The 2011 Piolets d'Or, the 19th in the series is taking place in Chamonix and Courmayeur from the 13th-16th April.

Fifty-three significant climbs (though in some cases multiple ascents) taking place in 20 different countries throughout 2010, from Antarctica to Greenland and from Alaska to the great summits of the Himalaya and Karakoram, have been selected by a small steering committee.

These ascents, more or less, uphold the general spirit of the Piolets d'Or, as outlined in its charter.

From these 53 a six-member jury will shortly be announcing the nominations that will be recognized at this year's ceremony. The jury has almost finished its deliberations and the final list is most likely to be around six.

During the ceremony the jury will choose those that it feels should particularly be commended with a Piolet d'Or.

The 'long list' includes the British ascents: Vasuki Parbat (India: Malcolm Bass and Paul Figg); Khanjaylak II (aka Sulamar, China: Mick Fowler and Paul Ramsden); Welshmen's Peak (Baffin Island: Stuart McAleese, Mark Thomas and Twid Turner); Edgar (China: Bruce Normand with American Kyle Dempster), and Huaguruncho (Peru: Tony Barton and Tom Chamberlain)

This year's jury president is the well known Australian (but US resident) Greg Child. He'll be ably assisted in his difficult role by the young Swiss alpinist Simon Anthamatten, French mountaineer Yannick Graziani, Italian mountaineer Enrico Rosso, Japanese climber and magazine editor Hiroshi Hagiwara, and mountaineer and film producer Micki Pause.

A third award for Lifetime Achievement will also be presented at the event. The first, in 2009, went to the great Italian alpinist Walter Bonatti. The second, a year later, also went to an Italian, this time Reinhold Messner.

This year, recognizing his outstanding contribution to alpinism and mountaineering, the Lifetime Achievement Award is deservedly going to Doug Scott.

See programme here

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