Kazakh climbers Ildar Gabassov, Vaso Pivtsov, and Alex Sofrygin completed a rare ascent of the ca 3,000m direct north face of Khan Tengri over nine days in August. The last ascent, by Russian climbers Pavel Shabalin and Ilias Tukhvatullin, was in 2005 and was featured in AAJ 2006.

Dougald MacDonald, compiled from online reports