Jeff and I worked with Kyle Willis at High Mountain Gear to create a Russian Ice Hammock for our trip to the K7 massif in the Karakoram. Just like every climber in the world, we stand upon the shoulders of those who came before us. We took inspiration from other designs we saw, like Steve Swenson/Mark Richey, Andy Kirkpatrick and Paul Ramsden. We scoured the internet as well and found a New Zealand article and Read more…
Via dei Ragni: Grade VI, 95deg snow/rime/ice, M4, 1000m Scribe/Photos/Climbers: Jeff and Priti Wright Google Street View: Cerro Torre Summit 360 Panorama We’ve had a picture of Cerro Torre on our desktops, phone wallpapers, and posters above our bed for the past 5 years. It was the reason we took up ice climbing in the first place. In February 2016, we made our first attempt on this route, hoping to at least get a glimpse of the scale of the mountain and understand what Read more…
Climbers: Priti and Jeff Wright Climb Date: January 18, 2022 – January 21, 2022 Climbs/Rappels Overview In January of 2022, we completed another Patagonian “Smash ‘n Grab”, summiting three of the four peaks in the Torre Range via previously established routes (11 days Seattle-to-Seattle): Aguja Standhardt, Punta Herron, and Torre Egger. Including our ascent of Cerro Torre in 2020, we have now climbed all four summits of the Cerro Torre skyline, making Priti the first Read more…
Before our expedition, K6 Central (7,155m) was the 19th highest unclimbed peak in the World with a prominence of at least 100m. Of the other 18 taller unclimbed peaks, 2 are legitimate mountains, 6 are relatively independent Main-Peaks, and 10 are major subsidiaries. K6 Central falls under the later: a major subsidiary of a mountain. For me, route overlays tell a much more complete story than text or spoken word. I’ve always loved putting together Read more…
In our relentless pursuit to ride the coattails of THE Wayne Wallace, Priti and I made the second ascent of Mongo Ridge (the SW Ridge of West Fury in the Northern Pickets of the North Cascades). It is a Stegasaurus ridge which rises 4,000ft over a mile from Goodell Creek punctuated by thick clusters of gendarmes that look like they’re straight out of the Karakoram. We first heard about Mongo when Wayne came to speak for Read more…
K6 Main (the highpoint of the K6 massif) has only been reached once in history, in 1970, by the Austrian Karakoram Expedition of the Vienna Academic Section of the Austrian Alpine Club led by 24-year old Eduard Koblmüller (who would go on to become a celebrated Mountaineer including the first ascent of Southeast Face of Cho Oyu, and a 1983 Rupal Face Ascent). Before our 2020 expedition, we were lucky enough to get in contact Read more…
Since I was a kid, I thought of Wai‘ale‘ale as an inaccessible, spiritual place filled with adventure that only the hardest humans in history have ever visited. I never thought it would be possible to get to the center of Kaua‘i, the highest point, one of the wettest places on Earth surrounded by swamp, dense vegetation and vertiginous cliffs. Two decades since I first learned of this place, many folks have blazed a path, and the Read more…
We climbed K6 West (third ascent 7,140m) and K6 Central (first ascent 7,155m) this October. We summited West on Oct 8th and Central on Oct 9th. We had been planning to climb K6 from the Nangmah valley side for over two years. When COVID struck, we held on to the hope of going but delayed our trip from the original June-August until late September-October when the country announced they were allowing tourists to enter with Read more…
