Alpinist

In June 2020, Chantel Astorga soloed Denali’s Cassin Ridge in less than 15 hours, setting a women’s record and making the first known ski descent of the Seattle Ramp during the approach. She recalls one particular moment after skiing through a dangerous icefall and spotting an eagle: “I’ve never seen a large bird in the Alaska Range up that high, and it was thermaling above me, and I had this wonderful sense of peace and calmness… I’d gotten through this thing I was most terrified of, and I did it in as good a style as I could, and as safely as one can do something like that alone.” Today, Astorga makes a living as an avalanche forecaster in Idaho. She received an honorable mention by the Piolets d’Or awards in 2018 for a new route that she completed on Nilkanth (6596m) in India’s Garhwal Range with Anne Gilbert Chase and Jason Thompson. In this episode, she talks with Derek Franz about her early days as a climber when she was rope soloing ice climbs and skiing Denali in oversized, second-hand gear, and the path that led to her recent success on the Cassin Ridge.

[Photo] Chantel Astorga

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Audio Production by Nick Mott.

Mike Gardner was 16 years old when his father, a respected climbing guide, died while free soloing on the Grand Teton in 2008. Mike has suffered the loss of other loved ones since then, yet he continues to climb and guide in the Greater Ranges as well as the Tetons where he grew up. In that time, he and his partners have completed some impressive fast-and-light ascents using a strategy of “ski-alpinism.” In this episode, Derek Franz interviews him about a remarkable spring 2021 season in Alaska, his formative life experiences, and how those inform the risks that he continues to face as a professional climber. “I don’t have a really clear, well-thought-out answer…why I go to the mountains when there’s so much hurt and tragedy there for me,” he says, “yet there’s so much joy, and the answer lies somewhere in the middle of these paradoxes….”

[Photo] Evan Miller

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Audio Production by Nick Mott.

Pete Takeda is a world-renowned alpinist who started climbing on boulders as a kid in Idaho. He has pursued every climbing discipline over the last several decades, from hard free climbing to big wall aid, as well as ice and mixed climbing. His first ascents range from ephemeral mud towers to some of the most impressive peaks in the world. In this episode, Derek Franz interviews one of his childhood heroes on a wide variety of subjects, from climbing and writing, to life philosophy.

[Photo] Jeff Rueppel

This episode is brought to you by Rab Equipment.

Audio Production by Nick Mott.

Besides free climbing big walls, Madaleine Sorkin devotes herself to social activism, and has been a leader in starting the Climbing Grief Fund through the American Alpine Club. In this interview from April 2021, Derek Franz asks about her first climbing experiences as a teenager; her perspective as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community; how she is coping with the wear and tear on her body after nearly two decades of hard climbing; and also the latest developments with the Climbing Grief Fund.

[Photo] Henna Taylor

Audio production by Nick Mott.

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Anna Pfaff grew up in rural Ohio, running through cornfields, playing softball and showing animals at the county fair, “but I always felt like there was something more out there,” she says of her decision to apply for a nursing job in Denver, Colorado, at age 20. “I had no idea what a climber was, or what rock climbing was,” she recalls of the life-changing opportunity that came when friends invited her on a trip to Indian Creek. There, she discovered a natural ability and interest that culminated with her joining The North Face team in 2016. Alpinist Digital Editor Derek Franz interviewed Pfaff remotely in April 2021 while she was rehabbing a shoulder injury.

[Photo] Tyler Stableford

Audio production by Nick Mott.

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In this episode, Derek Franz narrates “To Look the Bear in the Eye: The Life of Yasushi Yamanoi,” a story by Sartaj Ghuman that was first published in Alpinist 62 (Summer 2018). Yamanoi is among the few who have established new climbs, alone and in alpine style, on 8000-meter peaks. His many significant climbs earned him a Piolet d’Or Asia Lifetime Achievement Award, but the Japanese alpinist is disinclined to self-promote. In this story Ghuman joins Yamanoi as a liaison officer on an expedition in the Zanskar region of India in search of a deeper dialogue with the wild.

[Photo] Yasushi Yamanoi collection

This episode is brought to you by Rab Equipment.

Audio Production by Nick Mott.

In this episode, Chris Kalman narrates “Less Rich Without You," a story by Nick Bullock that was first published in Alpinist 68 (Winter 2019-20). The story chronicles Bullock's attempt to climb a new route on Minya Konka, a 7556-meter peak in Sichuan Province, China, in 2018. At age 52, on his twenty-fourth expedition, he and Paul Ramsden make their way through the hazardous maze of an icefall amid heavy mist and falling snow—and through the allures and pitfalls of a modern professional climbing life.

Narrated by Chris Kalman.

Audio Production by Nick Mott.

[Photo] Nick Bullock

This episode is possible thanks to the support of Rab | The Mountain People.

For 141 years since its first ascent, mountaineers from around the world traveled to climb la Meije in the Massif des Écrins of France. Meanwhile, the permafrost that held its stones together was melting. On August 7, 2018, rockfall destroyed much of the normal route. In this On Belay story from Alpinist 68 (Winter 2019-20), Benjamin Ribeyre and Erin Smart recount a search for a new way up the peak amid the uncertainties of the planet’s future.

Narrated by Willow Belden.

[Photo] Benjamin Ribeyre

Scott Coldiron grew up in a low-income family with his single mother and two siblings near the remote peaks of Montana's Cabinet Range. He wrote in Alpinist 64, "Since childhood, I've found solace in harsh landscapes. Friendships formed on mountains insulate against a howling emptiness." After serving in the Iraq War and overcoming a subsequent debilitating illness, he built a career as a firefighter for the City of Spokane, Washington. Today, he explores rugged first ascents in ranges around the world, including the mountains he once gazed upon with wonder as a boy. Alpinist Digital Editor Derek Franz interviewed Coldiron at the Winter Outdoor Retailer in January 2020.

Coldiron is pictured here climbing in an area known as the Thunderdome in the Cabinet Range. [Photo] Brian White

"Mark Twight began his self-described “descent into the black depths of extreme alpinism” in 1984. “This obsession,” as he wrote in the essay, “Kiss or Kill,” “destroyed my relationships, drove me into depression, and changed me from a happy, future-hopeful young man into an embittered cynic.” Twight is well-known for pushing the margins, both in his climbs and in his writing. In 1988, he and Randy Rackliff made the first ascent of “The Reality Bath,” a 600-meter ice climb in the Canadian Rockies that has yet to be repeated. That same year, Twight joined Barry Blanchard, Ward Robinson and Kevin Doyle in an alpine-style attempt of Nanga Parbat’s Rupal Face. The climbers reached 7700 meters before a storm forced them to retreat amid lightning and multiple avalanches. In his writing of the same era, Twight often adopted a bold, brusque voice that earned him the persona “Dr. Doom.” Now a classic of mountain literature, the 2001 anthology Kiss or Kill includes writing that helped canonize the Dr. Doom persona, who delivered lines such as, “The new climbs of the age are yesterday’s death routes,” and “Punish your body to perfect your soul.” Twight stepped away from extreme alpinism in 2000. In his recently released book of photography, Refuge, Twight reflected, “Twenty-five of my years were governed by the demands imposed by mountains and climbing them, and the most difficult challenge I faced after having survived was to find satisfaction in the valley.” Deputy editor Paula Wright spoke with Twight at the Banff Mountain Book and Film Festival in November 2019.

[Photo] Mike Thurk"