Before I became an expeditionary mountaineer I had a certain disdain for difficult climbing objectives. They have their place, of course, and I nodded approvingly whenever I read of some thirteen-day spin-drifted, single-cramponed ascent of an untouched Alaskan face accomplished on a week’s food and fuel. I was glad they did it, and not me.

Instead, I announce to the readership of Harvard Mountaineering, which is to say most of its editors, my part in an expedition of a different sort. Oh sure, the expedition claims the first recorded ascents of nine peaks in the Borkoldoy range of the Kyrgyz Tien Shan[1. A technical summary is available at www.borkoldoy.harvardmountaineering.org and a report is also published in The American Alpine Journal 2006. Consider this my personal story.]. But I write to share my subversive strategy of making the expedition laborious and complicated enough to merit the title without undue resort to the risks and discomforts of hard climbing. A sneakier path to glory. Continue reading Kyrgyzstan The Hard Way →