Two French ski mountaineers have pulled off a rare Himalayan double: the second-ever ascent of the southwest face of Meru Central and, on the way down, the first ski descent of that face. Tiphaine Duperier and Boris Langenstein climbed and skied the 6,310-metre peak in India's Garhwal Himalaya, completing a 1,500-metre descent with pitches as steep as 50 degrees.
The odds weren't good on paper. Duperier admitted the team arrived with low expectations after a string of failed autumn projects and patchy snow conditions — she put their chances at roughly three in ten. The mountain cooperated instead. The pair spent six days scouting routes and three days on the climb, aided by what they described as unusually good luck in finding a path through the icefall at the mountain's base and by excellent snow on the upper slopes.
The icefall was the crux. They led a 15-metre pitch of grade WI4 ice climbing there and fixed a rope, which they later used to rappel back onto the glacier after the ski. Above that, they moved fast and light, climbing alpine-style and standing on the summit in under eight hours. By their own research, only one team had previously climbed the southwest face — an Indian party in 2023.
The ski line itself went clean: no rappels, no interruptions, snow that was hard but held an edge well. Duperier's verdict on the descent — skiing it like the monkeys that swing on the wires of Rishikesh — gives a sense of the airy, exposed nature of the terrain.
There's a bonus chapter to this story. Duperier landed back in France just in time to collect a Piolet d'Or, the sport's top honour, for an earlier feat: the first alpine-style ascent of the Schell Route on Nanga Parbat's enormous Rupal Face, combined with the first ski descent from that mountain's 8,125-metre summit. Stacking a Piolet d'Or and a significant Himalayan first into a single season puts her among the most active ski-mountaineering athletes working in the high mountains right now.
Why does this matter to travellers? Partly as inspiration, partly as a signal. The Garhwal Himalaya — home to peaks like Shivling, Bhagirathi and the Meru massif — remains far quieter than Nepal's better-known trekking and climbing hubs. Expeditions do run there, typically staging from Gangotri and requiring serious high-altitude ski or climb experience, but the region offers big objectives without the crowds. For the rest of us, the valleys, glaciers and viewpoints around Uttarkashi make for world-class trekking country, and Rishikesh — the town Duperier name-checked — is the region's classic gateway for yoga, river rafting and a dose of Himalayan atmosphere before heading higher.
For ski mountaineers tracking the state of the game, this is another data point in the rise of Himalayan ski descents on faces once considered pure climbing objectives. Duperier and Langenstein's line on Meru Central may well become a reference route for future teams.
ExplorersWeb
