Expeditions Unlimited blog

At an altitude of 6,500 meters in the winter of 1954, the six young French climbers on the south face of Aconcagua were playing for their lives. They could not survive another bivouac. In the indifference typical of those years when news still travelled slowly, a drama was unfolding up there. The roof of the Americas attracts many pretenders every year. And with good reason: it is one of the most accessible summits in the Seven Summits challenge.

Considered the most accessible 7000 in the world, sometimes flippantly and therefore wrongly, the success rate is barely 50%. An expedition guided by Serge Bazin.

In this episode, we take a look back at the epic story of the conquest of Manaslu, the eighth highest peak on the planet at 8,163 metres, right up to its victorious ascent by the Japanese on 15 May 1956. 9 May 1956, 12.30 pm: the Nepalese sirdar Gyalzen Norbu (37) and the Japanese himalayist Toshio Imanishi (41) stand on the narrow rocky summit pyramid of Manaslu (8,156 meters). For the first time, the summit of Manaslu has been climbed by man.

It was our passion for exploration and adventure in all its forms that prompted us to found Secret Planet, and later its extreme expedition business, Expeditions Unlimited. Long before we became the French leader in high-attitude and polar expeditions, we were already passionate about ocean crossings on legendary yachts, with exceptional skippers, in exploratory mode or ocean racing.

At 5.15pm on Tuesday 31 May 2022, a group of four, including Éric Bonnem, founder of Secret Planet and Expeditions Unlimited, reached the summit of Mount Denali at 6,190 meters. A wild and beautiful expedition, which we'll be reporting on shortly, and which gave us the urge to delve back into the history of the first mountaineers to have trodden this superb mountain almost 110 years earlier, in far more heroic conditions! Mount McKinley... Denali.

Eric Shipton is one of the fathers of himalayism, or better still, of alpine climbing in the Himalayas. With his companion Bill Tilman, he took part in most of the reconnaissance trips to the world's highest peaks in the 1930s and sometimes opened routes that were used to achieve first ascents, such as Everest or Nanda Devi.

Ever since man first set out to conquer the mountains in the mid-19th century, he has continued to push back the limits of what is considered possible. Of the fourteen peaks over 8,000 meters high on our planet, all are in the Himalayas, between Nepal, Pakistan and China. We take a look at the history of the world's highest mountains.

Accompanied by guide Manu Poudelet, we set off on a pulka-ski crossing from Kangerlussuaq to Sissimiut, some 160 km along the Arctic Circle Trail.

Guided by Brecht De Meulenaere, we set off with our crampons and pulkas for a magical expedition on Lake Baikal, in the heart of Siberia.