Montana’s Conrad Anker Is Not Done Climbing

When Conrad Anker gives you ice-climbing advice, you listen. We’re in Hyalite Canyon, outside of Bozeman, Montana, one of the premier ice-climbing destinations in the country, and he’s guiding me on one of the many routes scattered over a few miles of cliff. But even as I struggle to maintain my strength through a 60-foot-tall, mildly overhanging single-pitch ice climb, these routes are child’s play for Anker, the 56-year-old who became the face of mountaineering after discovering George Mallory’s body on Mount Everest in 1999. Since then, he’s climbed the world’s tallest peak three times, taken part in countless National Geographic expeditions, and was the subject of a 2015 feature film by his climbing partner, Jimmy Chin, about their summit of Meru.