2012 Sandy Allan & Rick Allen Nanga Parbat Mazeno Ridge First Complete Ascent

United Kingdom🏔️ 4 Peaks

Rick Allen

Richard 'Rick' Allen was born in 1953 in Scotland. Growing up climbing the rugged sea cliffs and frozen gullies of the Scottish Highlands, Allen forged an extraordinary physical endurance and an understated, humble persona that made him a beloved legend among British mountaineers. Rejecting commercialized siege climbing, Allen devoted his life to exploratory, small-team alpine style in the world's highest mountains. Over a four-decade career, Allen climbed extensively across the Karakoram and Himalayas, establishing bold lines on peaks exceeding 7,000 and 8,000 metres. His finest hour arrived in July 2012 on Nanga Parbat (8,126m). Partnered with fellow Scottish veteran Sandy Allan, Rick Allen—then fifty-seven years old—tackled the unclimbed 10-kilometre Mazeno Ridge. Over eighteen continuous days living above 6,500 metres without supplemental oxygen and enduring days without food and water, Allen pushed through severe frostbite and temporary snow blindness to reach the summit on July 12, 2012. The breakthrough earned Allen and Allan the 2013 Piolet d'Or. In July 2018, while descending from a solo summit bid on Broad Peak (8,051m) in Pakistan, Allen slipped and fell from an elevation above 7,400 metres, sliding into an icy wilderness. Believed dead by climbers at Base Camp, Allen miraculously survived an open bivouac in freezing temperatures. Thirty-six hours later, Polish filmmaker Bartek Bargiel spotted Allen moving through the snow using a camera drone, guiding rescue climbers from Camp III to reach him alive in one of the first drone-assisted mountain rescues in history. In July 2021, while attempting a new lightweight route on the Southeast Face of K2 (8,611m) to raise funds for mountain charities, Allen was tragically swept away and killed by an avalanche at age sixty-eight. He is remembered as one of the purest, most resilient souls to ever touch the high Himalayas.

United Kingdom🏔️ 4 Peaks

Sandy Allan

Sandy Allan was born in 1956 in Dalwhinnie in the Scottish Highlands. Raised amidst the unforgiving winter conditions of the Cairngorms and Ben Nevis, Allan developed formidable ice climbing technique, relentless stamina, and a deep, intuitive understanding of mountain weather. Qualifiying as an IFMGA international mountain guide in 1989, Allan combined professional guiding across the European Alps with bold, small-team expeditions to the world's most formidable high-altitude objectives. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Allan built an extraordinary Himalayan record, summiting Mount Everest, Cho Oyu, and Lhotse, while attempting bold new routes on K2, Broad Peak, and Nanga Parbat. He formed a legendary partnership with fellow Scotsman Rick Allen, characterized by patient tenacity and complete self-reliance in remote terrain. In July 2012, at the age of fifty-six, Allan achieved his masterpiece on Nanga Parbat (8,126m). The Mazeno Ridge—an unbroken, heavily corniced 10-kilometre knife-edge crest spanning eight distinct summits over 7,000 metres—was considered the last great unclimbed problem on Nanga Parbat, having defeated dozens of world-class expeditions over thirty years. Climbing in pure alpine style without fixed ropes or supplemental oxygen, Allan and Rick Allen persevered through deteriorating weather, exhaustion, and running completely out of food and water. On July 12, after eighteen days on the ridge and eighteen bivouacs, Allan and Allen reached the 8,126-metre summit before executing a harrowing descent down the Diamir Face via the Kinshofer Route. The climb astonished the global climbing community and earned Allan and Allen the 2013 Piolet d'Or. In 2015, Allan published 'In Some Lost Place', which won the prestigious Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature, cementing his place among the immortal figures of British and international mountaineering.