Deep Into the Possible

Far into Nepal’s Ghunsa Valley, a daunting wall of rock and ice, concave and north-facing, rises skyward for nine thousand vertical feet. In autumn, sunlight touches its upper reaches for only five minutes a day. The north face of 7,710-meter Mount Jannu had long been considered impossible to climb. In 2004, a team of ten Russian climbers divided into three rotating groups laid siege to the wall. For fifty-two days, they fixed ropes and camps, ascending and descending in four- to five-day shifts, until reaching the summit. They abandoned their equipment on the wall.

The climb received criticism for its regressive style, which was countered by the audacity of the challenge and the severe technical difficulties at high altitude, and the “Russian Route” received the prestigious Piolet d’Or award for accomplishment in alpinism. Three years later, another Russian team climbed Jannu’s neighboring West Pillar, and one of the climbers reflected on the north face: “Its immensity was so mesmerizing it made me dizzy. Such a