The unclimbed northwest ridge of Dhaulagiri is at least 6km in length and around 4,000m high. Although the average angle is not steep and there are long stretches of straightforward snow slopes, the ridge starts with a steep 500m rock buttress. It has been the goal for Horia Colibasanu, Marius Gane (both Romanian), and Peter Hamor (Slovakia) for three years.

The team first attempted the line in 2019, climbing and fixing the rock buttress; they reached a high point of 5,600m before giving up due to very strong winds. Their return match in 2020 was thwarted by the pandemic, which stranded them in Kathmandu.

In 2021, operating from the 4,000m “Japanese Base Camp” and climbing as before without oxygen or Sherpa support, the three reached a high point of 6,800m in early May. At this point, their tent was hit by an avalanche during the night, forcing them to cut through the fabric to escape. Every day the weather had produced clear mornings but snow in the afternoons. With strengthening winds, the conditions above were almost certainly more dangerous, so they retreated. The three had fixed 1,000m of rope on the lower buttress.

The top section of the northwest ridge was climbed by Japanese Kohzo Komatsu, Yasuhira Saito, and Noboru Yamada, who in 1982 completed the Pear Route on the right side of the north face; they hit the ridge at around 7,550m and followed the upper section to the summit. This line had been attempted many times, beginning in the early 1950s. In 1954 an Argentinian expedi- tion nearly climbed it, reaching the upper northwest ridge and a point around 200m below the summit before retreating.

— Lindsay Griffin, AAJ