Alpinists to Attempt Epic Himalayan Wall
The West Wall of Changabang has only been climbed twice in the past 50 years
Italian climbers Luca Schiera, Luca Moroni, and Giacomo Mauri are heading to the Himalayas to attempt the West Wall of Changabang (6,880 m).
The first ascent of the route was in 1976 by legendary climbers Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker. Boardman and Tasker’s ascent was considered the hardest high altitude alpine climb in the world at the time, and hadn’t been repeated despite over 20 expeditions attempting it. Changabang had not seen a successful ascent in over 26 years.
Boardman and Tasker summited after 25 days of effort. Boardman’s account of the ascent, The Shining Mountain, won the 1979 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for literature. In a review of The Shining Mountain, late author David Roberts said, “The west wall is another proposition altogether. A 5000-foot precipice so sustained that Boardman and Tasker had to resort to semihanging bivouacs, it demanded from the men both extremely ‘necky’ climbing in severe cold and a grim dedication of purpose over a full month alone together. They chose to fix ropes continuously to a point near the summit. It is clear, however, that an alpine-style attempt would have failed early, and that the peculiar hazards of the fixed-rope assault bred an oppressive psychology of its own.”
It wasn’t repeated for 46 years until 2022 by New Zealander Alpine Team climbers Matthew Scholes, Kim Ladiges and Daniel Joll. Before departing for Changabang, Schiera, Moroni and Mauri said, “The route traced by the two English champions marked a turning point in how Himalayan expeditions were conceived. It was a masterpiece of new, technical, and lightweight mountaineering, aimed at an objective of extreme technical difficulty at high altitude.”
Changabang 2022
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