“I Am a Different Person”: Inside the First Ascent of an Unclimbed Himalayan Giant

For the world’s best alpinists, satisfaction in the mountains is often ephemeral. Every success, every new route or summit or record, is a tasty morsel, but one that only temporarily slakes an insatiable hunger. One must forever go bigger, harder, faster, longer.

It’s unsurprising. Few climbers become the best by being content with one expedition, one mountain, one route. Few become the best at anything that way. To borrow a phrase from my college-age brother: You gotta have that dog in you.

For most of his career, French alpinist Benjamin Védrines has been no exception. For a decade, the 33-year-old mountain guide has chased long routes on big mountains around the globe, with a particular eye for dazzling linkups, speed records, and paraglider descents. I first connected with him in 2021, after he and Charles Dubouloz made the first ascent of the North Face of Chamlang (24,012ft). The next year, he blitzed Broad Peak (8,051m/26,414ft) in seven hours and 28 minutes—a time so fast that at first, some called it a hoax. In 2024, he set the speed record on K2, climbing the 8,611-meter (28,251-foot) summit in just shy of 11 hours.

But after Védrines and partner Nicolas Jean, 27, made the first ascent of Jannu East (24,501ft) on October 15, he told me something might have changed.

“When you are an alpinist, you are dreaming constantly,” he said over the phone yesterday. “You have these goals, these routes you are pursuing constantly. You are always chasing. But now, I feel filled. My ego…” He paused. “I feel satisfied. I am a different person than I was one week ago.”

Returning to the site of tragedy

Jannu East is the eastern prominence of an eponymous peak (25,295ft), also known as Kumbhakarna, that was the site of a much lauded Piolet d’Or-winning effort in 2023. Americans Matt Cornell, Jackson Marvell, and Alan Rousseau made the first alpine-style ascent (Round Trip Ticket [AI5+ M7, 8,850ft]) of the peak’s imposing North Face, one of the tallest and most sustained walls in the Himalaya. Roughly a dozen parties have managed to climb Jannu by various routes, but the summit of Jannu East, just a mile away and 794 feet lower, remained untrammeled.

For Védrines, Jannu East has been an enduring dream. Though his first attempt was just last year, he first eyed the peak some eight years ago, when he made the second ascent of nearby Pandra (21,893ft) via a new route with Mathieu Détrie and Pierre Labbre. Védrines recalled that Labbre, in particular, was instantly taken by Jannu East’s sprawling North Face. “We saw the face from the top, it was a beautiful day, no wind,” he recalled. “It was all just right there in front of us. It was crazy. So impressive. I was shocked to see a face like this at the time, but I was too young to think about attempting it.” Two years later, Labbre and partner Max Bonniot were killed on the Aiguille du Plan. Ever since, Védrines has held Jannu East in his mind, hoping to one day realize his late friend’s vision.

In the years since, as his alpine career has grown, Védrines has spent hours upon hours poring over the globe on Google Earth, trying to find new objectives. None have matched Jannu East. “It’s rare, anywhere in the world, to have a face this long, this steep, at this altitude, and without many objective risks, like seracs,” he said. “For those of us who are in love with alpine style, it’s quite special to find something like this.”

By all accounts, Védrines and Jean’s effort is a grand success: an alpine-style summit, moving fast, light, and without supplemental oxygen, on one of the last great unclimbed peaks in the Himalaya. But it’s also bittersweet.

In 2024, during Védrines, Jean, and third team member Léo Billon’s first attempt on the mountain, another team—Michael Gardner and Sam Hennessey—chipped away at a harder and more direct route up the North Face. It was Gardner and Hennessey’s fourth trip to Jannu East, and their third attempt on the North Face.

The two teams became close, sharing a base camp and swapping weather forecasts and acclimatization tips. Védrines and his companions, the newcomers, gave Gardner and Hennessey priority on their route, starting a day later. Their own attempt was aborted at 22,000 feet, after Billon began struggling with altitude sickness.

On their way down, they saw Hennessey, descending alone. “It was strange,” Védrines recalled. “We saw a figure coming from far away and at first thought, ‘Okay, Sam and Mike must be going down, too.’ But it was only one person.” Soon, they learned that Gardner had fallen from high on the face.

For hours, Védrines, Jean, and Billon helped Hennessey scour the glacier for Gardner’s body. “It was exhausting, not just physically but emotionally,” Védrines said. “We found so many [of Mike’s] things scattered around. We were all so motivated to find him.” They never did. As darkness fell on the mountain, the four gave up the search, returning to their shared base camp together.

Coming back to Jannu East this year, after Gardner’s death, wasn’t necessarily easy, but Védrines never considered not returning. “In the last few years, I’ve lost at least 12 friends in the mountains,” he recalled. “I learned long ago that losing someone or seeing an accident will not stop my passion.”

Still, there were lines he would not cross. For example, “there was no question of trying the same route as Sam and Mike. It would not have felt respectful to Mike’s memory.” Védrines and Jean also felt it important to invite Hennessey to return with them and re-attempt the mountain. He declined.

Respect for Gardner’s memory notwithstanding, Védrines said he never had any intention of attempting a direttissima, like Hennessey and Gardner, anyway. He said that his and Jean’s vision was “way easier than what Mike and Sam wanted to do,” and explained that the decision to angle onto the ridge, instead of staying on the face, allowed them to travel faster and lighter, without a portaledge and the extensive hardware that the upper face would require. “It was an easier route [from a technical perspective], but for us, for the style we wanted, it made logical sense,” he said.

“It was a mental game”

Védrines and Jean left their base camp on October 12, establishing themselves at the base of the North Face around 16,700 feet and fixing the first pitch of their intended route the same day. The following morning, they began their ascent.

The first 1,300 feet of the route was marked not by hanging snowfields and deep snow. “It was very complicated to protect yourself here,” explained Védrines. “It was only snow, very hard snow. All we could use were pickets.” (They named their route Le sommet des pieux or The Summit of Pickets.) Eventually, they angled right, entering a gully and climbing ice up to WI5—and, later, mixed pitches up to M6. These mixed pitches, rife with loose snow, were some of the scariest of the line for Védrines. “They were very, very steep, and the rock was not good.” He laughed. “At this moment, I was looking for help, but no one was up there.”

The pair bivied in a steep snowfield above this section, using a modular shovel to dig out a hole for their tent. The following day they encountered more mixed terrain up to M6, with thin ice and some cracks, and followed by a sparse section that, based on their experience in 2024, they worried might be too dry. “We got very lucky with conditions; there was plenty of snow and ice.”

By this point they’d climbed roughly 5,500 feet, and had angled back left, cutting across the face to meet the east ridge. They bivied their second night in a cornice on the ridge, some 2,000 vertical feet below the summit. Conditions were good. Temperatures hovered around 15℉ without windchill, and the wind was mellow by Himalayan North Face standards: just shy of 20 miles per hour.

But the summit was still guarded by tenuous climbing. Though not technical, the ridge was heavily corniced, the snow deep. “I avoided the edge of the ridge,” Védrines said, “It was completely risky, very exposed, no protection.” Instead, he dropped off the edge, traversing more stable ice flutes just below the edge. This section was particularly heinous for Védrines. The men were now above 23,000 feet, and the air was thin. “It was difficult for me to breathe,” he said. “I’m very well trained, so my legs were good, but my brain was deteriorating. I was exhausted.”

Védrines had reason to be anxious.. During his 2022 K2 attempt—climbing fast, alone, and without oxygen—he fell unconscious around 27,300 feet, and had to be rescued and given supplemental oxygen by passing climbers. “My condition suddenly deteriorated,” he told Climbing in the aftermath. “Instantly, I no longer had the same energy, nor the same state of consciousness. It’s from there that I don’t remember everything.” He couldn’t afford a repeat of that scenario on Jannu East. One mistake, on these vertiginous ice flutes, would have resulted in a dangerous fall. “I was a bit stressed,” Védrines said. “It wasn’t technical, but it was a mental game.”

By 1 p.m. on October 15, their third day on the wall, they arrived at the top of Jannu East’s “eastern” summit. The pair then traversed for 40 minutes to the western summit—a similar elevation—just to make sure they touched the high point. “When we arrived at the first one, we looked at the other one, and we were like, ‘Oh, shit. I think that one’s a little bit higher.’” It was.

The celebration was brief, the descent fast. That night, they slept at their second bivy. The following day, October 16, some 50 rappels took them down the face. Save for some lingering tinnitus, which bothered him for a few days—“It felt like someone was opening a bag of potato chips inside my head”—Védrines is none the worse for wear, and feels satisfied with his and Jean’s performance. “After most climbs, I am someone who is always looking for something I could have done better,” he said. “Most of the time I can find something I wish I did differently. On this one, no. I am happy.”

I feel satisfied. I feel filled. Maybe Jannu East really has slaked that insatiable hunger.

But, hell, it’s only been a few days.

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