FAMILY TIES
With Father’s Day just past, we’re sharing a few stories of multi-generational climbing families that are featured in the upcoming 2024 AAJ (plus one from the archives).
The Uriostes of Red Rock
Joanne and Jorge Urioste are legends of Red Rock Canyon, Nevada, having established many classic routes (Crimson Chrysalis, Epinephrine, Dream of Wild Turkeys, Levitation 29, and on and on). Their son Danny is also a climber, and in recent years he too has been putting up big new routes in the sandstone canyons west of Las Vegas, often in the company of prolific new-router and AAJ contributor Sam Boyce. In December 2023, the two teamed up with Kyle Willis for a new route on the Aeolian Wall: Salami Wand Kenobi (14 pitches, V 5.11- R C2).
Coincidentally, the new route incorporated three pitches of Woman of Mountain Dreams. That route, Urioste explains in his AAJ 2024 report, “was first climbed in 1997 by my parents, along with Dave Krulesky and Mike Morea, and then freed by my mother and Aitor Uson in 1998.”
Danny Urioste and Sam Boyce climbed another route on Aeolian Wall, a long direct start to the classic Resolution Arête, in November 2022. You can read about that climb, the Evolution Arête, on Mountain Project.
Watch the AAC Legacy Series interview with Joanne and Jorge Urioste!
The Millers of Juneau
Mt. Swineford (6,841’) from the northwest. The first ascent was by the west face, partially hidden in clouds. Photo by Dylan Miller.
Dylan Miller has been a frequent AAJ contributor in recent years, with many new routes and winter ascents in the mountains around Juneau, Alaska. He has three reports in the upcoming AAJ, including the story of the first known ascent of Mt. Swineford a few years back, which Dylan completed with his dad, Mike, along with Makaila Olson and Ben Still. Dylan says he owes his love of the mountains to his father: “He has definitely been a big inspiration in my life. He took me on my first adventures, and he has done so many first ascents in the area.”
In AAJ 2019, Dylan described a classic Alaska adventure with his dad: the first ascent of Endicott Tower, about 50 miles northwest of the capital city. “From Juneau we flew to Gustavus, jumped on a Glacier Bay tourist catamaran, cruised up the east arm of Glacier Bay, and got dropped off in a sandy cove at the base of Mt. Wright, near Adams Inlet,” Miller wrote. “We inflated our rafts and waited for the incoming tide to suck us into the 14-mile Adams Inlet. We waded and crisscrossed the Goddess River delta, sometimes crossing swift, waist-deep rivers, and made camp for the night. We then hiked a full day…to Endicott Lake, the headwaters for the Endicott River. Here we stashed our water gear and tromped 2,000’ up through the Tongass rainforest to a pristine hanging alpine valley, where we made our base camp.”
Mike Miller during yet another Southeast Alaska adventure: the first ascent of Snow Tower. See AAJ 2016. Photo by William Wacker.
A few days later, from a higher camp, the two climbed snow, mixed terrain, and rotten rock to complete the first ascent of the 5,805-foot peak. “From the top we looked southeast to Juneau and pointed out our home, which put into perspective how far out there we really were,” Dylan wrote. After a rest at base camp, during which a friend flew in to pick up their mountain gear, they packrafted down the Endicott River, bushwhacked past a deep gorge (climbing another peak along the way), and returned to the river to float out to the sea.
Huayna Illampu (5,940m) from the south, showing (1) the approximate line of the 1973 Mesili-Sanchez Route and (2) Via dei Nembresi (700m, ED AI4 M5). The climbers in 2023 continued up Illampu (6,368m), which is hidden behind Huayna Illampu. Photo by Daniele Assolari.
The Nembrinis of Nembro
“In 1973, an expedition led by Carlo Nembrini climbed Illampu (6,368m) in Bolivia and then moved to Illimani,” begins a report in AAJ 2024. “After climbing that peak, they joined a search for the bodies of Pierre Dedieu (France) and Ernesto “Coco” Sanchez (Bolivia), who had been killed on the mountain. Sanchez had been considered the best alpinist in Bolivia at the time…. The Italians located the body of Sanchez, but tragically, during the evacuation, Nembrini fell to his death.”
A book written about Carlo Nembrini, a leading Italian alpinist of his era, after his death. The book can be seen at the AAC Library but is not available for check-out.
In 2022, Rosa Morotti, a niece of Nembrini’s, wrote to the guide Daniele Assolari, an Italian who lives and works in Bolivia, “about her dream of opening a new route on Illampu, 50 years after the death of her uncle.” Assolari put together a trip with Morotti and Maria Teresa Llampa Vasquez (the first female IFMGA aspirant guide from Bolivia), and in late June of 2023, the trio climbed a new line up the south side of Huayna Illampu, a 5,940-meter peak on the southwest ridge of the main summit, then continued up the higher peak. “Rosa dedicated the route to…all the people of Nembro (immediately northeast of Bergamo), where her father and Carlo were born: Via dei Nembresi (700m, ED AI4 M5).”
Three George Lowes on the Grand
George Lowe III in Tanzania in 2015. Wikipedia Photo.
The 1981 AAJ carried one of the shortest stories in the journal’s history, a one-sentence report on a notable event in the Tetons. Here is the report, in its entirety: “In July three George Lowes, grandfather, father and son, all climbed the Exum route of the Grand Teton together, which may be some kind of a new record.”
The Line is the newsletter of the American Alpine Journal (AAJ), emailed to more than 80,000 climbers each month. Find the archive of past editions here. Interested in supporting this publication? Contact Heidi McDowell for opportunities. Got a potential story for the AAJ? Email us: [email protected].