Alpinist Magazine Issue 47 I Summer 2014 Edizione posteriore

In his 1969 classic, Challenge of the North Cascades, Fred Beckey described the Picket Range of Washington State as "fortresses ringed by cliffs and jungle." And with names such as Terror, Fury, Challenger and Phantom, their summits have long seemed like part of some mythological realm beyond the reach of modern development. Fifty Years after the passage of the Wilderness Act, designed to protect such places, Forest McBrian explores the evolving ways that climbers here have imagined and approached the "wild" through this issue's Mountain Profile of the Pickets. Meanwhile, Alex Honnold looks beyond the momentary purity of ascent he reached on his free solo of Sendero Luminoso (5.12+), El Potrero Chico, at the complex impacts of professional climbing. And when Charlie Porter died on February 23, 2014, he left behind a legacy of underreported adventures. Yet his friends never forgot their experiences with him. Gary Bocarde, Sibylle Hechtel, Alan Burgess, Russell McLean and Stephen Venables share a few memories o