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Standing on top of a summit, after congratulatory hugs and handshakes, I make it a point to say out loud, ‘We’re half way there.’ I say this not necessarily for my partner’s benefit, but for my own. Statistically, more accidents occur while descending mountains than climbing up them. Fatigue, falling darkness, carelessness, and the inherently dangerous nature of rappelling all stack the deck against the climber.

One of the great things about modern rock climbing is its many facets. I know plenty of very good climbers who are happy doing nothing other than boulder problems and hard limestone sport climbs. Some of these climbers are content to never face the burden of learning to climb cracks, much less venture up one while placing their own gear on lead. I am sure there are very good, perhaps even great, climbers like this out there who are sadly deficient when it comes to true crack climbing. A better, more rounded climber will master both crack and face climbing, and without question learning and/or improving your crack I.Q. can do nothing but good for your overall climbing ability. Your performance on boulders and faces only stands to improve also.

Crack climbing is completely different than face climbing; their respective techniques only vaguely resemble each other. While face climbers talk about crimpers, slopers, jugs, and dynos, crack climbers talk about jams, ringlocks, ratchets, and off-widths. The good news about climbing cracks is that once you have learned the sizes and mastered their respective jams, there is very little holding you back from being able to climb difficult, amazing routes.

Alpine climbing exposes the climber to numerous objective hazards. Be it weather, seracs, unstable snow conditions, rock fall, ice fall, or thunderstorms; mountains have plenty of ways to ruin your day. The best way to avoid becoming an entry in ‘Accidents in North American Mountaineering’ is to limit your time spent in the danger zone.

Ouray Ice Park is a free ice climbing facility with over 200 established ice and mixed climbing routes in a natural setting. The park is located in the stunning Uncompahgre River Gorge, just outside the town of Ouray, Colorado. The Ice Park is not in the Box Canyon. The Box Canyon is another nearby attraction containing a waterfall that is unfrozen even in the winter.

Looking back at my photos, I like to know what mountains I've photographed. Often that's easy, sometimes because I've climbed them, otherwise because I usually study the map of the area beforehand, so I already know what to expect. However, for the Cordillera Vilcanota in Southern Peru, I did not have a proper map. Before I went there, I got my information from a book [1], from various web sites and, last but certainly not least, from my guide Iván, who I had stumbled upon in Arequipa, a few weeks earlier.

Lilianne and I met exactly 57 months ago. It was love at first sight. I was unemployed back then so I had time to visit her. Got a flight to São Paulo for the weekend and I ended up staying for ten days. We were in love. Before come back to Rio de Janeiro, my birth place and were I used to live until april 2007, I ask her to be my girlfriend and she said yes. Great!

This article is intended as an outline for an alpinist's education. It is not meant as a replacement for qualified instruction. Any persons interested in learning any skill mentioned in this article are urged to seek out an AMGA or IFMGA certified mountain guide or other qualified instructor. This was written for a broad geographical audience, hence the terms 'home range' and 'home crag'. The occasional provincial references are intended for illustrative purposes.

The history of alpinism is really the history of climbing in the European Alps. This is a fascinating subject, but lies beyond the scope of this article. An excellent article on the history of alpinism can be found here. I introduce the subject of history as a way of defining what alpinism is. As climbing became more sophisticated, the climber of the European Alps learned how to rock climb, to aid climb, to navigate glaciers, to ski on glaciers, and to ice climb in the pursuit of new, more difficult summits and new routes.

Winter is my favorite time to climb in the Cascades, in fact I feel that winter is when alpinism really happens in the Cascades. What are trifling peaks in summer become true Nordwands in the winter; objectives that are already large in the summer take on a near Alaskan scale when attempted in winter. The short days, terrible weather, huge snow pack, thin and poor ice, and lack of plowed roads all tip the scales against the winter alpinist. These conditions, however, make for a hot crucible through which hard alpinists are forged; success in the Cascades in winter appears to be a good predictor of success in the greater ranges. At any rate, after a long winter of throwing one's self against Cascade's north faces that spring trip to Alaska will seem like a tropcial vacation.

For years, we've recognized that the high bar for creating Summitpost pages keeps away many people with valuable information to contribute. Lately, we've recognized that technical/trad/advanced climbers are the most put off by this. There are several reasons, not completely agreed on but they might include:

Disclaimer: these facts are not 100% accurate. Please bear with me as I adjust and fine tune the measurements and calculations! updated 10/17/11