Stories
Mountain adventures create the best stories, and we want to share some of ours with you. Dive into Alpenglow Stories to stay up to date on expeditions in the field, read blogs, and get tips and tricks from guides.
The Vertical Gateway: How the Tahoe Via Ferrata Is Changing the Way Families and First-Timers Experience Real Rock
What if your first real outdoor climb wasn’t a sketchy scramble or a ropes course at summer camp—but a guided vertical adventure up a massive granite face, hundreds of feet above the ground, with views stretching across Lake Tahoe?
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Skiing Through Prehistory: Why the Ring of Fire Feels Primordial
There’s something surreal about skiing on an active volcano. Steam rising from vents, snow underfoot, and dense jungle at the trailhead. It feels otherworldly. But there’s a reason these places feel so ancient: they are.
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2025 Local’s Day on the Tahoe Via
Our tour will take place on the Tahoe Via Ferrata on Sunday September 28, 2025. This is a chance for Lake Tahoe locals to climb the Tahoe Via Ferrata with professional Alpenglow Expeditions rock climbing guides.
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Why go Backpacking? From Denali to Yosemite the Answer Remains the Same
In Denali, crossing trackless tundra under the midnight sun made me feel more present than I had in years. In Yosemite, a quiet night by a creek under granite walls will remind you how little we need to feel alive.
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Backpacking Yosemite’s Glacier Point Circuit with Alpenglow
We designed our 5-Day Yosemite Backpacking Adventure to offer a full-value loop through one of the most scenic and quieter parts of Yosemite National Park.
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Backpacking the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne: Yosemite’s Wildest Side
While the crowds gather at Glacier Point and Yosemite Falls, we’re dropping into something much deeper—literally and figuratively. The Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne doesn’t get the hype it deserves, and we’re okay with that. It keeps things quieter out there.
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Backpacking Yosemite Without the Guesswork
You don’t need to be a seasoned backpacker to get deep into Yosemite’s backcountry. You just need the right plan—and a solid guide.
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Everest North Side 2025: A Season of Patience, Precision, and Perfect Timing
This spring, our Alpenglow Expeditions team returned to the North Side of Mount Everest with a small crew and a big plan. After months of preparation, pre-acclimatization, and weather watching, our Everest expedition 2025 culminated in an incredibly rare summit day—blue skies, no wind, and a quiet mountain.
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Climb Cho Oyu Before Climbing Everest
When it comes to climbing Everest, experience matters. Not just general mountain experience, but specific, targeted exposure to what it actually feels like to live and perform above 7,000 meters. That’s why Adrian Ballinger—founder of Alpenglow Expeditions and veteran of 14 Everest seasons—encourages nearly every aspiring Everest climber to summit an 8,000-meter peak first.
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Peak Lenin vs. Aconcagua
We guide both Aconcagua and Peak Lenin, and while they’re similar in height—Aconcagua at 6,962m (22,841’) and Lenin at 7,134m (23,406’)—the experience on each mountain couldn’t be more different. Both trips use our Rapid Ascent approach, which means you show up pre-acclimatized and we move efficiently through the mountain. But what those days look like, how technical the terrain is, and what you’re training for down the line—all of that changes depending on where you go.
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