New Alpine Routes on Nuptse and Rungofarka

This fall has seen a number of attempts and summits in the Himalayas, two being new routes.

For one week in October, from the 14th to the 21st, Benjamin Guigonnet, Frederic Degoulet and Helias Millerioux climbed a new route up the south face of Nuptse. Their new route is over two kilometres long.

17 octobre 2017, 6800m Living camp 3. Si près, si loin. So close, so far. #truestorytruepeople #dolomite1897 #blueicequest #mokenvision #noshortcuts #icerock #garmin #outdoorresearch #NomadicTribesofSea #khumbu #namche #himalaya #everest #lhotse #nuptse #nepal #chukkung #alpinism #ice

A post shared by helias millerioux (@helias_millerioux) on Nov 1, 2017 at 4:17am PDT

Canadians Ian Welsted and Jason Kruk attempted a new route up the face in 2014. And Jim Elzinga and Peter Arbic made an alpine-style attempt in 1989.

In 2014, Guigonnet, Millerioux and Degoulet made the first ascent, with climber Robin Revest, of Looking for the Void M7 WI6R up the west face of Siula Chico in Peru.

In the Indian Himalaya, Alan Rousseau and Tino Villanueva spent five days making the likely first ascent of Rungofarka (6,495m).

They climbed the north ridge up a grade-six WI4+ M6 for 1,200 metres. The two climbers shared their story on Instagram over a number of posts.

One read: “The second day on route we were on the North Ridge proper and the terrain looked really steep above. To get started, there was a vertical step in the first 700ft of the ridge which we weren’t sure was going to provide a reasonable passage or decent rock.

“The climbing was difficult and sustained, and progress was slow, but we were moving upward. In the afternoon clouds rolled through and brought with them snow showers. We climbed only around 8 or 9 pitches before it was time to find a place to spend the night.” Visit Rousseau here and Villanueva below for more of their story.

@rousseaualan and I are sharing stories and photos this week from our climb of 6495m Rungofarka in the Zanskar Range of the Indian Himalaya. · Our primary line of ascent involved tackling a direct line up the North Face. With a short weather window appearing halfway through the expedition we decided to go for it. · We moved up 5000ft (to nearly 18000ft) from our basecamp to a bivy in the bergschrund below the face, enduring some pretty brutal trailbreaking along the way. The next morning started cloudy and it snowed lightly much of the day. · Still, we pressed on, climbing continually steeper and steeper terrain. A long ramp led into a series of ice runnels, much more sustained than we had imagined. As the day grew late, we had climbed up to 6000m, nearly half of the 1000m vertical face. However, the sustained nature of the climbing did not lend itself to bivy options. · Exhausted, calves and forearms blown, sky darkening, and no ledge options in sight, we made the decision to start rappelling into the night. · PC ?: @rousseaualan

A post shared by Tino Villanueva (@tinovillanueva) on Oct 10, 2017 at 1:22pm PDT