Yet an other sad day for Female Himalaya Climbing

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.

My reporting in Alpinist on Piolet d'Or

http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web10s/newswire-piolets-dor-2010-identity

Piolet d'Or and its Identity crisis

The Piolets d'Or 2010

Photo: David Falt

The revived version of the controversial Piolets d'Or event held its second event since its abrupt ending a few years back in Chamonix Mont-Blanc and Courmayeur over the weekend of April 7th to 10th. Last year the event was back in a new promising format with a career award. Group Haute Montnage (GHM) had also joined forces with the Alpine Club in the UK and created the Spirit of Mountaineering award to honour alpinists who risk everything in order to rescue fellow climbers. Last year the award was given to 4 out of 5 nominees based on what was perceived as different categories. I was how ever quite disappointed that the Nuptse accent who I think was the fines but did not top out (Benoist and his partner did a judgement call and returned from the ridge when all interesting climbing was finished due to feeling they where approaching the limit) did not get an golden axe.

This year five outstanding accents was nominated all meeting the standards of the charter adapted by GHM. The GHM charter is the guide line for the jury when they are deliberating and selecting the final award winning candidates.

The new career achievement award was given to Reinhold Messner who was quite vocal in his criticism of modern high altitude climbing and the focus on 8000 meter tourism. Messner made an interesting observation when he pointed out that todays Basque and Japanese (both female) expeditions working on Annapurna are much heavier in style and tactics compared to the expedition lead by Maurice Herzog 1950. Hertzog who was present in Chamonix and participated in a panel discussion with Messner agreed that some of today's expeditions performance is not that impressive. The achievements of the nominees how ever impressed both Hertzog and Messner who both praised the light style chosen by all nominated teams.

In the press briefing I asked Messner the following questions:

- Messner Is the Piolet d'Or important?

" This is like the Oscars for alpinism, its a celebration of the alpine tradition. Alpinism starts where tourism stops. To days trade routes on the 8000 meter peeks climbed by commercial expeditions using fixed ropes, camps and Sherpas are pure tourism that has nothing to do with alpinism. The Piolet d'Or celebrate Alpinism that's whats beyond this tourism."

- Messner on the development of Alpinism

"To day its not about being a hero. This is some thing that belongs to the past where mountaineers where received as hero's up on there return from the mountains. To days hero's are climbers like Chris Sharma and Adam Ondra. The internet has changed the focus on what's interesting to the younger generations."

"To days alpinist can't find much unknown terrain but they find new lines that are technically hard and a the same time intelligent. When Hertzog and other climbers went to Himalayas nothing was know about the next valley or what the human body was able to with stain."


This years golden axes were given to two of the five nominees. The jury motivation this year was quite different in comparison to last year`s. The motivation this year was that these two expeditions best meet the criteria outlined in the GHM charter. Christian Thrommsdorff who is the chairman of GHM emphasised that two winners just got more than the other three rather than looking at it as the other nominees did not measure up to the charter. I found this quite lame and I think that in the end this unclear approach will dilute the importance of the event. I also think it can open up for new controversies. All accents nominated was great achievements and for some one to put one in front of an other on quite vague grounds makes the Jury look quite silly in my opinion.

I would argue that GHM must opt for a format where they award in categories. In its current format and given the outcome of this years event I think that more and more climbers will decline nomination as its kind of interesting to be par of some thing that is "changing" its format from year to year.

The Piolet d'Or is struggling to find a new identity and time is essential if this award wants to stay relevant and interesting to the climbing community. "The new Oscar style as Christina Trommsdorff describes the event will only stay relevant and avoid future controversy if the award criteria and process is clear and predictable. I also think jury presentations should be open to the public." That was one comment from a nominee.

Finlay it was hugely disappointing that the Alpine Club did not award one or two of the extraordinary sacrifices made in 2009 in the Himalayas in terms of mounting rescue missions to fellow climbers.

The 2010 winners was

Cho Oyu (8201m) southeast face, Nepal. The Kazakh climbers Denis Urubko and Boris Dedeshko climbed a very difficult and direct new route on this 2600-meter wall, during a 10-day round trip from base camp in May. With this climb, they discovered a bold and difficult new way to the summit of a popular Himalayan summit. For Urubko, the climb was a stylish conclusion to his quest to climb all 14 of the world’s 8000-metre peaks.

Xuelian West (6422m), north face, China. Bruce Normand from Scotland and Americans Jed Brown and Kyle Dempster are among the first climbers to explore the north side of this impressive massif. After climbing several virgin faces during acclimatization, they completed the first ascent of the 2650-metre north wall of Xuelian West, with five days of difficult and insecure technical climbing.

Rock Trip

Off on a road trip to enjoy some of the best sport climbing in south of Europe. I hope the weather will cooperate so I can get some nice climbing done. This will be my sport climbing comeback after my tendon injury last October. Spring is here and so its time to jump on the bike and start getting fit for Latok. On the fun side. The other day I got 9 boxes of gear from Mountain Hardwear for our Latok Expedition. Lots of great stuff and I can't wait to get out and test my new clothing system. Might get a shoot in Alaska as I will skip the Oscars in Chamonix and go for trip to Mt Hunter.




Photo: Courtesy Maxime Turgeon

Piolet d'Or 2010 The Alpinism Oscars

What's the point in having an "Oscars" for Alpinism? If we look at the Piolets d'Or in the same way we look at grading, something which is highly subjective and only interesting to climbers who aspire to do the route being graded, it can be a fun event to follow. First of all, we have to remember the controversy that has surrounded this event in the past. Having a few guys telling a few other guys that they did a route unworthy of the award is crazy. It’s all a strange game and some climbers try to make a statement by refusing to be nominated while others try to be part of the circus and influence the outcome.

I'm in the latter category. For me personally, it's a fun event and a great way to meet friends, socialize and climb. The organizers have tried to take the edge off some of the past emotions by introducing a new format where five or six teams are nominated and more than one award can be given, for example in categories emphasizing "technical difficulty", "commitment" and "exploration". I guess in theory one team can grab all three awards but this is a highly unlikely scenario. In this year's bag is a nice mix of great achievements, some maybe better than others, some more hyped than others but the key element is that they are all great achievements, illustrating the beauty of the pure alpine challenge and in the age of relentless commercialism, over-hyping of 8000m 'heroes' and even blatant fraudulence to gain entry to this club, the appeal of the alpine ideal should not be allowed to dim.

To further widen the event and make it less about comparing and judging, the organizers have also included a "life-time achievement" award. Last year's recipient, to everyone's joy, was the rehabilitated Walter Bonatti. This year, Reinhold Messner will be honored with the award, and again I think few will object. It's hard to see that this can really upset anyone as long as it recognizes style before public glory.

I personally will pay most attention to the "Spirit of Mountaineering" award. This is given to climbers who risk it all in order to try and save fellow climbers stuck where no one else can get to them. This might not be the coolest award in alpine climbing, but in my opinion, and up against the possible style squabbles separating the achievements of the Piolet d'Or contenders, it is only truly interesting and unequivocally deserved award on offer.

At the end of the day, the Piolet d'Or is like most things in life a matter of taste and choice. I think that, independent of who walks away with the axe(s), it's a great way to promote alpinism and alpine climbing. I think it's a great way for climbers who do not prioritize the running of a well-oiled PR machine to end up in the spotlight and receive some public recognition for their efforts in the Greater Ranges, which remain an enduring bastion of adventure on our over-civilized planet. Let's face it: at the end of the day, an award has a huge value to the recipient, not only privately, in terms of that recognition for many years of quiet striving, but also commercially. It might not change the world, but it can certainly change the opportunities to find sponsors and partners for future projects, and thus act as a springboard for a climbing career.