tom frost

El Capitan, Yosemite, Unpublished, 1964

Below is our annual tribute to Climbers We Lost, here honoring those who left us in 2018. The climbers range in age from 20 to 96. Some people broke our hearts by leaving much too soon. Some lived long and at least died naturally. Climbers We Lost has in the six years since inception become an affirmation of how meaningful our endeavor is and how important our identities as climbers are to us. This year one young contributor, Danika Hill, in contacting us about her friend Haley Royko, 25, wrote, "Climbing was her life's joy, and she told me in 2015 that when she passed, she wanted to be included in your annual tribute. It is actually the only dying wish she made of me, and I want to make sure it happens." Each year we are concerned to think that we will inadvertently leave out some people. We encourage you to use the comments field to add photos and remembrances of others.

All sorts of exciting stuff going on as the temperatures start getting a bit nippier!

Fifty years ago a team of top American climbers participated in a botched CIA operation that lost a plutonium spy device high in the Himalaya. Here's  Pete Takeda's account of that bizarre expedition and his attempts to uncover the truth about what really happened...