Amaury Fouillade, Clovis Paulin and Konrad Piontek climbed 1,400 metres up the north face of Peak 41 (6,654 m) in pure alpine style. They topped out on 14 October after four days and three bivouacs.

Three alpinists from the French army's Groupe Militaire de Haute Montagne have opened a new line on the north face of Peak 41, a 6,654-metre summit in the national park around Makalu in eastern Nepal. Amaury Fouillade, Clovis Paulin and Konrad Piontek started up the 1,400-metre face on 11 October and reached the top on the morning of 14 October. They named the route Bon matin, French for good morning. Planetmountain gives the grade as ED+ 5+ M6 A1 90°, and Climbing writes the ice part as WI5+.

The style is what makes it count. As Stefan Nestler explains on his blog Abenteuer Berg, the trio climbed without bottled oxygen, without Sherpa support, without fixed ropes and without permanent high camps. Everything they needed for four days went up the face on their backs. The face was previously unclimbed in its central section, and Bon matin runs to the left of the Korean route that Koo Eun-soo and Yoo Hak-jae opened in 2016.

Peak 41 was never the first plan. The GMHM team of six arrived in Nepal in mid-September with a military doctor. A trek and an acclimatisation period disrupted by exceptional snowfall for the season followed, and they set up base camp at the foot of Chamlang (7,319 m) and Peak 41. Chamlang was the original goal, but with that much snow on the mountain the steep north face of its smaller neighbour looked like the better bet. After acclimatisation the team split into two rope teams according to skill and how each person was coping with the altitude. Fouillade, Paulin and Piontek went as one of them.

The face showed its character from the first pitches. Fouillade described it on Instagram as "steep, with loose snow that crunches in unpredictable places, making it nearly impossible to secure". Higher up came delicate mixed ground, vertical ice and rock roofs. "We weren't expecting pitches as steep as that, especially in snow," Paulin said. They spent their third bivouac on the heavily loaded summit ridge in fierce wind before pushing to the top.

All three shared the sharp end the whole way. "We gave it our all, one after the other, so that we could then rely more on each other," Fouillade said. "That was the key to success here." Piontek sees it the same way. "Our different strong points complement each other a bit, we were never all three in a bad patch at the same time." Fouillade summed up the moment on top simply. "Reaching the summit was a real physical relief. The mental release came later." According to Climbing, they descended the southeast side of the peak with 15 rappels and a lot of downclimbing, which turned the climb into a big loop back to base camp.

Peak 41 sits next to Chamlang in the Mahalangur range and does not see many ascents. Nepal opened it to climbers in 2002. The Himalayan Database records a Slovenian trio, Urban Golob, Uroš Samec and Matic Jošt, as the first official ascent that autumn via the west face, but notes rumours that two Americans and two Swiss, possibly others, had reached the summit in earlier years. The three French climbers are no strangers to big north faces. Fouillade was part of the team that added Petit Pont to the west face of the Petit Dru over the turn of 2024 and 2025, and Paulin made a winter ascent of the Directissime on Pointe Walker on the Grandes Jorasses with Charles Dubouloz and Symon Welfringer.

The ascent also marks a birthday. The Chamonix-based GMHM, a unit of the 27th Mountain Infantry Brigade, turned 50 this year. It was a good autumn for French alpinists in Nepal in general. In the Rolwaling, Eric Bazot and Pierre Girot climbed a new line on the 900-metre west face of Chukyima Go (6,259 m) in two days. For more alpine-style lines on six-thousanders, read about The Leopard of Higher Ground on Tahu Rutum and the Ukrainian route Chegi on Ama Dablam.

Sources: Abenteuer Berg (Stefan Nestler), Planetmountain, Climbing, Alpine Mag, Campobase / elDiario.es

Cover: panorama from the summit of Mera Peak with Peak 41 (south side), Makalu and Chamlang. Illustrative. It shows neither the climbers nor the north face route. Photo: Andrewgrandison, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.