Expedition climbing (or expedition-style or pejoratively siege climbing),[ is a type of mountaineering that uses a series of well-stocked camps on the mountain leading to the summit (e.g. Base Camp, Camp 1, Camp 2, etc.), that are supplied by teams of mountain porters.][ In addition, expedition climbing can also employ multiple 'climbing teams' to work on the climbing route—not all of whom are expected to make the summit—and allows the use of supports such as , aluminum ladders, supplementary oxygen, and sherpa people.][ By its nature, expedition climbing often requires weeks to complete a given climbing route, and months of planning given the greater scale of people and equipment that need to be coordinated for the climb.]
'Expedition style' climbing is in direct contrast to 'alpine style' climbing, which involves a single small fast-moving summit climbing team that carries all their supplies and equipment (e.g. no mountain porters or sherpas) and makes little use of support (e.g. no supplementary oxygen or fixed ropes).[ Some argue that this risk is balanced by the fact that alpine-style teams spend less time on the mountain, thus reducing their exposure to other serious risks such as from and .]
Expedition-style was the type of mountaineering Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay used in summitting of Mount Everest,[ as well as on most major Himalayan mountains — including many of the — and is thus sometimes termed Himalayan climbing.][ From the 1970s, leading mountaineers began to favor the 'purer' challenge of alpine-style climbing, led by pioneers such as Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler, and Doug Scott, Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker.][ From 2006 onwards, mountaineering's highest award, the Piolets d'Or ceased to recognize expedition-style , and in 2008 amended their charter to focus exclusively on alpine-style ascents.]
Notable expeditions
While the use of full expedition-style climbing has almost completely diminished amongst leading mountaineers and climbers and is now only used by commercial guiding companies, many notable in mountaineering, and particularly those of the , were achieved by employing large-scale expedition-style climbing techniques, including:
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1950 French Annapurna expedition, the first ascent of an eight-thousander
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1952 British Cho Oyu expedition
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1953 German–Austrian Nanga Parbat expedition, despite being an expedition, Herman Buhl's final solo summit push was arguably the birth of high-altitude alpine-style climbing
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1953 British Mount Everest expedition, the first ascent of Mount Everest
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1954 Italian expedition to K2
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1955 French Makalu expedition
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1955 British Kangchenjunga expedition
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1960 Chinese Mount Everest expedition
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1970 British Annapurna South Face expedition, the first expedition to try high-altitude 'big wall' climbing
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1975 British Mount Everest Southwest Face expedition, often considered "the apotheosis of the big, military-style expeditions", and marked a peak expedition-style climbing by leading climbers in the Himalayas.
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American Women's Himalayan Expedition of 1978
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1996 Mount Everest disaster, the tradegy highlighted the dangers of using expedition-climbing techniques to guide weaker climbers to the summits of eight-thousanders.
See also
Further reading
External links
