The south face of Palung Ri (7100m), Himalaya, Tibet, showing JAN (M4 90 degrees, 900m), the new route by Jordi Tosas. Tosas climbed the route solo in a day and descended via the mountain’s west ridge.
[Photo] Jordi Tosas
Spaniard Jordi Tosas (a member of the 2004 Catalan team that made the second ascent of K2’s Magic Line) was on Tibet’s Cho Oyu (8201m) this season, working as a guide. Although bitter cold prevented Tosas and his client from reaching the summit, Tosas did manage a new route, solo, on nearby Palung Ri (7100m).
During the acclimatization period on Cho Oyu, Tosas opened a new, 900-meter route on the peak’s south face. Tosas managed the route, which he called JAN, in one day, alpine style and without a rope. He encountered sections up to M4 and 90 degrees on some rocky steps and ice ledges. He made his descent via the peak’s west ridge.
Tosas is an accomplished Himalayan climber who has been known to facilitate descents with a snowboard. In 2000, he made the first snowboard descent of Cho Oyu, losing a number of toes to frostbite in the process. He climbed and snowboarded Shivling (6543m), in India’s Garhwal Himalaya, in 2003. In 2004, he participated in the Catalan expedition that made the second ascent of the Magic Line on K2 (8811m), the route pioneered in 1986 by Wojtek Wroz, Przemyslaw Piasecki and Peter Bozik.