New route on Meru South in India climbed by Simon Gietl, Mathieu Maynadier, Roger Schäli

Simon Gietl from South Tyrol, Italy, Mathieu Maynadier from France and Roger Schäli from Switzerland have successfully climbed a new route on Meru South in India. The 800m line breaches difficulties up to M6+ A1 and climbs the mountain's east face, close to the famous Shark's Fin pillar on the mountain's NW Face.

The trio reached Tapovan basecamp at 4300m towards the end of April and then waited patiently as unsettled weather brought with it plenty of fresh snow. The advantage of this was that the mountaineers could approach the mountains on skis, but the route from Camp 1 to Camp 2 became increasingly at risk of avalanches. Furthermore, the severely receding glacier made the ascent to the col directly below Camp 2 a challenging crevasse labyrinth.

On 10 May the trio set off from BC and ascended directly to Camp 2. Maynadier struggled considerably due to diarrhoea but pushed on to reach the tent at 5800m. The next day Gietl and Schäli continued upwards, stashing their gear and a large ledge and breaking trail through the steep snow field. Maynadier recovered sufficiently that day and at 3 am on 12 May all three climbers set off on what turned out to be an extremely long day out in the mountains; this ended at 23:00 when they reached their designated bivy on an exposed snow-mushroom on the wall. They crammed into a two-man tent and after a short night set off on their summit push.

Route finding proved complicated and initially it was unclear whether they would surmount a rocky section, but after another three pitches exposed to the freezing winds they reached the summit cornice and ridge. 200m vertical meters later they reached the summit at 9:00 am on 13 May. After a short celebration they abseiled down the line of ascent and are now safely back off the mountain.

The new route comes after a first attempt carried out by Maynadier, Schäli and Sean Villanueva in autumn 2019 had to be aborted on the upper third of the mountain. The line has now been called Goldfish, in keeping with the Shark's Fin first ascended by Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk in 2011.