CLIMBING THE WORLD ON A SABBATICAL

🇮🇳 Badami Bangalore – Sandstone & Sanskrit

We spent our first week in India in the rural town of Badami in South India, known to tourists for its impressive Cave Temples, and known to climbers as perhaps India’s best sport climbing. It is close to the legendary bouldering and spiritual nexus of Hampi. If Hampi is India’s best Bouldering area, Badami may be India’s best sport climbing area (albeit much more recently developed and thus less well-known and lacking the Chris Sharma Read more…

By Priti Wright, ago

Crazy Easy Finger Training in 6 minutes

I’ve tried to start finger training many times over my 10+ years of climbing but have never been able to stick to it. My biggest difficulties were: In the past, I had a Trango Rock Prodigy hangboard mounted in my house, a load of weights, a harness and pulley system. I got marginally stronger but also got minor injuries in both hands when training two finger pockets. Luckily for me, lumbrical injuries heal fairly quickly. Read more…

By Priti Wright, ago

Russian Ice Hammock

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…

By Priti Wright, ago

[TR] Cerro Torre – Via dei Ragni 02/08/2020

​ 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…

By Jeff Wright, ago

Torre Egger Traverse (a Smash ‘n Grab Story)

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…

By Priti Wright, ago

K6 Central (80deg, 2000m) Overlays

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…

By Jeff Wright, ago

Mount Fury’s Mongo Ridge: A Second Ascent

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…

By Jeff Wright, ago

An Abridged History of K6

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…

By Jeff Wright, ago