The Cutting Edge

By The American Alpine Journal

What's The Cutting Edge about?

The Cutting Edge presents in-depth interviews with the world's best climbers, just back from great new climbs. Presented by Hilleberg the Tentmaker (http://hilleberg.com), with additional support from Bivouac Coffee and Blue Ice. This podcast is produced by the editors of the American Alpine Journal.

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The Cutting Edge episodes:

12.28.2023
Christian Black, Vitaliy Musiyenko and Hayden Wyatt: A First Ascent in India
For our final episode of the 2023 season, we’re heading to Kishtwar in northern India, an area of very dramatic granite peaks, most of which have only been climbed by one or two routes. One of these mountains is White...
12.03.2023
Matt Cornell, Jackson Marvell and Alan Rousseau: Jannu North Face
On October 12, climbers Matt Cornell, Jackson Marvell and Alan Rousseau summited 7,710-meter Jannu, or Khumbakarna, by a new route up the north face, climbed in alpine style. Jannu’s main north face had only been climbed once, in 2004, by...
11.20.2023
Connor Herson and Fan Yang: 5.13+ on Mt. Whitney
In late September, Connor Herson and Fan Yang free climbed Hairline on the east face of Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the Lower 48. Hairline is a very steep, 13-pitch route originally climbed in 1987. The 55-meter crux pitch...
10.31.2023
Kazyua Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima: The Secret Line in the Hindu Kush
This episode is all about Tirich Mir in Pakistan’s High Hindu Kush. This past summer, two Japanese climbers completed an ascent of the secretive north face of this 7,708-meter mountain—an isolated wall that probably had never been attempted before. For...
10.16.2023
Sarah McNair-Landry and Erik Boomer: Fun Hogs for the 21st Century
Sarah McNair-Landry and Erik Boomer only started climbing a few years ago, and their technical level maxes out around 5.11. Yet their extended, multi-sport expeditions all over Baffin Island are without a doubt cutting edge. This year, they made three...
09.27.2023
The Cowboy Direct on Trango Tower: Jordan Cannon, Jesse Huey and Matt Segal
This summer, Matt Segal recruited his old friend Jesse Huey and an alpine newbie, Jordan Cannon, for an attempt on Trango Tower in Pakistan. And not just by any route: Segal dreamed of free climbing the unrepeated Cowboy Direct, first...
08.28.2023
Mark Richey and Will Carey: An Enormous Rock Climb in Africa
In July 2023, four climbers from New England—Will Carey, Taki Miyamoto, Ray Rice, and Mark Richey—completed what just might be the longest pure rock climb in Africa. Their 800-meter route climbs straight up the middle of the upper face of...
07.26.2023
A Beautiful New Route on Mt. Huntington: Zac Colbran, Dane Steadman and Grant Stewart
Often described as one of the most beautiful mountains in North America, Mt. Huntington has been drawing top alpinists to the Alaska Range ever since the peak's first ascent in 1964, led by the great French climber Lionel Terray. In...
06.28.2023
Jackson Marvell: New Route on Mt. Dickey in Alaska
The Cutting Edge returns for season five with Jackson Marvell, a 27-year-old alpinist from Utah who just completed his second new route up the mile-high east face of Mt. Dickey in Alaska's Ruth Gorge. Along with Matt Cornell and Alan...
12.29.2022
A Bold Way Down Denali: Cutting-Edge Ski Alpinism with Tiphaine Duperier
Tiphaine Duperier and Boris Langenstein from France have made first ski descents in many parts of Asia. But until 2022, Tiphaine had never been to North America. In May, she flew to Alaska with Boris to pursue a crazy dream:...
12.22.2022
Ethan Berman and Maarten Van Haeren: How to Climb a New Route in Nepal
Have you ever wondered how ordinary climbers manage to put together an expedition to the Himalaya? Our guests Ethan Berman and Maarten Van Haeren just made the first ascent of the northeast face of Khang Karpo (6,646 meters) in Nepal...
11.28.2022
Steve House, Matt Cornell and Rob Smith: Single Push on Denali’s Slovak Direct
With only about a dozen ascents in nearly four decades, the Slovak Direct route on Denali's south face is one of North America's premier hard climbs. Sixteen years after the first ascent, Scott Backes, Steve House, and Mark Twight famously...
10.27.2022
Colin Haley: Winter Solo on Fitz Roy
In mid-September, American Colin Haley, 38, added another impressive solo ascent to his long list of ground-breaking alpine climbs (both roped and unroped). During an impromptu late-winter trip to Patagonia, in a round-trip of around 21 hours, Haley climbed the...
09.28.2022
Fabian Buhl and Will Sim: New Frontiers of Paragliding and Alpinism
In July, German climber Fabian Buhl and Will Sim from the U.K. reached the summit of a 5,800-meter rock and ice tower in Pakistan. Their first ascent wasn't particularly big or difficult. What made the climb extraordinary was their approach:...
08.28.2022
Vince Anderson and Josh Wharton on Jirishanca
5.13 M7 WI6. These are the kinds of numbers that catch climbers’ attention, especially when you’re talking about climbing a 6,000-meter peak in Peru. But numbers don’t come close to capturing all the challenges of a route like the one...
07.28.2022
Pumari Chhish East Climbed at Last
Pumari Chhish East, a nearly 7,000-meter peak in the Karakoram, had been the goal of at least six expeditions over the last 15 years. In late June, the French-American trio of Christophe Ogier, Jérôme Sullivan, and Victor Saucède finally pulled...
06.28.2022
Changabang: A Legendary Route Repeated
In 1976, Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker from Great Britain climbed the west face of Changabang (6,880m) in India, the most technical climb at this altitude ever done at the time. In May of this year, 46 years later, the...
05.31.2022
Clint Helander and Andres Marin in Alaska
In late March, Clint Helander and Andres Marin climbed the direct east face of Golgotha in Alaska's Revelation Mountains. The new route, Shaft of the Abyss (4,000', VI AI5 R M5 A0 90°), had been the goal of four expeditions...
11.29.2021
First Ascent of the Southeast Ridge of Annapurna III
On November 6, three Ukrainian climbers—Nikita Balabanov, Mikhail “Misha” Fomin, and Viacheslav "Slava" Polezhaiko—summited Annapurna III by the southeast ridge. This towering ridge line, following a knife-edge of loose snow and even looser rock to a 7,555-meter summit, had been...
10.31.2021
Archil Badriashvili: From Georgia to the Hindu Kush
Archil Badriashvili has completed a number of wild new routes in Nepal in recent years, and this fall, the 31-year-old from Georgia and regular partners Giorgi Tepnadze and Baqar Gelashvili mounted an impressive expedition to the Hindu Kush in far...
09.28.2021
Chantel Astorga: Solo on the Cassin Ridge
This year, alpinist Chantel Astorga realized a long-held dream: a solo ascent of the classic Cassin Ridge on Denali, climbing 8,000 vertical feet from the bergschrund to the summit in 14 hours and 39 minutes. An avalanche forecaster based in...
08.26.2021
Vitaliy Musiyenko: The Goliath Traverse
Vitaliy Musiyenko fell in love with California's High Sierra in his early 20s. A decade later, at age 34, he is among the most prolific and accomplished explorers of the Range of Light, having climbed well over 100 long new...
07.29.2021
Marek Holeček: His Greatest Challenge in Over 40 Expeditions
Our guest this episode is the Czech climber Marek Holeček, among the most successful alpine climbers of the past two decades. Holeček has climbed new routes all over the world, from Kyrgyzstan to Patagonia, Antarctica to Afghanistan. Two of his...
06.28.2021
Ines Papert on Climbing, Motherhood and Mt. Huntington
Ines Papert from Germany accomplished many of her greatest climbs while raising a small child. In this special episode, Sarah Hart interviews Ines about the challenges of combining motherhood with intense ambition as a climber, about forging new paths for...
05.28.2021
Surviving the Medusa Face of Mt. Neacola, Alaska
In late April, on their third trip to Alaska's remote and forbidding Mt. Neacola, Ryan Driscoll, Justin Guarino, and Nick Aiello-Popeo made the first complete ascent of the north face (a.k.a. the Medusa Face). The New Hampshire–based trio followed the...
04.28.2021
Maryna Kopteva: Huge Walls with All-Women Teams
For more than a decade, Maryna Kopteva has been one of the world’s most accomplished climbers in a demanding style: big-wall first ascents on remote, high, and cold mountains. The Ukrainian woman has done new routes on Great Trango Tower...
03.30.2021
Sean Villanueva O'Driscoll: The Moonwalk Traverse
Our guest in episode 38 is the globe-trotting adventurer Sean Villanueva O’Driscoll, who in February pulled off a mind-blowing feat of climbing: the first ever south to north traverse of the full Fitz Roy massif in Patagonia. This is the...
02.28.2021
Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold in Rocky Mountain National Park
Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold need no introduction. Our show with them about the speed record on the Nose of El Cap (Episode 8) was by far the most popular we've ever done. Now they're back to chat with Chris...
01.31.2021
Lynn Hill and the Challenges of Women's Climbing
Lynn Hill needs no introduction to the Cutting Edge audience: She is arguably the most ground-breaking female rock climber and big-wall free climber in the history of the sport. We asked Lynn to come onto the show not to talk...
11.18.2020
Priti and Jeff Wright's Big Year: Cerro Torre, The Alps and K6 Central
Priti and Jeff Wright are wrapping up the kind of year that most climbers only dream about. The young tech engineers took a sabbatical from work to experience "A Year in the Life of Colin Haley," inspired by the world-roaming...
10.30.2020
Barry Blanchard, Ethan Berman and Uisdean Hawthorn on Mt. Robson
Yuh-hai-has-kun (Mt. Robson) is one of North America's greatest peaks, despite rising to less than 4,000 meters or 13,000 feet. In early October, Ethan Berman (U.S.) and Uisdean Hawthorn (Scotland) completed a rare new route to the summit, climbing a...
10.14.2020
Chris Weidner on the Diamond of Longs Peak
Chris Weidner and Bruce Miller worked four years on a new free climb up the Diamond, the northeast face of Longs Peak in Colorado. The Gambler's Fallacy (5.13b/8a) is one of the hardest routes up this cold granite wall, which...
09.22.2020
Nico Favresse and the Alpine Trilogy
Nico Favresse from Belgium is well-known as a prolific explorer of new routes and long free ascents around the world: Baffin Island, China, Patagonia, Greenland, and more. But this summer, with COVID limiting travel and the impacts of climate chanage...
08.29.2020
Brandon Adams and Roger Putnam: New Mescalito Speed Record
In early July, Brandon Adams and Roger Putnam set a new speed record for climbing Mescalito, the classic El Cap aid route. In fact, they smashed the previous mark (which had stood for more than two decades) by nearly 10...
08.13.2020
Jacob Cook and Bronwyn Hodgins: Going Big on Baffin Island
Jacob Cook and Bronwyn Hodgins, partners in both climbing and marriage, joined two other Canadians last summer in Baffin Island's Weasel River Valley. This remote Arctic region has seen big-wall ascents since the 1970s, but it is very far from...
06.01.2020
Matteo Della Bordella: Free Climbing in India
Italian climber Matteo Della Bordella returns to the Cutting Edge to talk about the first ascent of the west face of Bhagirathi IV. This is a very steep 800-meter wall, entirely above 5,000 meters, in northern India. After several earlier...
02.29.2020
Tim Emmett and the Wild Ice Climbs of Helmcken Falls
The ice climbs of Helmcken Falls in central British Columbia are like no other climbs on Earth. Since 2010, our guest Tim Emmett has been developing "spray ice" climbs at Helmcken, connecting blobs of ice blown onto an enormous overhang...
01.27.2020
Leo Houlding on the Lost World of Roraima
Our guest for this episode is Leo Houlding, one of the great expedition leaders of our time. Leo's goal for this year was a new free route on Roraima, a legendary mountain in South America that is steeped in British...
12.27.2019
A Proud Failure: Quentin Roberts on Tengkangpoche
The north pillar of 6,487-meter Tengkangpoche in Nepal is one of the great unclimbed prizes of the Himalaya. In October, Quentin Roberts from Canada and Juho Knuuttila from Finland spent six days on the wall, reaching a new high point....
11.27.2019
Nik Berry, Eric Bissell and Conrad Anker: The Russian Tower
In this episode we travel to the Pamir Alai mountains of Kyrgyzstan for a special two-part show. The first part features a conversation with Nik Berry and Eric Bissell, who went to Kyrgyzstan in August with Dave Allfrey and Brent...
10.31.2019
Tom Livingstone: Koyo Zom and the Great Game
Koyo Zom in northern Pakistan is nearly 7,000 meters tall, and its stunning north face looks like a massive medieval fortress. No one had climbed or even attempted Koyo Zom for more than 40 years. In September, Tom Livingstone and...
10.03.2019
Exploring the High Sierra with Vitaliy Musiyenko
Vitaliy Musiyenko is the most prolific climber of long new routes in the Sierra in modern history. This summer was no exception, including one line that recently was called "The Rostrum of Sequoia." In this interview with AAJ contributing editor...
09.04.2019
Link Sar with Steve Swenson and Graham Zimmerman
At sunset on August 5, 2019, Steve Swenson, Graham Zimmerman, Chris Wright, and Mark Richey stood on top of Link Sar, a 7,041-meter peak in Pakistan that had resisted numerous attempts dating back to 1979. The successful climb of the...
08.22.2019
Babsi Zangerl's Big-Wall Dreams
Thirty-one-year old Barbara "Babsi" Zangerl is one of the world's most accomplished all-around rock climbers. She started climbing at age 14, and early on she focused on bouldering. After herniating a disk in her back in 2009, she switched to...
07.10.2019
Karl Egloff and the New Denali Speed Record
In this episode we’re venturing into the world of FKTs: the Fastest Known Times for mountain ascents, alpine traverses, and similar feats. Our guest is Karl Egloff, a mountain guide who was virtually unknown outside his home in Ecuador until...
05.28.2019
Luka Lindič and Ines Papert in Canada
In early April 2019, Luka Lindič and Ines Papert teamed up with Brette Harrington to climb a major new route in the Canadian Rockies: the complete east face of Mt. Fay. Chris Kalman spoke with them about this wild new...
04.30.2019
Jerome Sullivan on Cerro San Lorenzo
In October, Jerome Sullivan and two friends succeeded on the south pillar of Cerro San Lorenzo, perhaps the most difficult unclimbed summit in Patagonia. It was a "terrible" climb, but a truly grand adventure, Jerome says. In episode 18 of...
03.31.2019
Patagonia Debrief, with Rolando Garibotti and Kelly Cordes (Ep. 17)
The Patagonia season has just come to a close, and so we asked the experts, Rolando Garibotti and Kelly Cordes, to go beyond the headlines and talk in depth about a wild new route, a ground-breaking, no-rope solo climb of...
02.26.2019
Scott Coldiron's Amazing Discovery (Ep. 16)
Scott Coldiron is that rare and lucky climber who gets to discover and develop an entirely new area: the massive ice and mixed climbs of the Cabinet Mountains in Montana. After a few years of under-the-radar development, 2018 and 2019...
01.28.2019
Chris Wright and Graham Zimmerman (Ep. 15)
In mid-November, Chris Wright and Graham Zimmerman spent three days on a new route up Mt. Macdonald, high over Rogers Pass in British Columbia. Just getting onto the mountain required years of waiting for the exact right set of circumstances...

What's The Cutting Edge about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The Cutting Edge episodes:

Christian Black, Vitaliy Musiyenko and Hayden Wyatt: A First Ascent in India

Matt Cornell, Jackson Marvell and Alan Rousseau: Jannu North Face

Connor Herson and Fan Yang: 5.13+ on Mt. Whitney

Kazyua Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima: The Secret Line in the Hindu Kush

Sarah McNair-Landry and Erik Boomer: Fun Hogs for the 21st Century

The Cowboy Direct on Trango Tower: Jordan Cannon, Jesse Huey and Matt Segal

Mark Richey and Will Carey: An Enormous Rock Climb in Africa

A Beautiful New Route on Mt. Huntington: Zac Colbran, Dane Steadman and Grant Stewart

Jackson Marvell: New Route on Mt. Dickey in Alaska

A Bold Way Down Denali: Cutting-Edge Ski Alpinism with Tiphaine Duperier

Ethan Berman and Maarten Van Haeren: How to Climb a New Route in Nepal

Steve House, Matt Cornell and Rob Smith: Single Push on Denali’s Slovak Direct

Colin Haley: Winter Solo on Fitz Roy

Fabian Buhl and Will Sim: New Frontiers of Paragliding and Alpinism

Vince Anderson and Josh Wharton on Jirishanca

Pumari Chhish East Climbed at Last

Changabang: A Legendary Route Repeated

Clint Helander and Andres Marin in Alaska

First Ascent of the Southeast Ridge of Annapurna III

Archil Badriashvili: From Georgia to the Hindu Kush

Chantel Astorga: Solo on the Cassin Ridge

Vitaliy Musiyenko: The Goliath Traverse

Marek Holeček: His Greatest Challenge in Over 40 Expeditions

Ines Papert on Climbing, Motherhood and Mt. Huntington

Surviving the Medusa Face of Mt. Neacola, Alaska

Maryna Kopteva: Huge Walls with All-Women Teams

Sean Villanueva O'Driscoll: The Moonwalk Traverse

Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold in Rocky Mountain National Park

Lynn Hill and the Challenges of Women's Climbing

Priti and Jeff Wright's Big Year: Cerro Torre, The Alps and K6 Central

Barry Blanchard, Ethan Berman and Uisdean Hawthorn on Mt. Robson

Chris Weidner on the Diamond of Longs Peak

Nico Favresse and the Alpine Trilogy

Brandon Adams and Roger Putnam: New Mescalito Speed Record

Jacob Cook and Bronwyn Hodgins: Going Big on Baffin Island

Matteo Della Bordella: Free Climbing in India

Tim Emmett and the Wild Ice Climbs of Helmcken Falls

Leo Houlding on the Lost World of Roraima

A Proud Failure: Quentin Roberts on Tengkangpoche

Nik Berry, Eric Bissell and Conrad Anker: The Russian Tower

Tom Livingstone: Koyo Zom and the Great Game

Exploring the High Sierra with Vitaliy Musiyenko

Link Sar with Steve Swenson and Graham Zimmerman

Babsi Zangerl's Big-Wall Dreams

Karl Egloff and the New Denali Speed Record

Luka Lindič and Ines Papert in Canada

Jerome Sullivan on Cerro San Lorenzo

Patagonia Debrief, with Rolando Garibotti and Kelly Cordes (Ep. 17)

Scott Coldiron's Amazing Discovery (Ep. 16)

Chris Wright and Graham Zimmerman (Ep. 15)