HIMALAYA Alpine Style

Here is a celebration of the pleasures and possibilities of the alpine-style
approach in climbing the 6000-, 7000- and 8000-metre peaks of the Himalaya and
the Karakoram. Himalaya Alpine-Style highlights some of the world’s finest
climbs, a mixture of modern test pieces and older classic routes, varying in
height, length and difficulty, on both rock and ice. Some, like the Catalan
route on the South Face of Annapurna and the Golden Pillar of Spantik, are
unrepeated and represent the highest levels of commitment and difficulty.
Others, like the West Face of Broad Peak, offer a popular, reasonably safe
route to an 8000-metre summit, given reasonable weather. Equally seminal in
mountaineering history are Nanda Devi’s South Ridge, first climbed in 1936,
and the 1986 Troillet/Loretan line up the North Face of Everest. For many
mountaineers though, the greatest satisfaction is to be found on lower, more
intimate summits like Kwangde, Ama Dablam, Jannu or Panch Chuli or Dharamsura
– the White Sail of the Kulu region of India. Also comparatively low, but,
technically more demanding, are the famous granite spires of Shivling and
Changabang and the incomparable Trango Tower, represented here by Eternal
Flame, perhaps the hardest rock climb in the Himalaya.

Each carefully chosen route is a superb objective in its own right. Each has
been climbed in alpine-style, or at least by a small team using only the
minimum of fixed rope. Collectively they illustrate the enormous variety of
climbing and potential for small self-sufficient groups in the world’s
greatest range of mountains.