This is an interesting thread.
I do not understand why the OP is looking towards Denali to define American Mountaineering. Would presence of young guys on these expeditions make it all better? Let’s be honest regular route on Denali is not that challenging to a mountaineer who gets out to the mountains often, nor is it an interesting goal for most. Although if you do look at Denali, not all is lost there. This year I had a chance to chat with Colin Hale (under 30) there- an American alpinist who puts up new routes, and does impressive ascents around the world all the time, even when he doesn’t plan on it at times : ) He was going for speed record on Cassin Ridge. Here are some of the things that he climbed there in AK during his trip:
http://colinhaley.blogspot.com/2011/06/ ... g-and.htmlHe does and did cool climbs for a while, so check archives for more cool stuff. I love his blog.
Although he got there a bit too late to get favorable conditions couple of other guys from Europe got the Cassin record and I got to chat with them for a bit too, while taking their food (they did the route in 14hours:40mins I think, from base to top of the route). Colin and his partner from previous attempt of theirs hold the speed record for base to summit, on Cassin.
While there m partner and I wanted to climb full west rib but conditions of the glacier on the approach to that route too complicated for it to be worthy. So we did the regular route and went to climb things elsewhere. Met other young Americans there with cool goals but not favorable conditions. Also I met another guy from CA aspiring to climb the west rib. Conditions sucked for them on an attempt at Upper Rib but he made the most out of his trip too. Summiting the west buttress in 4 days.
http://pullharder.org/2011/06/23/an-ice ... -buttress/I was fortunate to climb with him here in our home range (
http://pullharder.org/2011/09/02/weeken ... bon-arete/) , and as a much more experienced climber (I been hiking/climbing/mountaineering since January 2010, but not as much climbing till later part of 2010) than me, he taught me quite a lot about climbing, and helped me push myself. And we will climb again some day.
Absence of trip reports does not mean people don’t get out and climb things. I know several people who did not write any trip reports about their trips to South America, or elsewhere. Does it really matter? If you want good climbing news check out Alpinist.
Here is one of recent big climbs. Americans still climb cool things, in good style.
http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web11f/news ... -hour-pushAlso new routes of course are not climbed as often anymore. 50 years ago a lot of striking peaks/lines were unclimbed and now to get a significant peak with a striking line you need to do a load of research, traveling, drop a lot of $, and most likely it wont be repeated since it is somewhere real far and hard to get to.