Alpinist Magazine Issue 37 - Winter 2011-12 Print or Digital?:Print Issue

Alpinist Magazine Issue 37 - Winter 2011-12 Print or Digital?:Print IssueFeatures Mountain Profile: K2, Part I (18561954) In recent years, the "Everestification" of K2 (8611m) has brought increas ing quantities of fixed rope, oxygen bottles and quasi guided expeditions to the world's second highest mountain. Yet despite the spread of com mercialism, this Karakoram giant remains among the most hazardous of the 8000 meter peaks. During the early days of K2's climbing history, its sustained steepness, objective hazards and

home where he investigates nature versus nurture and follows the boys down puckering sidecountry chutes

All our testers have to do is ski

In this first part of a two-part series on the legacies of climbing on Nanda Devi—and the nearby summits of Nanda Devi East and Nanda Kot—Takeda explores the interweaving of mountaineering

Paula Wright finds Horn's mother Climbing Life Emily Stifler Wolfe climbs a "different kind of big wall" under the light of the moon

poetry and one reader's crafty creations

Don Mellor Contributors

Chris Van Leuven returns to his California hometown to attempt to understand what it means to be—as Kohl describes himself—"nihilistic

community and lifestyle of the backcountry and writes about it with raw humor and unabashed self- deprecation

he was always "Layton the Great'n

Things get sticky

Mountain Profile: Darran Mountains

Creeping into winter