An all-star team of climbers, that includes Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk, successfully sumitted the North West Face of the Shark's Fin route on Meru Peak in India last week. The mountain, which stands 6660 meters (21,850 ft) in height, is located in the Garhwal Himalaya, and had never been climbed along this route before.The Shark's Fin is well known in mountaineering circles for its diverse challenges. It begins with a typical Himalayan snow and ice route, but then turns into a tough vertical wall of rock and ice, before giving way to an extremely tough overhanging headwall that would be challenging at any altitude. In short, it is an intense mix of technical rock climbing and high altitude, alpine style, mountaineering.
The team of Anker, Chin, and Ozturk first attempted this route back in 2008, but were forced to turn back 100 meters below the summit. This time, things went a bit better, as they even managed to top out a week ahead of schedule. That didn't meant the climb was easy, as in addition to the technical difficulties of the climb, they experienced some rather high winds and snow as well.
You can read the expedition dispatches at the Never Stop Exploring blog, which is the official blog of The North Face, the sponsors of the expedition. Of course, there are also some fantastic pictures from Chin as well.
This is an amazing job out of a great team of climbers on a really tough route.
