Mathéo Jacquemoud & Benjamin Védrines Complete Sub-24 Hour Crossing of the Mont Blanc Massif

Alpine Mag report that between the 17 and 18 May 2022, French ski-mountaineer Mathéo Jacquemoud and alpinist Benjamin Védrines completed a traverse of the Mont Blanc Massif from Les Contamines-Montjoie to the Col Supérieur du Tour.

This is the first time that such a traverse has been completed in a single, continuous push and the pair covered 70km, with 7,300m of height gain, in a little over 20 hours.

The pair had practiced sections of the route in advance as the below post from Benjamin's Facebook Page shows:

Boardman and Tasker's 1976 West Wall Route Receives First Repeat

The New Zealand Alpine Team have announced that after 46 years, a team of climbers has successfully repeated Pete Boardman and Joe Tasker's 1976 route on the West Wall of Changabang (6,880m). 

Further details have not been released at time of publication, but the summit party has been confirmed as Matthew Scholes, Kim Ladiges & Daniel Joll.

Richardson and Robson make First Ascent of Ulvetanna North Ridge on Senja

Alpine Club member Simon Richardson and Mark Robson have made the first ascent of the north ridge of Ulvetanna on the Norwegian island of Senja. In a Facebook post, Simon reports that this may only be the second ascent of the mountain, a satellite peak of Stormoa, to date. 

You can read a more detailed report of Mark and Simon's trip on Planet Mountain.

Yamada & Tani Summit Kangchung Nup from North Side

On 24 April Japanese climbers Toshiyuki Yamada and Takeshi Tani successfully summitted Kangchung Nup (6,089m) via a new route on the mountain's North-West face. This marks not only the first ascent of the face, but also the first time that the mountain has been climbed from its northern side.

The new line follows a similar route to that of a 2014 Czech expedition that was forced to retreat from ~5,900m due to dangerous conditions. The direct line on the north face was also attempted unsuccessfully in 2019 by Paul Ramsden and Jim Hall.