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Piolet d’Or Returns With 6 Nominations
The Piolet d’Or awards festival will take place on the French and Italian sides of Mont Blanc in Chamonix and Courmayeur, April 22-25 2009.
The six nominations for this years Piolet d’Or are:
- A route on the north face of Kalanka (6,931m) in India, by Fumitaka Ichimura, Yusuke Sato, and Kazuki Amano.
- Solo new route on the east face of Cerro Escudo in Chile by American Dave Turner.
- First ascent of the southeast face of Kamet (7,756m) in India, by Kazuya Hiraide and Kei Taniguchi.
- New route on the north face of Tengkampoche (6,500m) in Nepal, by Simon Anthamatten and Ueli Steck.
- New route on the south face of Nuptse (7,861m) in Nepal, by Stéphane Benoist and Patrice Glairon Rappaz.
- Enchainment of two hard routes on Denali (6,194m) in Alaska by Fumitaka Ichimura, Yusuke Sato, and Katsutaka Yokoyama.
The Piolet d’Or is traditionally given every year to recognise outstanding achievements/ascents in the mountains. This year will be the 17th time the golden ice axe has been awarded. It should however be the 18th. The 2008 Piolet d’Or was cancelled. This was due to the Groupe de Haute Montagne (GHM) withdrawing its support for the award amid problems with the way teams were short listed. The Piolet d’Or is traditionally a joint effort between the GHM and Montagnes Magazine. After the GHM withdrew its support in 2008 Montagnes Magazine tried to continue alone but problems quickly arose. One of the short-listed teams had been untruthful about its ascent and a previous winner wrote some articles that were widely circulated criticizing the ethos and system of the Piolet d'Or. After the awards charter was revised and the GHM returned to the table there was still too little time to organise everything that was necessary. It was decided the award would not take place.
This year however the Piolet d’Or is back with a new charter that emphasises lightweight, high commitment climbs and better reflects the spirit of alpinism. There is also a new 2 jury system and hopefully this and the new charter should cut through many of peoples previous objections to the award. The new jury system consists of one jury from the OHM and one international jury. The international jury this year consists of Jim Donini (USA), Peter Habeler (Austria), Dodo Kopold (Slovakia), Dario Rodriguez (Spain), jury president Doug Scott (UK), and Yong Im Duck (Korea).
For more information on the award and its recent history visit
Alpinist.com
Climbing.com
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