Published March 8, 2005 07:45AM
Mark Wilford, a leading American rock climber and alpinist for more than two decades, received the Robert and Miriam Underhill Award for outstanding climbing achievement at the American Alpine Club’s annual meeting on March 5. In addition to a long list of first free ascents on rock and ice, Wilford was the first American to solo the North Face of the Eiger and has soloed the North Face/Northeast Ridge of Mount Alberta in Canada. He has put up major new routes in the Karakoram and the St. Elias Range of Alaska. The AAC gave the David Brower Conservation Award to Alaskan climber Steve Davis, the American Alpine Club Literary Award to writer John Sherman, and the Angelo Heilprin Citation for exemplary service to Virginia Boucher, chair of the committee that oversees the club’s 18,000-volume library. The club also announced three new honorary members: Elizabeth Hawley, Reinhold Messner, and Maynard Miller. The three-day AAC Mountain Fest drew more than 225 climbers to Ouray, Colorado, for climbing, dinners, and slide shows by Steve Swenson, Kevin Mahoney, Louise Thomas, John Varco, and Greg Child.