Piolets d'Or - Tirich Mir (7,708m)
The 2025 edition of the Piolets d’Or will be held for the second time in San Martino di Castrozza, in Trentino, from December 9th to 12th !

2025 Awarded ascents & Special mention

The International Jury has chosen to make three Piolets d'Or Awards (to be announced shortly) and one Special Mention. These are, in no particular order :

2025 Special Mention for Female Mountain…

This Special Mention is intended specifically to promote female alpinism. It recognises a remarkable all-female ascent from the previous year, or a female alpinist for several achievements in the previous year(s), or...

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2024 - Significant first ascents

This is a representative list of significant, innovative ascents from most mountain regions of the World. Whilst not every climb listed here would be considered eligible for a Piolet d'Or...

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2025 International Technical jury

Ethan Berman United States of America - age 34 A key figure in contemporary American alpine style, Ethan gained international recognition in 2021 when he was awarded a Piolet d'Or for a...

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Portraits & Tributes

Tribute to Hiraide and Nakajima

©Piotr Drożdż “For me, climbing is about carving out my own path, not following somebody else’s route.”Kazuya Hiraide The west face of K2 (8,611 m) is one of those legendary walls shrouded...

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Tribute to Sergey Nilov and Dmitry Golov…

This summer of 2024 will go down as one of the cruellest for the alpine community. We learned of the disappearance of the famous Japanese climbers Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro...

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Tribute to Archil Badriashvili

©Piotr Drożdż Georgian Archil Badriashvili died on 10 August 2024 at the age of 34. He was with some companions on Shkhelda (4,388 m), not far from Ushba, in the Caucasus...

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Tribute to François Labande

"Mountaineering is a way of life, a philosophy of life, even if I've always refused to consider that in the mountains I was on an island away from society."  The mountaineer Born...

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First ascent of The Secret Line on the north face of Tirich Mir (7,708m) in the Hindu Kush, Pakistan, from July 17-23. Traversed the mountain by descending the normal route to the northwest.

Tirich Mir is the highest mountain in the Hindu Kush and as such was relatively popular in the latter half of the 20th Century. However, lying in the far corners of northwest Pakistan, very close to the border with Afghanistan, it is accessed through Chitral and has seen almost insignificant activity since 9/11 due to the perceived heightened terrorist threat in that area. For some years, the Japanese alpinist Kazuya Hiraide had been interested in the north face and in 2019 a local agent told him that tourists were now being granted permission to re-enter the area. He applied for a permit but was refused. Then COVID-19 intervened, and it was not until the summer of 2023 that he and Kenro Nakajima reached the mountain.

Direct access to the vast north face of Tirich Mir is blocked by an icefall almost 1,000m high. A Czechoslovakian expedition, which in 1967 established the current normal route via the Upper Tirich Glacier and northwest ridge, first climbed though the icefall to see if there was a route from that side. It has not been climbed since and the intervening years have made it very dangerous. Nakajima commented that he had “never seen an icefall with so much widespread destruction”.

The Japanese pair needed a work-around. Using satellite photos, they plotted a route into the glacier basin below the north face that would follow the initial section of the normal route and then cross a high col on the long northwest ridge of Tirich Mir. After inspecting the col and caching gear, they acclimatized to 6,300m on the normal route, then set out from base camp at 4,600m on July 17. That night they camped at 5,400m and the following day crossed the 6,200m col. The far side was steep and exposed to rockfall in the warmer than normal temperatures that month. Taking a pragmatic approach, the pair fixed four ropes to aid a retreat. Eight rappels and some downclimbing took them to the western end of the basin. That same day they crossed the basin, unvisited since 1967, to the foot of the north face and camped at 5,500m.

Next day, complex route finding led to their third bivouac (at 6,150m), where they were able to use an ice hammock to construct a tent platform.

Difficult snow and ice led to a poor fourth bivouac at 6,750m. Above, lay the biggest uncertainty of the route - a large serac barrier. Fortunately, the following morning they were able to pass this on the left via hard ice and reach the 7,200m col between Tirich Mir and Tirich West I, where they made their fifth bivouac. They had now joined the normal route, which arrives at this point from the far side.

On the 23rd Hiraide and Nakajima left their camp and set off for the summit. There were many different lines on the broad upper ridge and the two climbed a couple of steep pitches, which they rappelled during the descent. Mostly, they simul-climbed, reaching the summit at around 9:30 a.m. and regaining their camp at noon. Feeling strong, they continued down the normal route, rappelling the crux couloir to the Upper Tirich Glacier and descending this to 6,300m. Next day they regained base camp.

This long, complex and highly committing adventure was considered by the jury to be a splendid traverse of a high-altitude mountain. Jury members also noted that almost no prior information was available to help with the ascent of the hidden north face. The use of 200m of fixed rope to access the climb (sadly not removed after the ascent) was considered a minor flaw compared to the overall scale of the undertaking and its successful completion.

What are the "Piolets d'Or" ?

A celebration of mountaineering

The purpose of the Piolets d'Or awards is to raise awareness about the year's greatest ascents across the world.  They aim to celebrate the taste for adventure, the bravery and sense of exploration that lie behind the art of climbing in the world's great mountain ranges. The Piolets d'Or draw their inspiration from mountaineering's rich history.  They are a celebration of a sense of partnership and solidarity, of shared experiences, and reward individual or collective achievement.

The Spirit of Modern Alpinism

More than just the recognition of a performance, the Piolets d'Or celebrates passion, spirit and values. The spirit of the Piolets d’Or draws its inspiration from the history of alpinism and the authenticity of true team spirit. The style should take precedence over the conquest of an objective.  Success is no longer about getting to the summit at all costs, employing all possible financial and technical means, (oxygen, fixed ropes, doping products, etc) or large-scale human resources (high-altitude porters or sherpas). The Piolets d’Or event encourages imagination in searching for innovative routes using a maximum of economy of means, making use of experience and respecting man and nature. The Piolets d’Or is attached to making climbing a shared and valued richness all over the world, capable of attracting the best of human ambitions whilst encompassing moral values and edifying behaviour. The Piolets d'Or event is therefore a celebration of an ethical alpinism, rich in emotion.

 

 

Les Piolets d'Or

Piolets d’Or Lifetime Achievement Award

In 2009, the first Lifetime Achievement Piolet d’Or was awarded to Walter Bonatti.  His style of mountaineering perfectly reflected the spirit of thePiolets d’Or.  He became a sort of godfather to those who would receive this award after him. In honour of the man and his spirit, it has been renamed the “Piolet d’Or Lifetime Achievement, Walter Bonatti Award”.

The Career Piolets d'Or was created to reward a career where the spirit has inspired the following generations, in the sense of criteria set down by the convention.
Recipients of the Piolet d'Or Career :
2009 : Walter BONATTI
2010 : Reinhold MESSNER
2011 : Doug SCOTT
2012 : Robert PARAGOT
2013 : Kurt DIEMBERGER
2014 : John ROSKELLEY
2015 : Chris BONINGTON
2016 : Wojciech KURTYKA
2017 : Jeff LOWE
2018 : Andrej ŠTREMFELJ
2019 : Krzysztof WIELICKI
2020 : Catherine DESTIVELLE
2021 : Yasushi YAMANOI
2022 : Silvo KARO
2023 : George LOWE
2024 : Jordi COROMINAS

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