He said he would do it and he did. Just five months after having his fourth heart surgery, 80-year-old Yuichiro Miura (at right in photo with son Gota, left) became the oldest person to climb the world’s highest peak, reaching the summit of Mt. Everest at 9 a.m. Thursday. Although Miura’s fame has faded in [ more... ]

There’s nothing wrong with parachuting into an area, skiing a renowned peak, and then heading home, but that’s not why Kim Havell came to Wyoming. No, she moved to Jackson a year ago specifically to immerse herself in the steep wild playground that is the Tetons, and the list of her descents after just one [ more... ]

It has been a loooong time in the wilderness for the status of placing climbing bolts in federal wilderness. In June 1998 the U.S. Forest Service banned all fixed climbing anchors within the designated wilderness areas under its jurisdiction. This didn’t just mean permanent bolts: It meant that pitons, nuts, and pretty much any form [ more... ]

A Tucson man’s co-workers became alarmed when he didn’t report to work on Monday prompting them to call police. Their fears turned out to be well founded. He was found dead, hanging from a southern Arizona cliff still in his climbing gear and covered in bee stings. Oddly, his dog was also found dead at [ more... ]

Generations of Sherpas have tirelessly schlepped foreigners’ gear (and hides) up Everest. And for much of that time they’ve been treated as little more than servants, not mountaineers in their own right. Even before setting out for Everest in 1953 with Sir Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay (left) – as sirdar, or leader, of the Sherpas [ more... ]

More than 40 routes and hundreds of potential new ones will be impacted by a BLM ban on a 400-acre section of Castle Rocks, Idaho. Climbing will still be permitted at the much larger, and more widely known City of Rocks. The Bureau of Land Management was vague about its reasons for the ban and [ more... ]

Photographer Ray Demski teamed up with climber Alex Luger on a project they called Ice Nights: a photo shoot of an ice climber making his way up these falls in the dark of night. A group helped them rig several massive flashes to rather interesting effect. It looks like the guy is scaling Superman’s Fortress [ more... ]

If you’ve climbed in the Gunks in New York State you know the route on the Vandals wall that Hugh Herr put up in 1983, the first 5.13 on the East Coast. And on the West coast he made the second ascent of City Park, 5.13c, on Washington’s Index Town Walls, in 1986. But if [ more... ]

Matt Segal and Backcountry.com Athlete Cedar Wright headed to China for the very first Trad Climbing Festival. The North Face sponsored the event, which makes a lot of sense seeing as how they have a huge manufacturing footprint in the country and it represents an enormous market. People from different cultures finding common ground over their passions, always a good time.

How could you be on the edge of your seat reading about a 50-year-old expedition to the top of Everest? Easily. Pick up a copy of the May issue of Outside (the Everest feature isn’t on the web yet, unfortunately) and read Grayson Schaffer’s exhaustive, riveting, even arm-hair raising account of the first successful American [ more... ]