On October 12, the Piolets D’Or (“Golden Ice Axes”), also known as mountaineering’s biggest honor, released a longlist of 78 “significant, innovative ascents” completed in 2024. According to the press release, most of the accomplishments last year involved “new ground and technical climbing in lightweight style.”

This preliminary list was compiled by Lindsay Griffin, a senior editor of the American Alpine Journal and contributor to the Himalayan Database. Rodolphe Popier, senior contributor to the Himalayan Database, and Dougald MacDonald, Editor in Chief of the American Alpine Journal, also helped compile the list.

In the past two years, the final awards have been announced by the end of October. In the meantime, check out our main takeaways from the longlist—and see if you can guess who will win the 2025 Piolets d’Or.

Style over everything

The Piolets d’Or have honored some of the world’s best-known alpinists and climbers, including Ueli Steck, George Lowe, David Lama, Jeff Lowe, Steve House, Marko Prezelj, Tommy Caldwell, Alex Honnold, Hayden Kennedy, Thomas Huber, and Reinhold Messner.

Since 1992, the French Groupe de Haute Montagne (the “High Mountain Group”) has announced the best mountaineering-related achievements of the prior year. In 2009, following criticism of the one-winner policy, the Groupe de Haute Montagne began recognizing multiple winners.

The Piolets d’Or Charter establishes the intention to promote ethical style and the practice of “doing more with less.” The charter specifically calls out bottled oxygen, fixed ropes, performance-enhancing substances, and high-altitude porters as counterexamples to good style. These practices can all, of course, be found on the average Mount Everest expedition.

Several deceased climbers appear on this year’s longlist. American climber Michael Gardner is mentioned for his, Sam Hennessey, and Rob Smith’s partial new route, One Way Out (WI6 M6; 2,200m) on the Diamond Arête on the east face of Mt. Hunter (4,442m) in Alaska. The 32-year-old died in a fall on Jannu East in Nepal, five months after the Mt. Hunter expedition.

Another posthumous mention recognizes the first ascent of the east face of Langtang Lirung (7,227m) in Nepal, completed by Slovakian climber Ondrej Húserka and Czech climber Marek Holeček. Húserka died on the descent from basecamp after falling into a crevasse.

2024 Piolets d’Or recap

Last year’s winners included three teams. Americans Matt Cornell, Jackson Marvell, and Alan Rousseau received a Piolet d’Or for their first ascent of Round Trip Ticket (M7 AI5+ A0; 2,700m). This partial new route on the north face of Jannu (7,710m) in Nepal left both Marvell and Rousseau with frostbitten fingers.

Swiss climbers Hugo Béguin, Matthias Gribi, and Nathan Monard won for their first ascent of Tomorrow is Another Day (5c WI2 M6 A2) on the north face of Flat Top (6,100m) in India.

Finally, the Piolets d’Or recognized Japanese alpinists Kazuya Hiraide and Takero “Kenro” Nakajima, who also won in 2020, for their first ascent of The Secret Line (3,108m) on the north face of Tirich Mir (7,708m) in Pakistan. Both Hiraide and Nakajima survived their Tirich Mir expedition, but died shortly after in a fall on the west face of K2.

Italian climber Nives Meroi also won the 2024 Special Mention for Female Mountaineering for her second ascent of Kabru South (7,318m) on Kanchenjanga along with Peter Hámor, Bojan Janher, and her husband, Romano Benet. They ascended the west face of Kabru South via a new route, Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes (D+ 60°; 2,800m), in a four-day alpine style push.

Highlights of the 2025 longlist

This year’s longlist features 78 ascents or other accomplishments, most in teams of one to four climbers, completed in 2024 across 13 locations. By the numbers, 16 occurred in Nepal, 11 in the Alps, eight in Pakistan, eight in India, seven in Tibet, seven in China, six in Alaska, five in Chile, three in Peru, three in Greenland, two in Norway, and one each in Canada and Greece.

On adventures that made the longlist, alpinists fended off polar bears, ate whales, shared an inflatable portaledge, and celebrated a 50-year friendship. Check out Climbing’s in-depth coverage of several longlisted routes below:

• Yosemite-based trio Brandon Adams, Miles Fullman, and Sam Stuckey’s first ascent of Memento Mori (5.10 A5; 1,100m) on the west face of the south tower of Mount Asgard (2,015m) and Ragnarok (5.11 A5; 750m) on the west face of Frigga I (1,264m)
• Slovenian Aleš Česen and British Tom Livingstone’s first ascent of the west ridge of Gasherbrum III (7,958m) via Edge of Entropy (3,000m with possible M6) in the Pakistani Karakorum
• Japanese climbers Hidesuke Taneishi and Hiroki Yamamoto’s first ascent of Pholesobi (6,652m) via the North Face Direct (1,500m) in Nepal
• The first ascent of Odyssea Borealis (5.12b R; 1,200m) on the northwest face of Drøneren in Greenland by Matteo Della Bordella (Italy), Alex Gammeter (Switzerland), Silvian Schüpbach (Switzerland), and Symon Welfringer (France)
• British duo Mick Fowler and Victor Saunders’s first ascent of Yawash Sar (6,258m) via the west-northwest face (~800m) in the Pakistani Karakorum
• Spanish ultrarunner Kilian Jornet’s 19-day linkup of all 82 4,000m peaks in the Alps by foot and bike—an eco-pointing practice that he repeated when he ran up 72 American 14ers last month

Triple mentions for O’Driscoll and Obino

This year, two athletes are each mentioned three times in the longlist: Irish-Belgian alpinist Sean Villanueva O’Driscoll and French alpinist Baptiste Obino.

O’Driscoll, age 44, with two prior Piolet d’Or wins in 2011 and 2022, kicked off 2024 by making the first free ascent of Riders on the Storm (7c+; 1,300m) on the east face of the Torre Central in Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park alongside his teammates Nicolas Favresse, Siebe Vanhee, and photographer Drew Smith.

Shortly afterward, in February, O’Driscoll linked all four Torres del Paine, establishing Traversía Double M (5.11 A2; 2,200m) and marking the first time that all four summits had been connected. Finally, in August, he joined Sean Warren, Pete Whittaker, and Julia Cassou in Greenland to make the first ascent of Ryu-Shin (5.13d R A2+; 1,950m) on the northwest face of Mirror Wall.

The 25-year-old French alpinist Baptiste Obino stayed a bit closer to home, putting up new, challenging mixed lines around France. In early January 2024, Obino teamed up with Philippe Bruley and Amaury Fouillade to make the first ascent of Petit Pont (5.10 M5 A3; 1,000m) on the west face of the Petit Dru in Chamonix, France.

The next month, Obino traveled three hours away to Oisans, where he promptly established, alone, Pantouglage et Sabotage (5.11- M7 WI5+ A2; 750m) on the south face of Brèche Zsigmondy (3,925m) on La Meije, Écrins Massif.

At the end of the year, in December, Obino returned to Écrins Massif to put up another route—this time, with Victor Garcin and Nicolas Jean. Their first ascent of La Barretasse (5.10+ WI5 M5 A1; 900m) on the south-southeast face of the Barre des Écrins (4,101m) rounded out Obino’s third longlist mention for the 2024 Piolets d’Or.

Petek and Verdev honored for Himalayan first ascent

In addition to the longlist, the Piolets d’Or committee announced that the 2025 Special Mention for Female Mountaineering will go to Anja Petek and Patricija Verdev from Slovenia. In September 2024, Patek and Verdev made the first ascent of Lalung I (6,243m) in the Indian Himalaya via a new route, Here Comes the Sun (M6+ AI5+; 2,000m). The Piolet d’Or jury described their five-day push as “a pure alpine style ascent over technical ground” and praised the team’s commitment in the face of poor weather.

Aside from this distinctive mention, about 7% of the longlisted alpinists are women. Among those is Masha Gordon, who founded the Grit & Rock Expedition Award to fund first ascents by female climbers. The 2025 longlist includes the British alpinist’s first ascent of Mashallah Sar (6,043m) via the west face (WI4 M4; 1,000m) in Pakistan, alongside her teammates Oswaldo Freire, Joshua Jerrín, and Jacques Sturm.

In a notable display of women supporting women, three of the 2024 Grit & Rock Expedition award winners also appear on the longlist: Olga Lukashenko, Anastasia Kozlova, and Daria Seyupova. This all-female team made the first ascent of the north face and upper west ridge of Argo (4,750m) in Kyrgyzstan. Supported by $2,000 from Gordon’s organization, the Russian trio established a 29-pitch, 1,250-meter route, grading it 7b M5 A3. In December, the team received the All-Around Best Climb award at 2024 Russian Piolets D’Or, which is unaffiliated with the Piolets d’Or.

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