First Full Ski Descent of World’s 9th Highest Peak

One of the last of the world’s 14 8,000m peaks that hadn’t previously been skied top to bottom,  now has been. 8,126m tall Nanga Parbat has been skied from its summit down to base camp at 4,600m, a vertical descent of over 3,500m.

French duo Tiphaine du Perier and Boris Langenstein set two world firsts: the first ski descent from Nanga Parbat's summit and the first descent on skis from the challenging Rupal face.

The French pair were joined by famous German alpinist David Johannes Goettler, the trio ascending via the historic Schell route, pioneered by Austrian climber Hanns Schell in 1976.

Rather than skiing, Goettler, who had made four previous unsuccessful attempts to summit  Nanga Parbat, made a dramatic descent by paraglider, taking off from an altitude of 7,500m after descending on foot from the summit, arriving back at base camp 30 minutes later.

The team acclimatized in Nepal in late May, before flying to Pakistan and went right to Nanga Parbat where they prepared for a fast ascent, taking three days to summit from departing Base Camp on June 21, reporting perfect conditions.

The ski descent, however, had major challenges, including a section with a lot of bare rocks in the snow and one part requiring a 30m rappel.

Both Duperier and Langenstein had skied Nanga Parbat on a separate, more commonly used Kinshofer route back in 2019 but they had not skied from the very top on that occasion.

Whilst skiing them remains exceptionally challenging and highly dangerous, most of the world’s 14 8,000m+ peaks have now been skied in full over the past decade, thanks in large part to improved equipment and changes in technique to allow, lighter, faster expeditions.