World renowned mountain guide, gifted writer, and accomplished wiseguy, Dave Hahn has been climbing professionally since 1986 and writing about his adventures for nearly a decade. He has been to the top of Mount Everest ten times (which is more than any other non-Sherpa climber,) and on three Mallory & Irvine search expeditions including the 1999 team that found Mallory's body.

In the off-season from 16 Himalayan expeditions, Hahn has guided 245 ascents of Mount Rainier and 24 attempts on Denali (with 17 summits.) He holds the world summit record of 25 on Vinson Massif, Antarctica's highest peak, and is internationally recognized for numerous exceptional high-altitude rescues. When home, he works as a ski patroler and EMT in his hometown, Taos, New Mexico.

Hahn has proven himself an eloquent and entertaining writer with a gift for making the world's great adventures accessible to everyone. Mostly typing in cold, damp tents and on cross-ocean flights, he has been published in Outside Magazine, contributed to several climbing books, and has become a specialist at detailing day to day life in the mountains. We dare you to not be amazed, amused, and often moved.

Dave Hahn's Dispatches and Columns

• The Sheriff of Hunziker Bowl:
  Meditations on Being a Hard Ass
  January 2003   —   "I began to get a little worried by all the pastels and purples and yellows in their clothing. 'You guys know you were skiing in a closed area?' But when the one guy opened his mouth, my heart sank... 'Ve haf not so much English please.' All those colors confirmed my worst fears... Euros!"
• Chopper Gumbo and the Midlife Crisis:
  Heli Crash on the way to a Rescue on Rainier
  September 2002   —   "It is almost cliche, when coming home from Everest and the land of Sherpas and karma, to integrate a little Buddhism into one's daily routine... When I packed the car for a summer of mountain guiding, crossed the Rio Grande and left the Land of Enchantment, my conscience was squeaky clean. And must surely be why I didn't get crunched in a crashing helicopter on Mount Rainier just a few days later..."
• Strap on the Nitro:  Everest Icefall Collapse of Cinematic Proportions
  June 2002   —   "I didn't believe there was anywhere to run or any use in finding a way to run. By then we seemed to have our arms around one another. We were all saying things and stepping this way and that in our huddle on our little island as everything began to shake and quiver. All at once the ice slopes above us disintegrated, collapsed, disappeared and evaporated. This happened fast, but not so fast that there wasn't time to see it all and be a little scared..."
• Everest: Emotional Rescue
  October 2001   —   "It probably sounds terrible to say that we were prepared for them to be dead, in which case our response would have been to go on to the summit. Get your head around it if you can, because we would have. And if they weren't so bad off, we'd have helped them to their feet, patted them on their backs as they proceeded down and we'd have still pressed on for the top. After all, they had their expedition goals, we had ours. The two were separate. But it had become apparent that we were into something far worse..."
• What Did You Expect?
  Patience the Antarctic Storm Way
  February 2000   —   "The light for photos got better and better as the storm clouds grew with the passage of several days. Those clouds meant we had to get out of there, but we knew that the clouds had engulfed an area we needed clear for refueling at a cache of drums inland. It was a complicated situation, but still pretty. One day, Maxo and I woke up to find our tent flapping in a stiff wind. It was probably blowing about thirty, but it was early. I dozed, woke up and thought it had reached 40. But I might have been wrong on that, because when I looked out the tent, the one next to us had just snapped a few poles and was flapping furiously around its occupants..."
• New Millennium New Year's Eve in Antarctica
  December 31, 1999   —   "I am not filled with loneliness. The gang over at Patriot Hills will give a call on the fancy sat-phone near midnight because they'll be a little worried for me. Nobody knows just how Y2K will effect the motion of these big glaciers, after all. I appreciate their concern, but I'll get by and I'll see them when the weather gets nice. I get lonely at big parties, and I get lonely driving around suburbia... but I don't get lonely in a place where there aren't any people."
• Everest 1998 — Part I:
  Kathmandu to Advanced Base Camp
  April - June, 1998   —   These are excerpts from the dispatches that started it all. No one knew Dave could write like this (maybe not even Dave himself,) but he was leading the IMG North Side Everest climb and was asked to send a few updates to be posted online. No photos, no video, no big leadup, just these long emails that started showing up, and suddenly everyone was asking who is this Hahn guy and when is his next dispatch going up.
• Everest 1998 — Part II:
  The Upper Mountain (Coming Soon)
  April - June, 1998   —   "None of the gully will impress a rock climber back home. It is like climbing onto the dining room table, then up onto the China cabinet, then over onto the thing that holds the table linen. With your crampons on, an axe in your hand and pulling rope around. (Don't try this at home, kids.) But none of that is impossible, even if you took away the carpet, the floor and 9,000' of the basement to simulate the drop to the Central Rongbuk Glacier. As the great climber George Dunn once said of the North Ridge route, 'It is tricky.' But also fun..."