Jed Brown, Kyle Dempster, and Bruce Normand (L to R) in front of the north face of Xuelian West. Courtesy of Jed Brown

A huge climb in northern China by Kyle Dempster and teammates Jed Brown and Bruce Normand is one of five nominees for this year’s Piolets d’Or. Dempster received a 2009 Lyman Spitzer Cutting Edge Award from the AAC for this expedition, which also included American Jared Vilhauer; the team completed several major new routes in the Chinese Tien Shan.

As their final climb of the trip, Dempster, Brown, and Normand did the first ascent of Xuelian West (6,422m).  The three men completed an alpine-style ascent of the 2,650-meter north face during a five-day round trip. Their route, the Great White Jade Heist, went at M6 WI5 5.7 R. Xuelian West is a satellite of 6,627-meter Xuelian, which has only been climbed once.

The remaining four climbs nominated for the Piolets d’Or are:

• A new route on the southeast face of 8,201-meter Cho Oyu in Nepal by Denis Urubko and Boris Dedeshko.

• First ascent of the direct north face of Chang Himal (6,750m) in Nepal by Britons Nick Bullock and Andy Houseman.

• First ascent of Peak 6,134m in the Minya Konka (Gongga Shan) massif of China, by Russians Mikhail Mikhailov and Alexander Ruchkin.

• New route on the north face of Peak Pobeda (7,439m) in Kyrgyzstan, by Russian climbers Vitaly Gorelik and Gleb Sokolov.

The 18th annual Piolets d’Or ceremony and festival will be held April 7–10 in Chamonix, France, and Courmayeur, Italy. To learn more, visit the Piolets d’Or website.

Each year, the AAC grants a total of $12,000 through Lyman Spitzer Cutting-Edge Awards for lightweight attempts on new routes in the world’s greatest ranges. Winners of the 2010 awards will be announced this week.

Jim Goodwin on his first peak, at age 9.

American Alpine Club member Jim Goodwin, who joined the club in 1938, will celebrate his 100th birthday on March 8. Goodwin lives in Keene Valley, New York, in the heart of the Adirondacks, where he did his first climbing and enjoyed much of his life in the mountains.

As a teenager, Goodwin completed what was probably the first winter ascent of Gothics, one of the Adirondacks’ most challenging peaks. That summer, he began rock climbing with John Case (later president of the AAC), and Goodwin eventually did numerous new routes in the Dacks, including chopping steps up the famous Chapel Pond ice slab for its first ascent in 1936. He also hand-built trails and worked as a guide in the High Peaks. Goodwin climbed throughout the American West and in the Canadian Rockies, and his famous climbing partners included Fred Beckey, Fritz Wiessner, and AAC honorary president Bill Putnam.

During World War II, Goodwin taught climbing to troops of the 10th Mountain Division at Camp Hale in Colorado and Seneca Rocks in West Virginia. He served as a medic in Italy during the mountain troops’ famous assaults on Riva Ridge and Mt. Belevedere.

Goodwin by a plaque commemorating his cutting of the Porter Trail in 1924, at age 14.

Lyndy Burdet, who joined the AAC in the mid-1950s with sponsorship from Goodwin, still talks to him every few weeks. “He is so amazing and so sharp,” she said.

Goodwin’s son, Tony, and his brother have published their father’s memoirs, called And Gladly Guide: Reflections on a Life in the Mountains. Copies are available for $25 (post-paid), with all proceeds benefiting the Adirondack Forty-Sixers and other nonprofits supported by their father. To get a copy, send a check to Tony Goodwin, 26 Bark Eater Way, Keene, NY 12942.

The photos below were taken by photographer Dan Gambino at the 2010 Benefit and Awards Dinner. Check these and more photos out on our Facebook fan page as well!

Reign of Terror, new route on Terror Peak just south of Milford Sound, New Zealand.

Terror Peak is an imposing hunk of granite just south of Milford Sound, New Zealand. It is fairly remote, and was only first climbed in 2008. The first ascent was done by Hugh Barnard and Martin Wilson with their route War on Terror, grade 21/10d. My partner, Nick Flyvberg and I did the second ascent of this route in January 2009 with a more direct third pitch, grade 22/11a.

While we were up there, we scoped out some possible other lines. Right when we were nearing the top, foul weather suddenly blew in, as it often does from the coast. We rapped down as quickly as possible (one of our ropes got stuck on the last rappel and we had to leave it). We were picked up in the nick of time by our daring Kiwi friend and helicopter pilot, Jason, who was able to hold the heli with one skid on the side of the mountain as we literally tossed in our gear and took off. Five more minutes and the whole area was socked in- we would have had to bivy for three days with minimal gear if he hadn’t  been able to get us!

That March, Terror peak saw its first base jump by Chuck Berry, Shane McConkey and Miles Daisher. Sadly, Shane, who was a big extreme skier and base-jumper from Whistler, died later that month on a Red Bull photo shoot in Italy.

Shelly Malkin and Nick Flyvberg completed the new route Reign of Terror on Terror Peak in January 2010.

Nick and I returned the following year. It had been a big snow year in the South Island that past winter, and a lot of the peaks were still running wet. We did a recon flight with Jason to see if our line looked dry. It did, so when we were sure of a good weather window, we went for it. The route went quickly and smoothly. The rock was solid (a bit dirty in parts as to be expected) and the protection was good.
It was about 4 full 60 meter pitches: grade 15/5.8, 18/5.9, 21/5.10d, 18/5.9.

Jason picked us up again after the climb with much less drama this time, and we returned to camp to meet my husband and Henare and Bruce, the other fishermen who had caught loads of fish and were celebrating with cold beers!

-Shelly Malkin. Shelly is an AAC member in Greenwich, CT. She submitted her and Nick’s new route upon their return from Fiordlands, NZ in January. Put up something recently, or just had an all-around great trip? Tell the story here.

Bradford and Barbara Washburn atop Mt. Bertha in 1940.

Bradford Washburn will be inducted into the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame on February 25. Washburn, who died in 2007 at the age of 96, was the pioneering mountaineer, photographer, mapmaker, and museum director for whom the American Mountaineering Museum in Colorado is named.

During his many expeditions to Alaska, Washburn led the first ascent of the West Buttress of Denali (now the standard route up North America’s highest peak), as well as the first ascents of Mt. Sanford, Mt. Hayes, Mt. Bertha, Mt. Silverthrone,  Mt. Dickey, and other major summits. His remarkable aerial photographs of Denali and other peaks are still used by climbers to plan new routes.

Along with Washburn, the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame will be inducting three-time Iditarod sled-dog race winner Lance Mackey, World Eskimo Indian Olympics champion Reggie Joule, and Olympic snowboard medalist Rosey Fletcher.

L to R: Renan Ozturk, Cedar Wright, Conrad Anker, Jennifer Lowe-Anker, Pete Athans, Matt Segal, Sam Elias, and Emily Harrington. Photo by Dan Gambino

When I received my invite to the AAC Annual Dinner, my initial thought was, “Do I belong?” I was under the impression that I had no place attending a fancy dinner with some old crusty climbers. Then I started thinking about what it would mean to be in a room with some of the most influential climbers in history. Royal Robbins, Lynn Hill, Conrad Anker, the list goes on. These were the people who established and defined the sport, the ones who paved the way for my generation to push our own personal limits and take the sport even further. I decided that this event would be a wonderful opportunity for me to meet some of these legends and open my eyes to the historical aspects of the sport I have made my life out of.

The experience was eye-opening, to say the least. I was overwhelmed and humbled by the presence of such great individuals. Jim Collins, the keynote speaker of the night, gave an inspiring and captivating speech about the values and ideals that we cherish as climbers. He emphasized the importance of partnership and humility, two key ingredients to being successful, not only in climbing or business, but also in life. He spoke about the AAC in terms of an organization that brings us all together as climbers and supports our common goals to succeed, while promoting the importance of community. I was inspired by what he had to say, and I began to think about the need for these ideas to be translated to the younger generation.

The AAC is doing great things for our sport in terms of conservation, education, and advocacy. It is important that this organization reach out to the younger generation of climbers in order to further instill these ideals. I am pretty sure that I was the youngest one at the dinner. It was a wonderful experience, but I am hoping to see more young climbers at next year’s AAC dinner. This event can become cross-generational and bring together climbers from all age groups to share and promote the principles that founded our sport. We, the younger generation, need to look to those who came before us, learn from their mistakes and triumphs, and continue to progress the sport with the same passion from which it began.

Emily Harrington, 23, is a 5.14 climber and multitime national champion in sport climbing who lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Beautiful red granite on El Marinero. Photo by Wagner Machado

Ryan Huetter, who received a 2009 Mountain Fellowship Award for young climbers from the AAC, has climbed a 1,000-foot new route in El Cajón de Arenales in Argentina, with Brazilian partner Wagner Machado. Huetter climbed the North Tower of Paine earlier this season and then traveled to Arenales, where he and Machado completed the all-free new route. You can read his trip report at the AAC website.

Mountain Fellowships are awarded twice each year to climbers 25 and under to help them complete climbs or expeditions they might not otherwise be able to attempt. To learn more or download an application, click here.

Climbing shoe presented to IOC president Jacques Rogge in December.

Late last week, at the 122nd Session of the International Olympic Committee in Vancouver, the IOC  formally recognized the International Federation of Sport Climbing as the sport’s governing body. That move, which followed provisional recognition in December 2007, makes it much more likely that climbers will compete in sport climbing, speed climbing, or bouldering at a future Summer Olympics.

Sports for the 2020 games, the next possible opening for climbing, will be selected in 2013.

Read more about the recent developments here and here.

Our final congrats in the AAC video contest goes to Vinnie Mazzuca, for his submission of “Temple Crag 2009 – Killer Trip Alpine Style.” Vinnie came in third place with 839 views and has won an MSR Exo 2 cookset. Here’s his description of what he submitted: “2 days on Temple Crag in Aug 2009. Killer trip. Amazing Bivy. Support the AAC!”

Without further due, here it is:

Make sure to check out the rest of the videos on the AAC YouTube channel – many terrific ones were submitted! See first and second place here at the blog.

Dreaming of a better future for his war-torn country, a young Afghan has launched the Afghanistan Mountaineering Federation as part of a long-term plan to lure adventurous tourists to the mountainous nation. Nadjib Sirat, 30, fled Taliban repression to Pakistan and then to France, where he completed his education, began a new career, and learned to climb. (He will attempt Cho Oyu this spring.) Now he has returned to Kabul to explore the country’s climbing and skiing opportunities, with the help of the Afghan Olympic Committee and French climber/adventurer Charles Hedrich.

Click here to read the full story about the new climbing federation and see photos of Sirat and Hedrich skiing near Kabul.