Annapurna has historically been conservative when granting climbers access to its summit. Its a notorious hard cookie to crack and for many of the aspiring collectors of the big 14 Annapurna has been left to the bitter end of the game. Annpurna is a special mountain as it sees little of the sad 8000 meter tourism. Its also unique among the 8000 meter peaks as some of the finest alpine style achievements has taken place on its South Face.
Sadly 2010 this all changed. Never has so many climbers summited Annapurna in a season but the style is pathetic. To day the climbers have set camp at the foot armed with fixed ropes and massive army's of Sherpas and helpers. They don't go in circles they move backwards. The style to day is "heavier" than on the mountains first assent some 50 years ago. It tells you all you need to know about the French expedition lead by Herzog and all you need to know about to days posers. I might be naive but one would think that with today's technology and gear it wold be easy to show that progress has been made. But the girls racing to bag all 14 seams to be so blind sighted by the strive to be the first so they forget all about style. Or maybe they never knew how to distinguish good style from bad.
Eun-Sun Oh "became" the first female "alpinist" to "claim" an accent of all 14 summits higher that 8000 meters. I say this with brackets as I think the REAL game is still on and that's the game to reach the summit by Fair means meaning NO 02 and in style. This doped and supported Korean circus is a disgrace to female mountaineering much like the disgrace Swedish mega poser Annelie Pompe brought on Swedish alpinism when she went out in the biggest national news paper and made a false summit claim on Shishapangma.
Its sad with the focus on summits and the collecting of peaks when style is forgotten and blind ambition is the new yardstick to measure achievements with. My advice is: Bitches get real and go light and do some thing you master with out fixed ropes, O2, Sherpas and all the other shit you bring to become famous.
