The Cutting Edge

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 weighing on his mind, he partnered with Sébastien Berthe, also from Belgium, for a closer-to-home adventure.

The two men biked through Austria, Germany, and Switzerland to link the three classic long routes of the Alpine Trilogy, and they freed each of these testpieces of the 1990s in one-day ascents, the first time this has ever been done. For Episode 32 of the Cutting Edge, Chris Kalman spoke with Nico about the Trilogy and about the future of lower-impact climbing adventures.

The Cutting Edge is presented by Hilleberg the Tentmaker (Hilleberg.com). This podcast is produced by the American Alpine Club.

Photo by Damien Largeron.

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 hours. But to hear them tell it, the day was all about laughs and tunes. In Episode 31 of the Cutting Edge, AAJ correspondent and YOSAR team member Lauren DeLaunay gets their thoughts on the joys of speed climbing, modern aid gear, risk, and a stellar partnership.

The Cutting Edge is presented by Hilleberg the Tentmaker (hilleberg.com). This podcast is produced by the American Alpine Club.

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 climbed out, as the pair explains in Episode 30 of the Cutting Edge. This team also was the first ever to explore the possibilities for combining climbing and packrafting in this valley, with interesting and sometimes hilarious results.

The Cutting Edge is presented by Hilleberg the Tentmaker (Hilleberg.com). This podcast is produced by the American Alpine Club.

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 attempts, both in 2015 and in 2019, Matteo and two friends climbed the wall in a bold, lightweight style, reaching the summit in one long day. Remarkably, they did it mostly free, with sustained 5.11 rock climbing. Chris Kalman spoke with Matteo about the climb in mid-May.

The Cutting Edge podcast is presented by Hilleberg the Tentmaker and produced by the American Alpine Club.

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 by one of North America's most powerful waterfalls. In February, he and Klem Premrl completed their hardest climb yet: Mission to Mars, with the out-of-this-world grade of WI 13. What does that even mean? Find out in episode 28 of the Cutting Edge, as AAJ contributing editor Whitney Clark speaks with Tim about the new route, the history of the area, and this weird and frightening climbing style.

The Cutting Edge is presented by Hilleberg the Tentmaker (hilleberg.com) and is produced by the American Alpine Club.

Photo by Jon Glassberg / Louder Than Eleven

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 climbing lore. In 1973, a team of four Brits—Mo Anthoine, Joe Brown, Hamish MacInnes, and Don Whillans—made the first ascent of the super-isolated and dramatic north prow of Roraima. Just getting to the mountain involves a lengthy jungle trek and thousands of feet of climbing through a "slime forest." AAJ editor Chris Kalman spoke with Leo about the soggy approach, the wild 14-pitch climb they found, and helping two local Amerindians, Edward James and Troy Henry, become the first Guyanese to climb their country's most spectacular cliff.

The Cutting Edge is presented by Hilleberg the Tentmaker (hilleberg.com). This show is produced by the American Alpine Club.

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. A blank slab and the climbers' chosen style (no bolts, no portaledge) ended their attempt just a few pitches from easier ground. In this episode, Whitney Clark interviews Quentin Roberts about the climb, the style, and what he plans to do differently when he returns to Tengkangpoche in 2020.

The Cutting Edge is presented by Hilleberg the Tentmaker, with additional support for this episode from Black Diamond Equipment. This podcast is produced by the American Alpine Club.

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 Barghahn to attempt the first free ascent of a huge wall in the Ak-Su valley: the northwest face of Pik Slesova. Their route eventually went free at 5.13a, with eight pitches of 5.12 or harder.

The line the Americans chose was partly along an old Russian climb (the Moroz Route), which previously had been followed in part by another American team, Conrad Anker and Alex Lowe, way back in 1995. In the second part of this episode, we chat with Anker about his climb, and how he feels about modernizing older routes for free climbing.

The Cutting Edge is presented by Hilleberg the Tentmaker, with additional support for this episode from Black Diamond Equipment. This podcast is produced by the American Alpine Club.

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 four British friends set out to change that.

Dividing into two teams, they attempted two lines on Koyo Zom. Tom and his climbing partner, Ally Swinton, succeeded on a very difficult route they called the Great Game (1,500m, ED+). After descending most of the mountain, on the way back to base camp, they had a serious accident, which ended with a helicopter rescue. In Episode 24 of the Cutting Edge, Tom Livingstone talks with the AAJ’s Chris Kalman about the climb, the rescue, and how the “asterisk” on the climb affects his feelings about it.

The Cutting Edge is sponsored by Hilleberg the Tentmaker (hilleberg.com). This podcast is produced by the American Alpine Club.

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 Whitney Clark, Vitaliy describes how he transformed from an overweight and apathetic high schooler to the master of modern Sierra climbing, plus the joys of 18-mile approaches, his planned guidebook to the Range of Light, and how every age of climbing can be a "golden age."

The Cutting Edge is sponsored by Hilleberg the Tentmaker. This podcast is produced by the American Alpine Club.