Mountain Profile: Denali

The High One has been luring climbers skyward for more than 100 years. Steve House explores the attraction, while Barbara Washburn, Riccardo Cassin, Art Davidson, Doug Scott, Phil Powers and Maxime Turgeon relate their adventures on the top of North America. Steve House and Katie Ives

Booty

A necky wood rat. The Editors

Short Pitches

Cragging news from Wyoming and Washington.

Editor's Note

Baby Grows Up. Kim Csizmazia

Namesake

How the Grapefruit Dance got its name. Will Gadd

The First Modern Climbing Harness

America’s first real climbing harness. The Editors

Contributors

Letters

From the depths of the lame to the heights of the divine.

The Climbing Life

Observations from the field.

Escape Route

The weight of history can be the biggest obstacle to an ascent. One climber goes up against the legends and finds the results remarkably liberating. Topher Donahue

First Ascent

Sometimes it takes a little vision to see the diamond in the coal mine. A celebration of an über-choss classic. Peter Croft

Full Value: Mt. Wake

As if hanging by one hand, unclipped from the rope, 200 feet off the deck in the midst of an Alaskan storm weren’t enough, this Montana hardman also had to worry about what his mama would say... Jack Tackle

Off Belay

Fred Beckey and friends. Corey Rich

Wired

Keeping a route under the radar may seem fine—until someone else claims it as a first ascent. But if climbers refuse to talk about their lines, do they have any rights to them later on? The Editors

Local Hero

Barry Blanchard extols Eamonn Walsh, the Canadian Rockies’ Man of Girth, whose big heart and big-alpine talent keep him honest. With photographs by Cory Richards. Barry Blanchard

Buildering

The formations may be man-made, but the experience remains elemental. A photographic essay explores this age-old offshoot of modern climbing. Andrew Burr

The Grand Plan

Think America's deepest hole is just for floating? Think again. A team of climbers plunges in—and reimagines the future of climbing. Tommy Caldwell

Stolby

For most climbers, soloing is out-there enough. But an entire Siberian community of city folk who have soloed en masse every weekend for the last 150 years? That's off the charts. Jonathan Thesenga

The Upturned World

One of the most transcendent mountains in the world offers a portal to another way of being. But once you're in there, how do you get out? Valeriy Babanov