Why one little-used technique can make or break your fall. I’ve always viewed trad- or ice-climbing falls as more serious than sport whippers.

Sammy and I hunkered into the shade beneath the Weeping Wall, Suicide Rock, panting between pulls on a gallon jug of water. The sun had just crawled over Tahquitz Rock, a mile across the Sunshine Valley, and heat waves welled off the Suicide slabs. No big.

Bouldering and sport climbing at the mystical Peruvian hotspot Hatun Machay.

Pete Ward is big—not only ’cause he towers at a top-out height, but because he’s one of the best setters in the country.

That Charlie Fowler would meet his end while doing what he loved is no huge surprise given the sheer volume of his climbing. At age 52, he'd racked up three and a half decades of it, and had carried his quiet air of a seasoned survivor from hard rock to the high-risk games of alpine climbing and soloing.

It's easy in this new world order of knobby-handled, leashless mixed tools to lose sight of reality. While we all might fantasize about sending M11 or kicking that little (OK, he's big) Russian's behind in the Ouray mixed finals, the cold hard fact is that we need tools that will actually climb ice, and usually need leashes.