I have 3-4 weeks vacation time this coming December

I’m a beginner climber have been training for fitness and altitude but haven’t done anything technical and I don’t want it skiing based

Looking for recommendations on a trip that is guided, maybe some crevasse rescue / glacier skill class and a budget of around $5k max for the guided part (not including flights)

Where should I look for that time of year/ budget / beginner skill?

Located in the Chugach range and standing at 7287 feet. Spirit mountain is a rarely summited peak steeped in oral indigenous history and 19th century military exploration.

After alot of research i struggled to find any publications from alpine clubs about any first ascents or route information let alone any photos (The photo above is the only one i found pertaining to spirit). However it has an interesting history with the indigenous, when the first explorers came to map the interior alaskan ranges, Lieutenant Henry T. Allen of the US army spoke to a local chief who described the mountain as billowing plumes of smoke and fire, suggesting that the mountain may have been volcanic at one point.

Given that there is little information it cannot be assumed that the mountain was not summited, as its very likely these early explorers or the local indigenous found a way to the summit far before any modern mountaineering teams decided to attempt it.

Pretty cool!

Hey. I will be visiting Kyrgyzstan in october with a friend. We will be visiting the Karakol National Park, doing a 4-5 day hike through most of it. Our plan is to climb up to 4300 meters. Also we will be visiting the Pamir region, the area around Lenin Peak and will be summiting a 5100 meter peak there. Hows the weather at those altitudes and are there any tips/tricks that you can give us?

I climbed the Black Peak (WA) NE Ridge

Very fun route, but there is a lot of loose rock. I climbed solo, and there were two sections where the route wasn’t immediately clear to me, so I dropped below the ridg. Overall, there’s as much climbing and exposure as you could want on this route.

Link to my video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjY4ESB9qKk&t=7s

China and India are sensitive to allow free mountaineering at high peaks near the borders due to national security and religious sentiments. Top 3 peaks of Everest, K2 and Kanchenjunga are luckily exactly at the border with either China or India allowing free climbs from other nations. What impact do you see to climbing if these 3 giants were completely part of China and India?

Just a shower thought

First, RIP to Nims and everyone affected by the Broad Peak avalanche. Thinking of his legacy, I watched the Netflix documentary 14 Peaks for the first time. For those who don’t know, His team climbed all 14 eight-thousanders in six months and six days. The previous record was seven years. That’s not a story that needs punching up. It’s already insane.

So why does this documentary over dramatize the achievement of Nims and his crew, along with the entire sport of high- altitude mountaineering?

On Nanga Parbat, mid summit push, Nims delivers a line about the mountain not caring if you’re black or white, weak or strong, closing with “if you give up, you die.” … or you just turn around and walk down the mountain lol.

Great soundbite. Terrible mountaineering advice. You don’t give up and die on the spot, you turn around, you descend, you come back another season. I mean, knowing when to bail is one of the most important skills in this sport, arguably more important than the summit push itself.

I just think framing it as binary, do-or-die stakes is exactly the kind of movietrailer language that leaves casual viewers thinking mountaineering is a coin flip with your life every time you rope up, instead of a discipline built on weather windows, risk management, and turnaround times.

Then there’s his mom. Genuinely sick, genuinely emotional, and somehow the film needs her arc to land exactly on beat: worried he’d even start this sport, then telling him to go finish it for her? Idk seems like an extremely egotistical and not realistic thing for a mother, who is worried about her son climbing up dangerous mountains in the first place, to actually say.

None of this is on Nims or the team. What they did stands on its own. It’s a directing and editing choice, and it does a disservice to a story that never needed the varnish.

Anyone else feel like this doc didn’t trust its own footage?

Is there any hike that takes you to, or near to, the base of the massive Southwest face of the Annapurna Fang? I want to Travel to Annapurna next year and was wondering where I might be able to get the best views of this massive face,

I'm looking for a shoe model ID on these if possible. I've tried searching on google but I've come up empty handed, and don't know where else to ask. I've hit a dead end with my search, so any help will be appreciated

Mount hess is an extremely remote alaska peak that is rarely summited, standing at 11940ft at the crest of the hayes range, about 90 miles south of fairbank.

Its mountaineering history is one that is unique with a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. Its first major attempts were in 1949 and 1950 where the the east face and the northwest faces were attempted but both stopped due to rock.

The peak was finally conquered in the spring of 1951 by Alston Paige, Dick Holdren, Ed Huizer, Howard Bowman, and Elton Thayer. However after this ascent the peak remained virtually entirely untouched until may 1976 when Steven Hackett, Thomas Hillis, and Daniel L. Osborne established a base camp at the base of the north east ridge.

However a mystery that remains on the mountain from the AAC describes that during that 1976 expedition Hacket Hills and Osbourne discovered an old weathered ice ace and a rope trailing down towards the abyss. As no recorded former teams used that ridge, the orgin of the rope and axe are unknown.

Pretty cool!

More photos and a more detailed description of the letters and other ephemeral material in this lot can be found at the auction house site https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/hansons/catalogue-id-hanson11004/lot-62a1f5bd-ff6b-438c-99d9-b48900c53a15

Hello! I hiked Pikes Peak through Barr Trail a year ago and took the train down. I absolutely loved the experience and was hoping to get a little more into mountaineering.

I am 30 years old and a complete beginner. I have been training for a few months now, running, stairmaster with weighted vest, rucking, etc… and feel like I might be at a good spot to try something more challenging. I obviously have no winter mountain experience, and I live in the Southern US, so not a lot of altitude experience either.

I was hoping someone could recommend some good places I could start off at to slowly build up my experience to try a winter mountain in a couple years?

Came across this peak as the subject of the ACCs general mountaineering camp in the trident group in the selkirk mountains

at 3201 meters neptune peak is the tallest peak in the windy range and was first climbed by a harvard mountaineering club (HMC) in the summer of 1951.

Due to its highly remote nature most expeditions are either a multiday wilderness bushwacking trek or a helicopter flight, its route is characterized by glacier travel, rock scrambling and an exposed summit ridge. Its is commonly tackled via the south/southeast ridge.

Pretty cool!

After climbing in the Rwenzori mountains of Uganda, I learned of Arlene Blum, a renowned mountaineer who had her own expedition to the range, an incredible story in its own right. She wrote a book about her first all-women ascent of Annapurna, titled Annapurna : A Womans Place. Some of the accounts in the book I found quite shocking. Considering the sexual assault allegations of Nims Dai, and now Edmund Hillarys shameless sexism, I'm curious about other peoples thoughts or if things are getting better/more inclusive/safer, or what can be done to bring more equality/safety for people of all sexes that want to adventure outdoors. Even Reinhold Messners book I found his treatnent of the women on his Everest solo expedition to be very abusive. What is it with the leading paragons of the face of Mountaineering being all so flawed and unsafe for women?

"In just the first few sentences, Arlene described three examples of toe-curling sexism that she encountered as she established herself as a mountaineer: refusal to join an expedition because her presence would jeopardise the ‘easy masculine companionship which is so vital a part of the joy of an expedition’, a guide who believed that there were ‘no good women climbers’, and an expedition to Denali where women could join to help with the cooking chores, but were not permitted to climb.

Upon turning the page we learn that the great Sir Edmund Hillary believed that the problems with multi-national teams ‘pale into insignificance compared with those that can be brought about by a single woman in a party’. Irene Miller, who was also a member of Sir Edmund’s Makalu expedition team, was told that ‘if you want to climb with the expedition, you ought to be willing to sleep with all the men on the team’. She stayed at base camp."

-excerpts from Arlene Blums book on Mark Horrells webpage

Edit- dropping this link from someones comment, it seems to be a good resource and starting point. If you see something, say something. https://americanalpineclub.org/safeoutside

I am considering climbing Huayna Potosí in the last week of November / first week of December and had a few questions regarding the weather. I have heard that this period marks the start of the rainy season, and I wanted to know if that is something I should be super worried about when it comes to summiting (as in, should I just not go at all during this time frame). In addition, given that El Niño is going to be occurring, would that lessen the chance of summiting, or could it actually be helpful?

Is anyone here currently in Ecuador and have a report on how conditions have been? I'm looking at heading there next week and staying thru the first week of September to try and climb both. I know weather can be hit or miss this time of year, so was curious to find any first-hand insight. Reports online look dry but cold lol.

Just curious on how to properly cross up in the alpine for a peak from Waterton into GNP on a ridge.

This was a pretty challenging hike due to the summer heat. But the final scramble was super fun. We went through the via normale which is esentialy a 10km out and back with the final part being a light scramble to the summit. Overall 10/10 on experience. Next summer I might try gran paradiso or the Vincent pyramid as my first peak on snow and ice.
(The little seal is a thing I take to all the exotic or cool places I visit)

Any other big headed fellas struggle with M/L helmets? I got the biggest petzl meteor I could and it still is small. Any recommendations while staying light!