "Good climbing and good company often go together: each is essential to the enjoyment of the other." Herein, friends of Robbins share memories of the father, climber and visionary.

Paradigm Shift

In 1993 Lynn Hill's first free ascent of the Nose on El Capitan became a powerful symbol of women's ability to rock climb at the same level as men. Decades later, Caroline Treadway interviews Hill, Steph Davis, Beth Rodden, Pamela Shanti Pack and others on closing the gender gap in the upper limits of hard trad climbing.

Under the Influence

On her eleventh birthday, Claudia Camila López received a camera as a present. Since then, the Colombian-born climber has been documenting the faces of people, crags and mountains, looking to capture the elusive, invisible essence of the world.

Breathe Deep

In September 2016, a week after learning that Kyle Dempster and Scott Adamson were overdue from a climb in Pakistan, Jeff Shapiro and Chris Gibisch leave for the Kishtwar Himalaya in India. With the fate of their friends on their mind, Shapiro and Gibisch vow to "pay attention to every moment for its full value" and to be ready to turn back if the risks seem too great as they seek their way through dense forests and a chaotic icefall to the unclimbed south side of 6486-meter Brammah II.

Departments

The Sharp End

The hero(ine)'s journey.

Letters

An Alpinist reader sounds a call to action.

On Belay

After weeks of climbing in the Neacola Mountains, Drew Thayer and his partners eschew the convenience of a plane ride to complete an irresistible line on the map: a complete journey from summit to sea.

Climbing Life

Whitney Clark contemplates what a few seconds are worth. Christopher Elliott climbs a rock spire on the island of Soqotra to learn more about its mysterious summit cairn (three years after Mike Libecki described it in Alpinist 34). Poet Ed Roberson goes to Peru. Spencer Gray catalogues the items that make a day in the "freedom of the hills" possible. Leslie Hsu Oh finds family, strength and love on a wintry climb. Shirin Shabestari carries on in her father's tradition up Damavand, the tallest volcano in Iran.

Full Value

In October 1976, little more than a year after climbing the south face of Mt. Watkins, with Tobin Sorenson and Gib Lewis, Rick Accomazzo returns to the 2,800- foot wall to take part in a major rescue attempt.

Wired

Early expeditions often combined the exploration of new heights with a search for rare botanical specimens. More than a century after both natural history and mountaineering fractured into subdisciplines, Associate Editor Paula Wright explores climbing's science gap.

Off Belay

Jeremy Collins imagines the young Royal Robbins.