Having been described by Douglas Freshfield as "the most superb triumph of mountain architecture and the most beautiful snow mountain in the world".

I captured this view from the streets of Mussoorie...

Could be your first introduction into the himalayas.

This webcam popped up on my YT feed today after I watched it for Everest early in the season. A lot of climbers making their way up Ama Dablam right now! (2pm Pacific time, 3am Nepal time)

https://www.youtube.com/live/AD4-Z-ONsIc?is=2E-sx9d8lqL6PhIQ

Hi all does anyone have any experience with these waterproof over trousers from Simond(decathlon) as I’m looking at buying a pair for some Scottish winter mountaineering ,
Many thanks in advance

Does anyone here have any experience with different pommels for the blue ice axes?
I think blue ice’s own sliding pommel is a little bit too thick.

How similar are the ice axes shafts? Is it for example possible to use petzl or black diamond pommels on a blue ice ice-axe?

My Akila got the nice pommel and now the Falk is jealous and wants an upgrade.

Looking for recs for winter mountaineering pants. I'm having a bit of a dilemma because of my size, I'm 5ft tall/155cm. I wear a mens XS/US26 waist. I can't find anything that goes that small! I've tried women's but the cut doesn't work for my thighs and limits movement, obviously not ideal. I had a XS TNF Summit series gortex pants for the last few years and they worked well but the waterproofing has totally worn off and they have some holes. Bought a new pair and the sizing is apparently different now. They are too big. On my most recent trip they just constantly fell down and not just oh they are low, no they fell down to my knees!

I really like the decathlon ice pants but they don't even come close to being my size. The smallest size leaves me with at least 6 inches of extra waist fabric. And kids pants will fit in the waist but not the thighs and on top of that they tend to not have pockets for some strange reason.

Any other small framed people here that can recommend some pants?

I tried her back in February on vacation barely able to even get to the saddle with poor equipment. Now, living in northern Colorado, climbing more, better equipment…this was hardly even a workout. The summit was 30-40 mph wind, temps were 20° before accounting for wind. And I felt just fine!

Also, if you were one of the two teenagers from Fort Worth, Texas, who I let borrow my spare gloves and then I forgot to grab my gloves from you… Reach out to me. Those are nice gloves lol

Hello everyone, I got my first taste of mountaineering last summer, climbing Signalkuppe and Vincent Pyramid the same day. It was an amazing experience, though closer to a big and steep hike on smooth slopes which doesn't remove the physical and tiring aspect of high altitude mountaineering. I want to go at it next year, but do something a bit tougher, more technical, like a PD or PD+. Since I do not have much mountaineering experience, what would you recommend as good and a bit technical summits in the alps, with either much more physical slopes or mixed climbing?

I'm a total newbie to the sport and am wondering: How do you guys manage moving around when the skis won't do? you carry them on your shoulder? strap them somwhere somehow?

I had been planning to hike Mt Giluwe for more than a year, especially when it became apparent that of my three remaining Volcanic 7 Summits, Mt Sidley in Antarctica was not practical or affordable and Mt Elbrus was not something I wanted to attempt in the midst of the Ukraine war.

I was referred Max as a guide by a friend. When I contacted him, his response was sometimes delayed by days. However his communication was good and he seemed to understand my needs. We exchanged messages for almost a year and I finally got around to my PNG visit in August.

Max met me at Mt Hagen airport. A kind, decent and generous man, he is more of a bird, orchid and insect expert than a mountain guide but is quite knowledgeable and hardy in the outdoors.

I landed in Port Moresby at 6.00 AM (an ideal time to land since all the domestic flights depart from 7.00 to 11.00 AM). Our hike to Mt Giluwe took about two days from the moment I arrived at Mt Hagen. We took an hour to buy provisions at the Tininga supermarket in Mt Hagen, and then about three hours to the "low" camp (2,400m), about 70km from Mt Hagen town - essentially a privately owned plot of land at the entrance to the hiking trail. From there we started at 3.00 AM through a trail that consisted of three hours through some tropical woods and then three hours through a large post-glacial valley and stream (one of several that radiate outwards from Mt Giluwe), arriving at the foot of the mountain around 9.30 AM ("high" camp, about 3,700m). After a break of an hour and half we resumed at 11.00 AM reaching the top (4,300m) at about 2.30 AM. Commencing the descent at 3.00 AM we arrived at the high camp at 6-00 PM. I was exhausted and after a light snack and a small bit of rest we resumed at 8-00 PM. From here the trail back to the low camp was much harder in the darkness and we lost our way for an hour, finally backtracking through another, less clear trail to reach back into the woods and get back at about 2-30 AM.

My assessment is that Mt Giluwe consists of two challenges - the first is hiking through the U-shaped post-glacial valley which is easy during the day under dry conditions. Much of the valley floor is dried swamp and bog, even a little rain can turn that into large stretches of bog that coalesces with the adjoining stream to make identifying safe trails difficult. It had not rained for some weeks prior when I undertook my journey, yet there were still bits of bog that we had to be careful on the way back. The other challenge is the mountain itself, which like Mt Kenya is an eroded volcanic plug that while non-technical has some dusty, steep sections where the ground crumbles and some Grade II scrambling is required. I would rate is as marginally harder than the final 200m of Point Lenana on Mt Kenya. In hindsight three days is my recommendation. One at the low camp, one day to hike to the high camp and perhaps summit / return and the third day to hike back the valley.

The sights and scenery were very beautiful. The valley was filled with giant Dicksonia tree ferns that resembled palms from a distance. Morning frost on the grasslands was ubiquitious, there were splendid insects - spiders, beetles and small coloured cockroaches. Plenty of birds including the "Japanese machine gun bird" (E. meyeri). No large or small rodents, snakes or predators. The volcanic plug of Giluwe itself has a very small summit and an excellent ridge to get great views of the entire highlands region, looking as far as Mt Hagen and Mt Kabangama to the East. The trail was pristine and the lack of tourists and climbers meant it was largely unspoiled.

After the expedition I camped three nights at Max's beautiful home, about three hours away. The tricky part was arranging and timing the transport right - it costs an arm and leg to rent or hire a vehicle in PNG and drivers are notoriously unreliable. Shops and stores are non-existent outside the towns and it would be impossible to get anything except fresh fruit and a small selection of packaged snacks. Mobile network is non-existent a few hundred metres away from the highways. I did not fancy Mt Hagen town or Port Moresby (where I spent two nights) and would not recommend staying at those places any longer than necessary. ATMs were sparse and frequently out of cash. Money changing was also extremely difficult.

Overall an excellent visit to a remote bit of a remotely located country. Most of it was memorable chiefly due to Max's outstanding guidance, generosity and dry wit.

My planned three day trip to Bougainville (to visit the Yamamoto plane wreck) was cancelled due to a road landslide so I'll have to do that and also Mt Wilhelm some other time (happy to join forces if anyone is interested).

Some photographs

...particularly its Rupal face. Good pictures of that side are kind of rare. Here are two...

I am a land surveyor who does a back country work. I need to reach a few monuments that were set in 1923, but the slopes where the monuments lie have experienced slides over the years. The surface is a mix of shale, hardened bentonite, and stone. I need to traverse sideways across roughly a 60 to 70 percent slope for a half mile there and back. The main issue is that a 100 to 200 foot tall cliff lies a few hundred feet below were we will be traversing the steep slope. In anyone's experience, do micro spikes, nano spikes, or crampons help with hardened bentonite. I know that i will be able to kick step to dig in some, but i would like to have a little extra just incase. The picture i included roughly shows the area, but not the exact spot of the traverse

I appreciate any info anyone can provide. thanks!

= totally surreal landscape with essentially no equivalent outside of Tibet.

So for my first bag whay brands are good, how much I should spend, etc.

I would plan on using this bag for more than just mountaineering, as I also hike and rock climb. I would get decent use out of it, and I have around 200 dollar budget, but that has some room to be pushed as I’m in a good financial situation.

Saw this on the way to ice lake, is it named? I believe I was looking south when i took the photo

Hello everyone.

My gf came across an advert of the ThermoFlex Module sleeping system by Iceflame and it looks really good in paper. A sleeping system with 850FP of duck down, a rating for -10°C to -20°C (depending on how cold you sleep), weights less that 1500 grams and the price is less than 500 euros. It looks too good to be true and there are some minor inconsistencies in their site, regarding the comfort rating and the FP (900 is mentioned).

Has anyone tried this product or owns it or any of their other sleeping bags (such as FLAME SD1000 NXT)? Any thoughts on that or any alternatives at that price point?

Thanks in advance.

https://outdoorul.com/product/sleeping-bag-modular/

https://iceflamegear.com/product/ix-a-modular-sleeping-system/

Thought I’d share this beautiful night under the stars this last September in the Pyrenees with my friends,

Around 0c night temps and light wind made for a beautiful and comfortable stay at the top of the peak the sunrise and sunset were amazing

Obviously no trash or signs of us being there were left as it should be 🙏🏻

Hi! I'm looking to buy my first ice axe, but I'm struggling to decide on the ideal length and model, especially considering that I definitely plan on getting a second axe in the future to pair with it for steeper snow routes. I'm 188 cm tall (6'2"–6'3") and my objectives include classic Alpine 4000ers such as Gran Paradiso, Breithorn, Mont Blanc, ..etc and eventually more demanding peaks like Dufourspitze and Corno Nero, alongside frequent winter mountaineering in my local peaks being the Gran Sasso (Italian Apennines, very similar to the Tatras), which involve steep snow gullies and ZERO glacier walking. I'm currently considering a Simond Naja Light 54/60 cm or a Petzl Summit Evo 59 cm. I'm kinda unsure about the Naja Light's blade geometry and how suitable it is for self-arrest compared with a more traditional mountaineering axe. From what I'm reading in countless threads I understand that trekking poles are generally preferable for easy approaches, so I'm wondering whether a shorter axe would actually make more sense despite my height. Most importantly, since I eventually want a second axe for steeper snow, should I buy a 60 cm general-purpose axe now and pair it with a shorter axe later (like the petzl sum'tec, Blue Ice Akila), or start with a shorter axe and eventually get another one of similar length? I'm not planning on doing vertical ice climbing, just glacier mountaineering and progressively steeper snow routes. Thanks for your help!

Hello again r/Mountaineering, We asked for feedback on our app a few days ago and heard some pretty resounding concerns on how we try to maintain, to the best of our ability, a high level of safety. Because we feel we didn't effectively communicate the safety guidelines we obligate upon ourselves in the original post, this post will take a deeper dive into how we mitigate risks to the user. If you simply would like to know how you can help, skip to the bottom. 

We take safety and our gear recommendations very seriously. It’s a slow and costly process on our part that will hopefully increase in pace over time as we gain volunteer reviewers, but we see this process as an obligation. Users will know immediately whether recommendations for a specific mountain are verified or unverified. What does that mean? Well, to start, for each mountain that is mapped to certain pieces of gear with our fine-tuned algorithm, an expert mountaineer reviewer(who has preferably hiked the mountains he's reviewing) must check over the required gear to ensure that no pieces are unnecessary, or, more importantly, missing. Reviewers are also encouraged to write the logic behind WHY they thought a piece of gear was required/unnecessary for a planned route. This is the first component of the positive feedback loop to improve our systems safety over time. 

We also record the users’ experience level, which will subsequently dictate app logic and interactions. An example of this would be given a certain hike, an experienced user might see a certain piece of gear as recommended or optional to take, while an amateur would see this same piece of gear as required. Users themselves are able to provide feedback through the app as well, if they think a piece of gear is missing/unnecessary, or if we have published incorrect data on the mountain itself. They are also able to write public condition reports to contribute back to the community on their hike(comments are vetted for botting). This is the second component of the positive feedback loop to improve the system's safety over time.

A few additional notes: We pull live weather data(Open Meteo for now. We got some helpful feedback here that mentioned that as we scale, we should incorporate finer resolution weather models that are region specific. We're on it!) for the next several days and dynamically update gear recommendations to account for worsening conditions like a storm for the same route. Gear recommendations also change depending on season of climb. For now, we have two broad seasons, summer and winter, but we can subdivide further if there is voice for that. Obviously, we can never claim to guarantee the safety of whomever uses our app, nor do we discourage users of our app to cross check with other sources. Preparation, at the end of the day, always lies on the individual. 

This leads me to my ask: People will be using our app regardless of whether you think its "slop" or not. If you truly think that what we are doing is a safety concern, you can help us mitigate that risk! Our review panel currently has 9 expert reviewers as of today, led by a mountaineer who has recently summited Mont Blanc. The process of verification is slow and tedious, but that process will only increase in pace as we have more reviewers. We ask that you review information on mountains that you preferably have climbed, at your own pace, whenever you have time. For now, its a voluntary position, but as the app grows in scale, payment will be negotiated per mountain you review. If you think that there are fundamental issues with the verification process itself and want to offer constructive feedback, email us at: [support@eiger014.com](mailto:support@eiger014.com) (or just reply below). You can apply here: https://eiger014.com/review/apply Thanks!

Sherpas are praised highly among mountaineers and i obviously get that, but ive been wondering why they are never brought up when ppl discuss the radical shift in the climbing of Everest. Everyone's heard the stories of sherpas hauling up some pretty ludicrous comfort items for ppl who, without them, would have absolutely no chance of summiting. The congestion, the trash, everything that come along with all the traffic...Don't you think they bear some of the blame for all this? Its an opportunity to earn where there arent so many there, I understand that. However that mountain is supposed to be sacred to them, no? Maybe that conversation already happened but I've never seen it.

Hello, i have recently beginning some novice mountaineering in California and I’m looking for ideas of what to do next. I am willing to travel if it’s reasonable. Looking for any sort of adventure!

I’ve done
-Mt shasta via avalanche gulch
-a handful of class 3/4 scrambles
-some via Ferrata
- about 300 backpacking miles
- v4 Bouldering

Any ideas are really appreciated.
Thank you!