Alpinist

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"

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 the wintry alpine landscapes that remind her most of Leclerc. Exploring unclimbed terrain on Mt. Blane, accompanied by Rose Pearson, she tries to reorient herself within the void of all she has lost.

Narrated by Kathy Karlo.

Brette Harrington and Marc-André Leclerc on the summit of Great Sail Peak, Baffin Island, after a one-day ascent of the West Buttress (5.12a, C1, 1100m) in 2016. [Photo] Josh Lavigne

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 of "All that Glitters," Talbot writes, "In my years of searching, I had arrived at my own philosophy of life, the essence of which was that existence is a precious gift, and that every moment, whether in the throes of joy or the pit of despair, is equally to be treasured." Deputy editor Paula Wright conducted this interview with Talbot at the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival in November 2019.

[Photo] Alain Denis

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 haunting experience that happened decades earlier in his childhood home.

Narrated by Matthew Richardson. Audio production by Nick Mott.

[Illustration] Andreas Schmidt

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 became one of the most promising young alpinists in France before his death on the South Face of Aconcagua 1995. Produced by Alpinist magazine and Height of Land Publications. Audio production by Nick Mott.

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 than 300 articles related to climbing—for the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper, Alpinist and other climbing magazines—since about 2007. Weidner recently told Alpinist Digital Editor Derek Franz, "I think it's important to say that, along with these close relationships and the family feeling that climbing has given me over the years, I feel like it's also made me value lightheartedness.... And it's helped me realize that there's pretty much nothing in life worth stressing too hard about.... The other thing it reminds me of is just how important it is to be kind to people."

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 twelve national climbing titles, Lightner is a familiar face in the climbing competition circuit. Then in 2016, Doug Robinson—an outspoken voice of the clean climbing revolution in the 1970s—invited to take Lightner climbing at Stone Mountain, a trad climbing destination in North Carolina. Lightner wrote about the experience for Alpinist in Issue 55. "Before [that] trip," Lightner reflected, "I'd never really thought about—or appreciated—the evolution of our pursuit from the traditional techniques of his generation to the sport I first encountered as a child." In November 2019, deputy editor Paula Wright spoke to Lightner about the trip to Stone Mountain, and how his discipline as a climber transcends aspects of the sport.

"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 understand what the road to the summit for them is like." Literature professor and mountaineering scholar Amrita Dhar grew up in West Bengal. As a child, she vacationed in the Himalayan mountains with her family, and she has since spent a lot of time traveling through and thinking about mountains and the narratives that emerge from them. In this episode, Dhar talks with managing editor Paula Wright about how addressing some of the gaps in mountaineering history might also lead to reconceptualizing the pursuit of mountaineering itself.

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 Boulder, Colorado, for college and soon found himself roping up with some of the most prominent climbers of the era. That path led him to explore new routes across the state, from Eldo to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and into Utah's Canyonlands, where desert towers dotted the landscape. He finished school with a Bachelor's in biology and went to work as a photo editor for Climbing. Now 60 years old, he continues to establish difficult new routes while maintaining his writing career as a guidebook publisher.