Although outside the normal format of acknowledging a specific first ascent, the Piolets d'Or recognizes the array of innovative, multi-discipline achievements over the last few years by French alpinist Benjamin Vedrines
The Piolets d’Or is proud to announce that Alexander Odintsov will receive the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award for a career that redefined post-Soviet alpinism. He took Russian big wall climbing to new continents and inspired a generation of climbers throughout former Soviet countries
It probably would have been difficult for me to get through so many events and ascents that I have experienced during my long years of climbing and to survive thus far, had it not been for a deep-seated intuitive sense of caution. This sense has pointed the way out of many dangerous situations, intuitively leading me in the right direction in my struggle to survive.
Climbing the almost 1500m route up the face took seven days - seven days of constant physical and psychological tension. Snow pitches alternated with sections of rock, often plastered with ice. Placing protection on such mixed routes is more complicated than on a purely rock or ice route
Author: Sergei Efimov, Yekaterinburg, Russia
Translated from the Russian by Richard Sills
After two weeks we were ready to give a try in this big piece of alpinism. Poor weather conditions made us wait fax days more but the sun was expected to shine for almost one week which made us allow to give a proper try in the face
What does mean for you "Mezzogiorno" (Midday)? Is the moment when the sun is in the hiest position onto the sky. What does mean "Mezzonotte" (Midnight)? Exactly controversial - sun locate in the lowest position, other side of the Earth
In 2019 the International Jury of the Piolets d'Or has chosen to honour
three innovative ascents: a famous face on an iconic mountain of the
central Karakoram
On the long west-northwest ridge of Baintha Brakk (a.k.a. Ogre, 7,265m) lie several impressive summits, including Baintha Brakk West (6,660m) and Baintha Brakk West II (6,540m). Max Ten and I had the latter as our goal for the summer of 2018
How many days can rescue operations last? How adequate are decisions made by the relatives who frequently know nothing or precious little about mountains?
Author Anna Piunova, Mountain.RU Translation Maria Samsonova, Ekaterinburg
We did not expect so heavy snow fall so we left the equipment into a crevass on 5700m. That's the only possibility to fix a camp in that area so we were forced to fix the tent there
There are no walk-downs from the summit of Ordzhonikidze. The easiest route is Russian 2B or French PD. On the icy north face were three existing routes, the first by Alexander Kolegov’s team in 1956. Much later, Vassily Pivtsov and various friends added two more, in 2000 and 2004. All these were 4A or 4B
Gukov, what about Gukov? My lively imagination was presenting a picture of him dying there on his ledge.
Little by little.
Life is going to seep out of him over a long, long time because he is healthy, not injured, and the weather is relatively warm
Author Anna Piunova, Mountain.RU Translation Maria Samsonova, Ekaterinburg
“Nothing happens by chance, everything happens for a reason”, that’s what was on my mind as Roma and I got on the Freboudze glacier in the early summer 2016. We were looking at the east face of the Grandes Jorasses and we already imagined ourselves climbing there
As far as I know, nobody has ever climbed North face of Thalay Sagar without using portaledge. We, on the contrary, ceased using portaledge after "No Fear" on Trango Nameless. It was a sort of extra challenge for us this time – try to make it with a tent for 2 personsjazz-music.net
Recently Domen Kastelic, Olov Isaksson and Marcus Palm came back from a successful exploratory expedition in Tibet, where they made a first ascent of Jang Tsang Go (6300 m) in West Nyenchen Tanglha mountain range that is mainly unvisited area
