Recipients of a 2010 Piolet d'Or for their first ascent of Xuelian West, Kyle Dempster and Bruce Normand have recently completed two impressive new routes in Sichuan's Minya Konka Group.
Both routes had been attempted in the past, one sadly with fatal consequences.
The American-Scottish pair kicked off with the first ascent of the West Face of Mt Grosvenor (aka Riwuqie Feng, 6,376m), which they completed, and then descended the mountain, in a single push.
The most compelling line on this face is the obvious central couloir leading directly to the summit. It had been attempted twice before. In the spring of 2003 Andy Cave and Mick Fowler retreated from around mid-height when faced with a loose and unprotected slanting groove chocked with powder snow.
In the autumn of that year Julie-Ann Clyma and Roger Payne climbed a much shorter line on the far right side of the face to reach the west ridge, which they followed to the summit to make the first ascent of the mountain.
In 2009 three Koreans attempted the central couloir and reached a similar high point to Cave and Fowler before retreating.
Dempster and Normand started from their 4,300m base camp at 3am, picked up gear stashed at the foot of the face at 5,000m, and then climbed unroped to the crux at approximately 5,700m, where they found the two pitches that stopped Cave and Fowler were thinly iced but climbable (WI 4+).
Above, they moved together for the remainder of the couloir (similar to the Supercouloir above its crux with two entertaining steps of 85°, one at 5,900m and another at 6,300m.
They reached the summit at 6pm (second ascent of Grosvenor), down-climbed the North East Ridge for 400m, and then made 15 rappels down the North Face to reach the flat glacier (and relatively safe ground) at 2am the following morning.
A little later, two other members of their expedition, Jean Annequin and Christian Trommsdorff, reached 5,700m on a line further right before retreating in high winds.
Dempster and Normand then turned to the magnificent South East Face of Mt Edgar (E Gongga, 6,618m).
In 2009 the face had been the target of well-known Americans Jonny Copp and Micah Dash, but having established a cache in the dangerous couloir leading to the start of the face and then descended to base camp, bad weather intervened and the American pair felt it unwise to make an attempt.
They set off with Wade Johnson, who was filming the expedition, to retrieve their gear. They never returned. A search party later discovered that a huge avalanche had fallen down the face and then swept the couloir while the climbers were ascending. The bodies of Copp and Johnson were located, though to this day no trace of Dash has been found.
Dempster and Normand climbed the face in an eight-day round trip from the town of Xinang. Day three saw them climb the access couloir to 5,500m, and day four climb a line left of centre on the face to 6,000m (three pitches of WI 5 and one of M6).
On day five they climbed steep to vertical ice and some mixed terrain to the crest of the South Ridge at 6,200m, and on the following day reached the summit at 2.30pm. They descended the South Ridge and then the South Glacier, a mixture of roped glacier travel and some rappelling in mainly quasi-Scottish winter conditions, regaining the road and Xinang on day eight.
While not direct, their route on the face was really the only safe line.
This was the second ascent of Edgar, the first having been made in 2001 by Koreans via a predominantly snow and ice spur on the West Face.
Normand was supported by grants from both the BMC and MEF.
The photo shows the West Face of Grosvenor. The c1,300m central couloir falls directly from the summit.
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