Japanese Kazuya Hiraide and Kei Taniguchi, who received a Piolet d'Or for their 2008 first ascent of 7,756m Kamet's southeast face, have made the first south to north traverse of West Tibet's 7,694m Gurla Mandhata.
Locally known as Naimona'nyi, this broad, isolated and rarely-climbed summit is arguably the fourth highest entirely within China and Tibet. It rises from the Tibetan Plateau south of holy Mt Kailash.
The original goal of the two Japanese had been the impressive southeast face, but their first problem was finding a route to the south side of the mountain, previously unvisited by any climbers.
After general reconnaissance, acclimatization and time spent studying the face, they realized there was only one safe route to the summit, and set off for an alpine style attempt.
Climbing all day under constant threat from falling debris, they stopped for the night below one of the most conspicuous features on the face, a large serac at ca 6,300m. Deciding next morning that the level of risk was too high, they ran away to base camp.
After a rest and rethink, Hiraide and Taniguchi opted for the unclimbed southwest ridge, and completed it with four bivouacs, crossing Gurla's previously unclimbed south summit Naofeng Peak (7,422m).
They descended the original route along the northwest slopes, which although considered technically straightforward, proved difficult on-sight, with complex route finding through a large labyrinth of seracs, where several rappels were necessary.
Their ascent produced the third route on the mountain and probably the seventh overall ascent.
Gurla Mandhata played an important role in the evolution of mountaineering, as it was here, in 1905, that the great Scottish explorer, Tom Longstaff, made an extremely unconventional - for the era - lightweight attempt on a high-altitude summit.
With five porters to help carry tents, Longstaff and his two guides, Alexis and Henri Brocherel, wandered up the lower reaches of the west ridge and camped at ca 5,800m. From the three made an alpine style attempt on the summit, carrying no bivouac gear.
After two nights out in the open, and miraculously surviving an avalanche of nearly 1,000m, they reached over 7,000m before Longstaff was so cold he found himself incapable of taking another step.
Henri Brocherel was in excellent shape and in all likelihood could have continued to the summit alone, but the three retreated. This was certainly not the end of their ordeal: the men then had to endure several taxing days "living off the land", before finally meeting up with the rest of the expedition.
The experience was to prove crucial to Longstaff's future goals: two years later he and the Brocherels, in a continuous push from 5,300m, made the historic ascent of 7,120m Trisul, the first mountain above 7,000m ever summited.
In 1985 a large Sino-Japanese expedition made the first ascent of Gurla Mandhata by the gentle northwest slope. Apart from an alpine-style ascent of the north ridge/north-northwest face by three Japanese in 2000, and the 2011 ascent of the southwest ridge, the northwest slope is the only route to have been followed on all subsequent successful ascents.
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