1 / 6

Ulvetanna (Antarctica): first integral ascent of South Ridge

Britain's Andy Kirkpatrick and the Norwegians Kjersti Eide, Espen Fadnes, Aleksander Gamme, Ingeborg Jakobsen and Jonas Langseth have successfully made the first complete ascent of the South ridge of Ulvetanna (2931m) in Antarctica.

Planetmountain

February 2014

Traduci in

1 / 6

Andy Kirkpatrick, Kjersti Eide, Espen Fadnes, Aleksander Gamme, Ingeborg Jakobsen and Jonas Langseth on the summit of Ulvetanna on 03/02/2014 after having made the first ascent of the South Ridge.

archive Ulvetanna South Ridge expedition

A British - Norwegian team has successfully completed a new route up the spectacular Ulvetanna peak in Antarctica's Dronning Maud Land. Comprised of Britain's Andy Kirkpatrick and the Norwegians Kjersti Eide, Espen Fadnes, Aleksander Gamme, Ingeborg Jakobsen and Jonas Langseth the team spent 12 days climbing the "wolf's tooth" via the South Ridge, a route previously attempted Swiss, French and Norwegian teams.

At present it is unclear how much new ground was covered and given the length of the climb, ropes were fixed. The summit push had to be anticipated due to a predicted storm and, setting off at 21:30 on 2 February, the summit was reached at 2:30am on 3 February by the entire team. Even if conditions were pefect - cold, clear and windstill - the expedition members quickly descended to safety before the storm hit. At present the alpinists are returning home and more details are expected to follow shortly.

This is likely to be only the fifth climb up Ulvetanna: after the first ascent in 1994 by Norway's Robert Caspersen, Sjur Nesheim and Ivar Tollefsen via the North West Face, the summit was reached in 2006 (North Face; Robert Caspersen, Trond Hilde, Stein-Ivar Gravdal, Ivar Tollefsen), in 2009 (West Ridge; Alexander Huber, Thomas Huber, Stephan Siegrist, Max Riechl) and 2013 (North East Ridge; Leo Houlding, Sean Leary, Alastair Lee, Jason Pickles, Chris Rabone, David Reeves).