Mick Fowler and Paul Ramsden have been awarded Piolets d'Or for their first ascent of Gave Ding in far west Nepal. The announcement means that, as a team, Fowler and Ramsden have won the most prestigious award in mountaineering for an unprecedented third time. They reached the summit of 6,571m Gave Ding in October 2015, in an expedition that was sponsored by Berghaus.
Mick is definitely one of the most inspirational climbers out there, quietly getting on with ridiculously adventurous climbs. Paul deserves equal acclaim.
I do like his comment "the route gave safe, hard climbing". Not far below the photo of him climbing decidedly steep hard mixed ground with a lot of slack rope after a traverse at 6000m. All rather relative if you ask me!
In reply to UKC/UKH Gear:
Congratulations, I read the piece in "Vertical" about the climb and it sounded fantastic. Truly exploratory climbing of the Tilman school! As smeone else has already said, the two of you are proper, inspirational climbers.
> I do like his comment "the route gave safe, hard climbing". Not far below the photo of him climbing decidedly steep hard mixed ground with a lot of slack rope after a traverse at 6000m. All rather relative if you ask me!
Remember this is a comment from the first ascensionist of Breakaway XS 5b on Henna Cliff, so his use of the word safe might be slightly optimistic! Henna
The lines these two climb are incredible. I remember seeing their route on Siguniang in 2003 in Climber magazine, I couldn't drag my eyes away from it. Still have a copy of it because of that article. I think Marko Prezelj is the only other 3 time recipient, pretty good company. Well deserved and a constant inspiration!
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