Piolets d’Or winners receive the awards April 10, 2010 in Chamonix, France. [Photo] Pascal Tournaire
On Saturday, a jury awarded two teams the Piolet d’Or, the world’s most prominent prize for alpinism. Kazaks Denis Urubko and Boris Dedechko won a golden ice ax for Kazakh Dedechko-Urubko (M6 6b A2/3, 2600m) on the southeast face of Cho Oyu (8201m) in Nepal, and Americans Jed Brown and Kyle Dempster, and Scotsman Bruce Normand won a golden ice ax for The Great White Jade Heist (M6 WI5 5.7 R, 2650m), a north-facing buttress along the west ridge of Xuelian Feng (6422m) in China.
Five teams were in contention for this year’s Piolets d’Or, designed “to recognize a pure form of alpinism that celebrates innovation, teamwork and solidarity and that places a high value on the beauty of an individual or collective action,” a recent release said.
More information on this year’s shortlist as well as information about the history of the awards is available in the March 2, 2010 NewsWire. Stay tuned to Alpinist NewsWire for more details from this year’s Piolets d’Or event.