New Alpine Route on Gimmigela East in Nepal

Hansjorg Auer and Alex Bluemel have made the first ascent of the north face ot Gimmigela East in alpine style. They are the first to attempt the 7,005-metre peak’s north side and are only the third to summit. The first summits were in 1993 and 1994 by Japanese teams.

The mountain is a subpeak of Gimmigela Chuli 7,350m in eastern Nepal, on the border of India. The approach took Auer and Blumel five days. They then spent a few days acclimatizing on Dhromo’s south ridge at 5,900 metres. On Nov. 8, they approached the north face of Gimmigela. “Due to a wet Monsun with high precipitation we found the 1,200m high face in perfect conditions,” Auer wrote on his blog.

“After two bivies, of which the second one on the final summit ridge seriously challenged us due to the small ledge been extremely exposed to the strong winds, we reached the summit at 7.30 a.m. on Nov. 10. A cold, windy but clear morning allowed us to see far into Sikkim’s great mountain range and to the unexplored east face of Kangchenjunga.” For photos, visit Auer’s blog here.

Back home after a great expedition to the Northface of Gimmigela East (7005m) in the Himalayas. More to come! #neverstopexploring @thenorthface @storytellerlabs Photo: @eliasholzknecht @oetztal.official @lasportivagram @team_edelrid @totemcams @smithoptics

A photo posted by Hansjörg Auer (@hansjoergauer) on Dec 12, 2016 at 5:04am PST