16 Days and 8 First Ascents in Chinas Tien Shan Mountains The Tien Shan range in China is ideal for exploratory mountaineering expeditions. There are hundreds of valleys, each with handfuls of unclimbed peaks and each mountain with plenty of route options. A lot of the routes can be simple mountaineering, but you can choose a line more demanding and...

　　Story and Recipe by Kieran Creevy 　　Images by Cat Vinton 　　 　　Iron studded wood doors, gnarled and black with age, rise before drawbridge chains: We’re in the tiny fortified village of Villefranche De Conflent, our home for the next few days. Wandering down the narrow streets toward our apartment, we begin to see more elements of ironwork. Shops, bars and...

　　Flying with a camping stove can be trickier than you might think. Don’t waste time, fuel or lose your stove. Follow these steps and check up with TSA to make sure you’re flying right with your backcountry stove! 　　 　　TSA Rules You are allowed to bring a stove in a carry-on or checked baggage, but ONLY if you take the...

　　Travel Chaos Our Pakistan expedition started out with high stress levels, to say the least. Our bags were painstakingly packed—gear organized, packed, organized again, double-checked, and repacked. As we celebrated our last night in the US with some friends in Denver, Colorado before catching our morning flight, Allen received a terrible email—our flight was canceled! 　　When we had started planning...

　　Words by Sammy Podhurst 　　Photos by Sammy Podhurst and Anna Pfaff 　　Climbing in the Himalaya is interesting. There are many layers to the equation here. The acclimatization period requires patience. The lack of resources requires a lot of forethought and pre-planning. There is little infrastructure as far as rescue and medical goes. But at the same time, all of that...

　　Story and Images by Dustin Silvey 　　Outside my tent I hear the fire crackling. I open my eyes, shocked to realize the sun is shining. I roll my body to the side, slowly sitting up, and pull myself out of my sleeping bag. That’s when it hits me, the cold. I quickly put on some extra layers and head out...

　　Oscar Wilde said, If you want to be a grocer, or a general, or a politician, or a judge, you will invariably become it; that is your punishment. 　　Long before living a nomad life, I had wanted to be a software engineer. But when I became one, it felt like a punishment. It is not to say that a Ph.D....

　　By Steve Marks, aka the “Malbec Pilgrim” 　　A few May snowflakes appeared out of nowhere, drifting down and brushing off my jacket as I paused to enjoy the immense vista. It had been a tough cycle to the summit, and was just one of the many times my altitude almost touched 5000 m (16,400 ft). The blackened rocky and mountainous...

　　By Josh Perez Most of us work a 9-5 and eagerly await the weekend to squeeze in as much adventure as possible. Or we wake up at extreme hours and pull all-nighters when we absolutely must get into the mountains during the week. 　　Occasionally we’re blessed with a holiday weekend, which seems like gold for us weekend warriors. With July...

　　When considering the wild areas of the UK, my mind quickly pans straight to Scotland which houses some of the remotest places in the country, vast planes of uninhabited wilderness and towering mountains. Each region of Scotland has its own unique feel, from the valleys of Glencoe and the planes of Glen Shiel to the wild sandstone landscapes of Torridon....

　　Words by MSR athlete Nina Caprez, photos by Jimmy Martinello 　　I dream a lot. Almost every morning I wake up and remember, for a moment, dreams from the night before. Some say it’s a way for the subconscious to process. Maybe I don’t have enough down time to do it any differently. 　　I had dreams my first days in Makatea,...

　　Words and photography by Joe Yelverton 　　Night falling, calf muscles burning, a heavy pack pulling on my shoulders. All good reasons to sit down and enjoy the twilight from our rarified perch in the Chugach Mountains. To the west, a crimson glow on Cook Inlet, and beyond this massive body of water, the Southern Alaska Range painted in alpenglow. Stunning...