Stone Free
Sights Unseen in Indian Kashmir
By Jonny Copp / National Geographic Adventure

While acclimatizing for a first ascent of the 19,200-foot Shafat Fortress in Kashmirʼs Zanskar Range last August,Colorado-based climbers Micah Dash,31 (pictured),and Jonny Copp,33,tackled smaller obstacles around base camp... read more

Buried
By Multiple Avalanches
By Jonny Copp. November 2007 Outside Magazine.

The first avalanche hit at midnight. The walls of our two ultralight tents collapsed, and we awoke to ice and snow squeezing usin the darkness. It was late September, and we were deep in the Kumaun region of the Indian... read more

The Line of Control
Bouldering, Big walling and International Conflict in Indian Kashmir Story and Photos by Jonny Copp and Micah Dash/ Climbing Magazine.

“Hey, Jonny, look over yonder,” I said, pointing at distant figures across the Lang Lang Meadow. It was our little slice of heaven, and we’d had it all to ourselves. We’d come to Indian Kashmir in July 2007 to try a 3,500-foot unclimbed granite wall... read more

Cirquetry
Trundles from God and other tales of Speed and Freedom in the
Cirque of the Unclimbables, Yukon Territory
Story and Photos by Jonny Copp.

The Beaver roared, its circa 1957 pistons pounding as we looped skyward within a mountain cirque, trying to gain enough altitude to slide through a notch... read more

Trick of the Light
A rope, a rack, and a pack on the back. Three Firsts in the world’s wildest mountain range.
Story by Jonny Copp, Photos by Mike Pennings and Jonny Copp / American Alpine Journal.

Sprawled in the glacier-fed meadow of Shipton Spire Base Camp, we gawk at the Cat’s Ears Spire and its fantastic needle-like summit. Now, within the honesty of... read more

END OF THE BEGINNING
Hard Traditional Climbing
Story by Abbey Smith, Photos by Jonny Copp / Alpinist Magazine.

On a few small cliffs outside Boulder, Colorado, a quiet
evolution is taking place. With good style, hard trad and
the fellowship of the rope, who needs bolts?   read more           

Blank Check
A trip up the Eigernordwand, 69 years after the first ascent
Story and photos by Jonny Copp. Climbing No. 262 Feature Article.

The express train from Interlaken weaves and tunnels through the flying buttresses and dark forests of the Alps. Steve Su and I take coffee in small, strong shots in the café caboose. We roll into Grindelwald with exactly three days to spare... read more

Falling Short A Long Way
Taking The Miracle Whip
Story and photos by Jonny Copp. October 2007 Rock and Ice.

Bean Bowers had spent three hours battling the final pitch of overhanging ice on Patagonia's monstrous Torre Egger, touted by some as the "hardest mountain in South America." Two moves from the summit, Bean popped, and fell... read more

Les Droites
Finding out what old age brings many and hard times do to most.
Story and photos by Jonny Copp. Patagonia Inc. Field Report

It is 2 a.m. in the deep cold of winter's night on the north face of a mountain called Les Droites. By the moonlight we can just see the Argentiere Glacier rolling blue thousands of feet below and spanning into darkness. The candle-lit... read more

Wind and Rock
The Magic and Madness of Torres Del Paine
Story and photos by Jonny Copp. Hooked on the Outdoors Magazine May/2001

Eyeing the gaunt landscape far below, from the pampas to the groping oceanic fingers of the Pacific, I try to harness solace from its apparent stability and strength. Visualizing a stout beech tree, anchored to the shore with an iron will... read more

Rocket Men
Copp and Pennings blaze tower after tower after tower in Pakistan Climbing Magazine News 2000

On their whirlwind trip to Pakistan’s Karakoram Range Mike Pennings and Jonathan Copp raced up Hainibrak Tower, Cat’s Ear Spire and Shipton Spire, all in alpine style, and still managed to sit still to take this picture... read more

Photography Tech Tips
The right type of light
Climbing Magazine

The clouds lift off the face like a receding veil. And the face, well, it’s not as pretty as you had imagined. In fact it’s downright scary. And now, as you are packing the final necessities into the route packs... read more

Southern Cross
Sinuous fissures and sleepless nights in Argentina’s Los Glaciares National Park Story and Photos by Jonny Copp, Alpinist Magazine / Issue 0

“Damn, I wonder if that splitter is big enough to get our hands or fingers into? Looks like it goes on for a thousand feet!” The delicate fissure soars through the west face of Poincenot. Dylan Taylor and I gaze whimsically at it through... read more

Fast Thinking
Ian Parnell catches up with American Alpine Speedster Jonny Copp Alps and Beyond

In recent years, a growing group of American climbers has gradually turned up the throttle on the strange game of speed climbing – racing up the walls of Yosemite and Colorado’s Black Canyon in hours rather than days. To many... read more

Trono Blanco
Climbing Mexico’s Great White Throneu
By Jonny Copp / Climbing Magazine

Maneuvering through sinuous pathways the van bounces and slides past ponderosa pine and yucca.  The headlights just catch a fleeting coyote and the next hard left.  Mike and John surf cargo in back of the van as Kestrel shuts... read more

Learning to Fly
Parasails take wing alongside migratory birds in Monterey California
Story and Photos by Jonny Copp / Hooked on the Outdoors Magazine Magazine

Made famous by Steinbeck’s portrayal in Cannery row, Monterey, California is far from culturally sterile, and the wildlife here is as diverse as the community. Every Spring... read more

Summit Memo
Dirt Bag Review
Words and Photos by Jonny Copp - Hooked on the Outdoors Magazine

On the summit a vast solitude reigns. Peaks and valleys extend to the horizon, swallowing human borders and life. While my senses explore it, the cold, the hunger, the epiphanies of randon moments up to this point are peripheral... read more

Rock
The Geology of Climbing
Words and Photos by Jonny Copp / Hooked on the Outdoors.

Just as some tennis players prefer grass courts to clay, there are climbers who find their niche in a certain type of rock. And the style of climbing employed on a specific route will depend on the characteristics of that type of rock...
read more

Urban Cragging
New York on the flip side
Story and Photos by Jonny Copp / Hooked on the Outdoors Magazine

Build-er-ing (bil-der-ing) v. 1.The art or practice of climbing buildings and other man-made structures. 2. The derelict uncle of bouldering and rock climbing. 3. Illegal (usually)...
read more

The Secret of Nanda Devi
Lost Plutonium in a Himalayan Sanctuary
Story by Pete Takeda, Photos by Jonny Copp / Rock and Ice Magazine

I stumbled upon the legend of Nanda Devi and Nanda Kot and lost CIA plutonium  on a cold October night in 1987,  sitting with friends, swilling cheap malt liquor around a roaring campfire in Yosemite. To my best recollection... read more

The Approach
The Summit is not always the ultimate goal
Story and photos by Jonny Copp / Hooked Mag

I wasn’t even a kid by the time my passport was full of stamps. I still come across that wrinkled old document sometimes – with its faded black and white baby picture and its red, blue and back hieroglyphics – and I wonder if those... read more