FEATURES

GALLERY
Meet the faces of Yosemite Search and Rescue (YOSAR), America’s preeminent high-angle rescue group, on call to save your bacon in the Valley.
By Fitz Cahall
Photos by James Q Martin

THE NOIR OF THALAY SAGAR
Sixteen years on, the author revisits his fateful expedition to the Garhwal Himalaya, seeking the cause for a mystery illness that plunged him into years of fatigue, pain, and darkness.
By Jordan Campbell

SPINDRIFT MEMORIES
Three men, 32 days on the wall, hundreds of pounds of equipment, 20-hour hauls, and monster storms — welcome to summer 1998 on Baffin Island’s Walker Citadel, right as ”Baffin Fever” swept the climbing world.
By Mike Libecki

LOSING THE PLOT
Journal entries and images from the “Alaskistan 2007” expedition reveal how being tentbound by storm and fighting endless travel logistics might just be harder (and scarier) than alpine-rock climbing itself.
By Cedar Wright and Renan Ozturk

TRAPPED!
Two Japanese climbers, fallen 165 feet into a crevasse on Latok IV, fight to escape their icy crypt.
By Dougald MacDonald
Illustration by Keith Svihovec

Mini Epics
Curry Boys Whip Off The Shield
How not to rig your portaledge.
Stately Displeasure
A 360-foot slab ride, in Tuolumne Meadows.

DEPARTMENTS

CONTRIBUTORS
Jordan Campbell, Tim Kemple, Anne Skidmore, and
Mike Libecki

EDITORIAL
Epics 2008 and the everyday business of survival

LETTERS

BASECAMP
JUST OUT
HOT FLASHES
OFF THE WALL
PLAYERS
TEN THINGS
WHIPPED
ROADKILL
SUSTAINED

CLASSIC CLIMBS
Yellow Brick Road (5.9+) — 300 feet of heaven-hewn granite, in the Needles, California

TECH TIP
Alpine: 7 surefire ways to head off epics at the pass

REVIEWS
New guide to the eastern Sierra; an anthology of testy tales; Dosage V and Dosage box sets; more. . . .

PERSPECTIVE
Henry Barber: free-climbing pioneer, free soloist, trad climber, motivational speaker, purist; North Conway, New Hampshire