In reply to Jamie B:
> (In reply to Robert Durran)
>
> Don't know much about it, but Mark Twight cites Stremfelj and Prezelj on the South Ridge of Kangchenjunga in 1991.
This ascent won the inaugural Piolet d'or in 91:
"We began the ascent alone from BC. In the morning, the leader and the expedition doctor helped us carry some equipement to the base of the climb. In the first part we belayed only three pitches. I could comapre the difficulties with those of the Supercouloir on Mont Blanc du Tacul. A storm during the night dropped 15 centimeters of snow. The third day we left the south ridge due to fierce wind and avoided a part of the ridge by climbing up the southwest face. The last part of the route, in proximity to the Russiand Route, was very demanding. When ascending, the Russians used fixed ropes, the remains of which we found on the face. We climbed mostly unroped, exept for short passage where we symbolically belayed with a piece of their fixed rope.
Though we climbed in the area that had been climbed in before, we did not know it. Also, we did not expect such difficulties. Having surmounted them, we realized that the ascent route was too demanding to descent without rope. We had to descent a different route. We lost our rucksack, sleeping bags, and the cooker, as we head left them below the summit on our way up. Descending, we found old Polish ropes, but the second part of the descent led us across unexplored groud to the plateau. Here a friend, who happened to be in a camp that night on Kangch's normal route, helped us, giving us directions over the radio until the batteries finally died.
That we were members of a large Slovenian expedition, that from this point the route was marked, and that in an emergency help was available, were the only – and not unimported – deviations from the pure alpine style as embodied by Kurtyka and Schauer on GIV. I belive that we would have managed the ascent without all this, but the psychological relief it provided cannot be denied. On the other hand, the ascent stands out as exeptional due to the high attitude of the peak."