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Piolet d’or Asia 2007, the candidates

The 4 nominations for the second edition of the Piolet d’or Asia, due to take place in Seol on November 2, have been made public.

PlanetMountain

October 2007

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Mt. Everest from the Lhotse ridge

arch. Osamu Tanabe

Four teams are in the running for the second edition of the "Asian Piolet d'Or" which awards the best mountaineering achievement in the winter 2006 - autumn 2007 season. The teams in the running (one Japanese, one Kazakh and two Korean) have all been nominated for their Himalayan ascents, three on +8000m peaks (K2, Lhotse Shar e Lhotse) and one on the relatively unknown +6000m Garmush peak.

The Korean team comprised of Sim Kwang Sik, Kang Yongsun and Joo MinSu reached the summit of he Mount Garmush (6244m) in Pakistan's HinduKush on 7 July 2007 via the west face. The other Korean team in the running is an 8 man expedition which, on 31 May, forged the way for Um Hong Gil, Sung Ho Byun, Sang Hyeon Mo and the Nepalese Sherpa Pasng Namgyal to reach the summit of Lhotse Shar.

Osamu Tanabe led a Japanese expedition which on 27 Dicember 2006 made the first integral winter ascent of the south Face of Lhotse. Tanabe, Takahiro Yamaguchi and Sherpa Pemba Chorten reached an altitude of 8475m (40 short of the summit proper).

The fourth team, once again, are Denis Urubko and Serguey Samoilov from Kazakhstan who, after having won last year's Piolet d’Or Asia for their ascent on Manaslu, are now in with a chance to double their takings for the recent (2 October) ascent of K2 from the north via the Japanese route.

Garmush (6244m)
Hindukush, Pakistan
West FAce
Sim Kwang_Sik, Kwang Yong_Sun, Joo Min-Su – South Korea