Alpinist
by Alpinist Magazine
Since 2002 Alpinist has striven to push creative boundaries with everything we do, from award-winning climbing journalism and creative writing to photography and art. Now, with the Alpinist podcast, we aim to extend our conversations with climbers and community members into interviews and oral histories that will entertain and educate our listeners with everything from dramatic and humorous adventure tales to in-depth discussions of the most significant issues in the climbing world today. More at alpinist.com/podcast
Episodes
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Kelsey Gray - A World of Routes
When Kelsey Gray tells people he grew up in Houston, they immediately think he's talking about the city in Texas. But he's actually referring to Houston, Alaska. Though he spent a lot of time outdoors as a kid, he didn't venture into the mountains until later. He started rock climbing when he was…
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Alita Contreras - Woman Warrior
In the film Guerreras, Alita Contreras is shown preparing for a long, traversing rock route on a cliff in Colombia. Her dog by her side, Contreras mimes the moves, headphones on, eyes closed, meditating on what she's about to climb. Contreras was born in Venezuela, but her Colombian father made...
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Peter Mortimer & Nick Rosen - The Dark Wizard
Climbing documentarians Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen are known for films such as "The Alpinist" and "Valley Uprising." Now the directors are out with a four-part documentary series "The Dark Wizard," which premieres on HBO Max on April 14. The documentary traces the life of Dean Potter, who was...
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Will Moss - One Step Further
New York City might seem like an unlikely place for a climber of Will Moss's caliber to hail from. And yet, he managed to find his way from the climbing gym, to boulders in Central Park, to runout trad routes in the Gunks and big walls in Yosemite. It was there that he recently made headlines as...
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Sonnie Trotter - Commitment to Climbing
When Sonnie Trotter was a teenager, he discovered a portal into another world. Entering the local climbing gym he found challenge, adventure and passion. By sixteen, he was all in, and he made it up his first 5.14 within just a few years. The climbing seemed to come naturally, but figuring out…
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Mary Catherine Eden: The Importance of Being Bored
While growing up in Kentucky, Mary Eden was often bored. But it was that boredom, she recalls, that helped her find meaningful interests as she explored her world. It led her to art and to adventure. She didn't discover rock climbing until she moved to Moab in her early twenties. Even then, she...
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Dawn Hollis: Flipping the Script on Mountain Relationships
Dawn Hollis has been obsessed with mountains since she was a small child growing up in Suffolk, which she describes as being "a really flat part of the UK." Her first glimpse of more elevated landscapes came at age nine on a family trip to Wales. The trip sparked a lifelong passion for being in,...
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Kai Lightner: The Last Six Years
Kai Lightner is no stranger to the spotlight—or to this magazine. He's been climbing since he was six, when he joined the climbing team at a gym in North Carolina. Four years later Lightner won his first national title, and the wins just kept coming. In 2016, while still in high school, Lightner...
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Babsi Zangerl on Learning, Growing and Flashing El Cap
Last year, Babsi Zangerl did something no one has ever done before—she flashed a route on El Capitan. Thousands of feet of hard climbing with no falls. Her partner, Jacopo Larcher, came really close, taking just one fall during their ascent of Freerider. Zangerl has been a climber for over two...
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Rick Accomazzo: Tobin, The Stonemasters, and Me
Rick Accomazzo came of age in the climbing world as part of the Stonemasters—a name adopted by a group of friends largely climbing in Yosemite, Tahquitz and Suicide Rocks in the 1970s. To become a Stonemaster, you had to send a 5.11 called Valhalla. Tobin Sorenson was a Stonemaster too. He was...
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Other Everests: Hidden Histories & Contemporary Challenges
The events of one the most famous Everest stories took place a century ago, when George Mallory and Sandy Irvine disappeared during the 1924 British Mount Everest expedition. A hundred years later, a group of writers is shedding light on the many different people and worlds that have, throughout...
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Climbing Isn't Everything: Beth Rodden
Beth Rodden established herself as one of the best rock climbers in the world at the height of her career. Through much of that time, Rodden was quietly struggling with her mental health as she tried to move forward after she and her climbing partners were kidnapped at gunpoint during a trip to...
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Graham Zimmerman's Balancing Act
For all of his expeditions and cutting-edge climbs around the world, Graham Zimmerman's story is one of balancing adventure and exploration with social responsibility and an examined life. His book, A Fine Line: Searching for Balance Among Mountains demonstrates that, and also serves as an ode to...
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The Many Facets of Len Necefer
Dr. Len Necefer didn't grow up skiing steep slopes or topping out on summits like he does today. Instead, his connection to the outdoors began with golf—a fact he shares rather sheepishly. Necefer was an avid golfer from age five until he was eighteen, when he moved to the desert southwest and...
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Climbing and Journalism with Lauren DeLaunay Miller
Lauren Delaunay Miller is an award-winning author, journalist and audio producer based in Bishop, California. Her first book, Valley of Giants: Stories from Women at the Heart of Yosemite Climbing, was published in the spring of 2022 by Mountaineers Books, and won the Banff Mountain Book...
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Training for the New Anything with Steve House
Steve House began venturing into the high mountains as a teenager, and has since built a career on climbing, guiding and coaching. By the time he published his book Beyond the Mountain in 2009, Reinhold Messner said House was "at the top of mountaineering." House's life in climbing has taken him...
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Unpacking Packing with Sarah Pickman
Sarah Pickman is an encyclopedia of expedition history, in particular the gear early explorers relied on. She recently earned a PhD in history from Yale University. She's an independent scholar, editor, writer and content producer based just outside New York City. Sarah is also a contributor to...
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Writing and Routes with David Smart
David Smart's life and work seem to intersect with climbing at every turn. He's a lifelong climber, revered route developer and the editorial director at Gripped Publishing. He's a founding editor at Gripped Magazine and has been crucial to its success and longevity for more than 25 years. Smart...
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Racing Fear with Justin Bowen
Justin Bowen's first time scaling walls and new routes was in a climbing gym during a friend's birthday party. It wasn't until high school, driven by persistent memories of that experience, that Bowen started climbing on a more consistent basis. Eventually, while attending college in Arizona…
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Aiming for the Bushes with Alan Rousseau
For Alan Rousseau, the allure of mountaineering is in the unknown. When he looks up at a mountain and contemplates whether it can be climbed, he sees a mystery to be solved. Rousseau is an IFMGA guide who divides his time between pursuing his own goals in the mountains, and helping others do the...
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Climbing for Change: Caroline Gleich
Caroline Gleich lives on the ridgeline between adventure and activism. Her trips around the globe often transcend summit goals as she merges mountain missions with driving awareness around diversity, equality and inclusion, and environmental justice. In 2019, Caroline summited the tallest…
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Talking Schist with Andrea Charest
For Andrea Charest, climbing is entwined with community. She and her husband Steve own Petra Cliffs, a climbing gym and mountaineering school in Burlington, Vermont, where they also work as guides. She's volunteered much of her time over the years to Crag Vermont, a nonprofit organization…
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Connected to Place: Sarah Audsley
Poet Sarah Audsley has an elevated point of view, even when her feet are on the ground. While the Vermont-based writer and climber believes she was indeed born to write poetry, she didn't start pursuing it professionally until age 29. Before that, she traveled the world, from Africa's Mt....
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Beyond Success and Failure: Young Hoon Oh
Korean rock and ice climber Young Hoon Oh is a student of the mountains and the culture borne from them. While pursuing a PhD in anthropology, he spent two years living among Sherpa communities in Nepal and studying the outsized impact Sherpas have on Himalayan mountaineering. Today, Young Hoon...
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The Art of Playing: Babsi Vigl
Babsi Vigl's pursuits in the mountains transcend summit aspirations and self-indulgence. The Austrian alpinist, guide and writer embarked on her first expedition at age 20. Since that time she has experienced many highs and lows, from climbing Cerro Chalten as part of an all-women ascent of the...
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Heart of the Sierra: Doug Robinson
When Doug Robinson speaks of a life spent climbing in the Sierra Range, his stories emanate joy rather than ego. He points to experiences and relationships, instead of his many contributions to climbing's legacy and lore. Robinson worked alongside Yvon Chouinard before Patagonia existed, forging...
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Creativity and Climbing: Nikki Smith
With a geologist father, Nikki Smith's love for rock and the outdoors came naturally. Born in Portland, Oregon, Smith moved with her family to Utah at a young age. She spent her youth wandering the state's vast outdoor spaces, hunting for minerals and fossils. Smith was 16 when she had her first...
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Of Peaks and Parenting: Majka Burhardt
Majka Burhardt went climbing for the first time while attending a sleepaway camp for kids in Minnesota. Since then, she's built a career ascending ice and rock all over the world. As climbing brought her to frozen pitches and high peaks, it also led Burhardt to Legado, an international nonprofit...
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Braving New Worlds: Steph Davis
Steph Davis has been a professional climber since 1991. But simply calling the Moab, Utah local a climber seems inadequate. From three years old, Davis was trained in the Suzuki Method on the piano. She practiced everyday, sometimes for hours a day, until she discovered a passion for climbing.…
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Honoring Mountains and Mentors: Clint Helander
Clint Helander's narrative is driven by stories of persistence. Persistence in the face of nearly insurmountable odds, in far-flung places like Alaska's Revelation Mountains. Persistence in honor of friends lost, and partners with whom he's made the push to the top. Helander is a regular Alpinist...
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Dreaming of Imaginary Peaks: Katie Ives
For those who've contributed to or read Alpinist over the last 18 years, Katie Ives needs little introduction. Ives started at the magazine in 2004. After reading the Chicago Manual of Style cover to cover, she took on the roles of overqualified intern and copyeditor. She became editor in chief…
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A Life of Adventure and Positive Impact: Timmy O'Neill
Timmy O'Neill's climbing career spans more than 30 years. He's traveled the world, gaining climbing accolades and wisdom about life, and once spent 60 days living in a cave in Joshua Tree National Park, sharing his food cache with mice who also called it home. His resume of first ascents includes...
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The Self Motivator: Chantel Astorga
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...
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Balancing Risk and Reward: Mike Gardner
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,...
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From Pebbles to the Himalaya: Pete Takeda
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…
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The Novelty Seeker: Madaleine Sorkin
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...
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Not in Ohio Anymore: Anna Pfaff
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…
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Alpinist Aloud: "To Look the Bear in the Eye"
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...
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Alpinist Aloud: "Less Rich Without You"
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...
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Alpinist Aloud: "Melting Giants"
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...
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Fire and Ice: Scott Coldiron
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...
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A Visit with Mark Twight
"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."...
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Alpinist Aloud: "Life Compass" by Brette Harrington
In this feature story from Alpinist 64 (Winter 2018-19), Brette Harrington writes about her life partner, Marc-André Leclerc, who died in the Mendenhall Towers of Alaska, with Ryan Johnson in March 2018. About a month after their deaths, she traveled to the Canadian Rockies to immerse herself in...
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"All that Glitters": Margo Talbot
In 2011 alpinist and speaker Margo Talbot published her memoir, "All that Glitters: A Climber's Journey through Addiction and Depression." In her book, she reflects candidly on her struggles with addiction and depression, as well as how ice climbing played a role in her recovery. Toward the end…
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Alpinist Aloud: "The Raven at the Door" by David Stevenson
In this Full Value story from Alpinist 60 (Winter 2017-18), David Stevenson gets caught in a storm returning from a hut trip in Alaska and suffers a heart attack, forcing him and his partner to spend a cold night in a shallow snow cave. In the aftermath he discovers a new significance to a…
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Alpinist Aloud: "The Force of the Soul," by James Edward Mills
In this inaugural episode of Alpinist Aloud—a podcast project in which stories from our print magazine are read out loud—James Edward Mills reads his story from Alpinist 60 (Winter 2017-18). In "The Force of the Soul," Mills recounts the life of Hugues Beauzile, the son of a Haitian immigrant who...
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The Lifestyler: Chris Weidner
Chris Weidner began climbing as a teenager in the Pacific Northwest and is no stranger to being pinned on the summit of Mt. Rainier in a storm. The 45-year-old climbs 5.14 sport routes and continues to establish new free routes on the Diamond of Longs Peak and elsewhere. He has also written more...
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Climber, Transcending: Kai Lightner
Growing up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Kai Lightner learned to climb before he could walk. One day, when he was six years old, a passing stranger saw Lightner climbing a flagpole and handed his mother the address of a local climbing gym, and he hasn't stopped climbing since. The winner of...
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Rethinking Mountaineering Histories: Amrita Dhar
"We need to acknowledge mountaineering as a profoundly social pursuit…. I strongly resist the idea that there is a kind of objective kind of excellence in mountaineering. The road to mountaineering achievement is not level. We need to understand where someone is starting from if we really want to...
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From the Gunks to Desert Towers: Jeff Achey
In this episode, Alpinist Digital Editor Derek Franz interviews Jeff Achey, a prolific first ascensionist and author who lives in Western Colorado, where he co-owns Wolverine Publishing with his wife Amber Johnstone. After learning to climb in the Shawangunks as a teenager, Achey moved to…
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About this show
Since 2002 Alpinist has striven to push creative boundaries with everything we do, from award-winning climbing journalism and creative writing to photography and art. Now, with the Alpinist podcast, we aim to extend our conversations with climbers and community members into interviews and oral histories that will entertain and educate our listeners with everything from dramatic and humorous adventure tales to in-depth discussions of the most significant issues in the climbing world today. More at alpinist.com/podcast
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