Pierrick Fine, Jordi Noguere, and I landed in Chengdu on October 9 and immediately started our journey to Garze, the northern gateway to the Minya Konka Range. On the 11th we established base camp at 4,350m, after two days of approach. While our acclimatization went OK, the weather was quite unstable, with a lot of snow and wind. Every day would begin with clear blue skies, but then it started snowing in the afternoon.

After five days of acclimatization we descended to base camp to rest and prepare for the next reasonable weather window. During this time we stashed gear below the west face of Mt. Grosvenor (a.k.a. Riwuqie Feng, 6,376m). This was four hours from base camp over burly moraine.

Early on the 23rd, from a high camp, we started up the left side of the west face, well left of the central couloir climbed in 2010 by Kyle Dempster and Bruce Normand. We reached the first steep gullies, where four pitches of AI5+ to 6 led to less difficult terrain. Above this, three steep pitches led to the crest of the north-northwest ridge, just as the sun was setting. After two mixed pitches up the crest, we were able to dig a tent platform in the snow. A long section of snow on the following day got us to the summit at 1 p.m.

All in all, conditions had been good. However, the ice was quite thin, sometimes of poor quality, and sometimes covered with loose snow. The rock had been very compact and mostly hard to protect. We had planned to take three days for the ascent, with two bivouacs on the route, but constantly changing weather and strong wind forced us to push hard on the first day to reach our second proposed bivouac site.

We descended the southwest ridge (the route of the first ascent of Grosvenor in 2003 by Julie Ann Clyma and Roger Payne). Thick mist and cold predominated. On the shoulder below the summit, as it narrows into the southwest ridge, all three of us, roped together, fell over a 6m to 7m ice wall formed by a wind scoop, which we had been unable to distinguish in zero visibility. Fortunately, there was a flat snow slope on the far side; unfortunately, Jordi, who was last on the rope and therefore was whipped faster over the icefall, broke some ribs.

At around 6,000m we set off down the west flank, making 14 rappels to reach the glacier. It then took some time to get back to our tent below the face, because the glacier proved highly crevassed.

We spent a night below the face and next day descended to base camp. After a few days here we realized we had to return to France: Jordi's ribs were very painful.

Because of mysterious tracks we saw during our acclimatization, we named the route Tcheu c'te Panthère (1,300m, ED). We later showed photos of these tracks to an expert in Nepalese fauna, and he confirmed they were made by a snow leopard.

– Etienne Journet, France