Mountaineering

Climbing the Seven Summits. Seven summits for seven ‘continents’. Climbing Mount Vinson, Antarctica's highest peak, has long been a matter of finance. Here's a look back at the development of mountaineering on the icy continent and the history of the Seven Summits, a speciality of Expeditions Unlimited.

On May 29, 2023, the mountaineering community will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the first ascent of Everest by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary. Our friend Jean-Michel Asselin, journalist and writer, takes us back to 1953, to relive this feat that forever marked the history of Himalayan climbing.

Everything has been said about Everest. Or so you thought. That was without reckoning on Jean-Michel Asselin and his ever-lively pen. Who better than the former distinguished columnist of Alpinisme et Randonnée, editor-in-chief of Montagnes Magazine and then of Vertical, could have produced this new history of the highest mountain in the world.

9 May 1956, 12:30 p.m.: the Nepalese sirdar Gyalzen Norbu (37) and the Japanese Himalayan climber Toshio Imanishi (41) stand atop the narrow rocky summit pyramid of Manaslu (8156 m). Our colleague and friend Didier Mille, a high-mountain guide, looks back on this extraordinary epic.

For 20 years, Philippe Goitschel and Breffni Bolze have been cleaning up iconic sites in extreme environments around the world. Last July, in collaboration with Expeditions Unlimited, they tackled a particularly ambitious project: the clean-up of Mustagh Ata (7,546 m), China's iconic mountain.

The 1938 expedition was the last to be led by the British on the north face of Everest. The conquest of the poles eluded them. The French, their long-standing adversaries, took the first 8,000 m ascent from them. That's all they need. Now they have to climb Everest.

At 5,642 meters, Mount Elbrus is the roof of Europe, and not our beloved Mont Blanc, as many people think. To complete the Seven Summits challenge, climbing Elbrus is a must. In this article, we look back at the origins of the ascent to the highest peak in the Caucasus and Europe.

In the 60s, the USSR was at the height of its glory. But borders were hermetic, and Soviet mountaineers expressed their (immense) talent on the many peaks that stretched from one end of the former Empire of the Tsars to the other. The Himalayas are off-limits to them. On October 12 1967, the Bureau of the Central Council of Sports Societies and Organizations of the USSR decided to award a prize to those who succeeded in climbing the five highest Soviet summits.

Last May, an Expeditions Unlimited group reached the summit of Mount Denali at 6190 metres, the highest summit in North America and, as such, one of the Seven Summits — often considered the most difficult, just after Everest.