Alpinist Magazine Issue 81 | Spring 2023

Cover: Brad Gobright on Lurking Fear during a one-day, three-route linkup on El Capitan (Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La) that he and Scott Bennett completed on June 16, 2016, which was also Gobright’s twenty-eighth birthday. Gobright and Bennett climbed Zodiac, the Nose and Lurking Fear in twenty-three hours and ten minutes. For his next birthday, Gobright wrote on Instagram, «29 is miniature golf!» [Photo] Drew Smith

Features

Sleeping in the Sky

In 2019 Tino Villanueva and Alan Rousseau completed the first alpine-style ascent of Tengi Ragi Tau (6938m) in Nepal. Before reaching the highpoint of success, they had to cross valleys of near misses and failures. In this story Villanueva shares some lessons he learned through a decade of visiting the Greater Ranges.

To Everest, and Back

After the 1963 American Mt. Everest Expedition, James T. Lester led five Sherpas on a tour across the US. Thirty-five years later, Lester revisited Nepal to learn what had become of the AMEE Sherpas. Herein, Alison Jean Lester and Pasang Yangjee Sherpa consider what James Lester’s travel photos and writings reveal, not only about himself but also about the journeys of the Sherpa men he met.

Exposure

Lucas Roman became fast friends with Brad Gobright while working together at a climbing gym in 2007. Gobright eventually earned fame for his bold rock climbing before he died in 2019. What many people didn’t see, Roman writes, was the inner light that guided him through the setbacks he’d faced since birth.

Contours: A Climber’s Call to National Monuments

From 2016 through 2019, McKenzie Long visited thirteen national monuments in an effort to understand their importance. From sandstone cracks in Bears Ears National Monument to the Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico and the Franklin Mountains outside El Paso, Texas, Long explores what’s at stake for Indigenous communities, climbers and the future of public lands.

Departments

Sharp End

Derek Franz seeks a balance between safety and boldness.

Letters

Andy Munas remembers a lost climber through a shared guidebook.

On Belay

In August 2021, alpinist Erin Smart sits perched near the summit of the Doigt de Dieu on la Meije, where she and fellow guides Benjamin Ribeyre and Cyril Dupeyré had begun establishing a new route up the south face the year before. Now six weeks pregnant, Smart considers the adventures that lie ahead, both on the wall and in her life.

Tool User

Matt Samet explores the development of technical rock climbing grades.

The Climbing Life

Erin Connery brings us along a climb in the dark. Talley V. Kayser stops the sun. And Shehla Anjum shares stories from some of the Pakistani women finding their power amid the country’s high peaks.

Wired

John Porter revisits the 1921 British reconnaissance of Mt. Everest (Chomolungma) and some of the friendships and scientific discoveries that laid the groundwork for expeditions to come.

Local Hero

Abbey Collins celebrates Steve Gruhn’s commitment to preserving Alaska mountaineering history and sharing it with climbers across the globe.

Off Belay

Stepping into what feels like a supernatural realm, Luka Lindič free climbs a humanlike rock face in Slovenia.