The Piolets d'Or.

What the awards recognise

According to the official Piolets d'Or site (read 21 October 2026), the awards honour the year's greatest ascents worldwide. Their charter values style over reaching the summit at any cost, economy of means, and respect for people and the environment, and it rejects reliance on supplementary oxygen, fixed ropes or large numbers of porters. Jury comments published on the site name commitment, self-sufficiency, exploration and team effort as fundamental criteria.

The editions from 2023 to 2026 each considered ascents made in the previous year, so the 2026 awards are for climbs made in 2025. The official page we read does not give a founding year or the names of the founders, so neither is given here.

The 2026 edition is organised, according to the official site, by the GHM, the commune of Saint-Christophe-en-Oisans and La Berarde, and the Oisans territory. It is part of the Edition Zero of the Festival International de l'Alpinisme.

Route grades and lengths below are given as the organisers and the press published them. Grading systems explains what alpine, ice and mixed grades describe.

2026: awarded ascents of 2025

The ceremony week runs from 21 to 25 October 2026 in the Oisans (Haut-Veneon). The jury announced the awarded ascents in advance; Explorersweb reported them on 4 September 2026. Details below are from the official site.

The height of Jannu East differs by source. The official site gives 7,460 m. Explorersweb gives 7,710 m, which is the height the official site gave for Jannu's main summit in its 2024 awards.

Special Mention for Female Mountaineering, 2026: Tiphaine Duperier (France). The official site credits her with the first alpine-style ascent of the Schell Route on the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat (8,125 m) in June 2025, with David Goettler and Boris Langenstein, followed, with Langenstein, by the first ski descent from the summit on the Rupal side. Those firsts are the organisers' claims.

Lifetime award, 2026: Peter Habeler (Austria, born 1942 in Mayrhofen), the 18th recipient of the Walter Bonatti award, to be presented at the October 2026 event.

2025: awarded ascents of 2024

Bergsteigen.com (13 December 2025) also reported a Special Mention for Benjamin Vedrines and Leo Billon (France), for three consecutive winter north faces in the Mont Blanc massif: the Dru, the Droites and the Grandes Jorasses. The Special Mention for Female Mountaineering went to Anja Petek and Patricija Verdev (Slovenia) for the first ascent of Lalung I (6,243 m, Indian Himalaya) by the east ridge.

The 2025 ceremony was held at San Martino di Castrozza in the Dolomites, Italy. Its date is reported two ways: Bergsteigen.com gives 12 November, while a search summary of other coverage gives 9 to 12 December 2025.

The 2025 lifetime award is also reported two ways. Explorersweb's earlier coverage linked Peter Habeler to the 2025 edition. Bergsteigen.com names Alexander Odintsov (Russia) as the 2025 recipient, and the official site names Habeler as the 2026 recipient, which supports Odintsov for 2025.

2024: awarded ascents of 2023

All three are from the official site.

• Tirich Mir (7,708 m, Hindu Kush, Pakistan): first ascent of The Secret Line on the north face, then a traverse descending the normal route, by Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima (Japan), 17 to 23 July 2023.
• Jannu (7,710 m, Kangchenjunga Himal): Round Trip Ticket (2,700 m, M7 AI5+ A0), a partial new route on the north face and northwest ridge, by Matt Cornell, Jackson Marvell and Alan Rousseau (USA), 7 to 12 October 2023.
• Flat Top (6,100 m, Kishtwar Himalaya, India): first ascent of the north face via Tomorrow Is Another Day (1,400 m, ED), descending the unclimbed west face, by Hugo Beguin, Matthias Gribi and Nathan Monard (Switzerland), 2 to 6 October 2023.

Nives Meroi (Italy) received the 2024 Special Mention for Female Mountaineering for a body of major ascents. The ceremony was held at San Martino di Castrozza, Trentino, Italy, in December 2024; search summaries give 11 December and 8 to 11 December, and we have not confirmed which is right.

2023: awarded ascents of 2022

The 2023 Piolets d'Or were held in Briancon, France, from 14 to 16 November 2023, the third year in a row there, according to Climber (4 October 2023).

• Jugal Spire (6,563 m, Jugal Himal, Nepal): first ascent via The Phantom Line (1,300 m, ED) on the north face, by Tim Miller and Paul Ramsden (UK), 25 to 29 April 2022 (official site; year from Climber's list).
• Pumari Chhish East (about 6,850 m, Hispar Muztagh, Pakistan): The Crystal Ship (1,600 m, 6b A2 M7) on the south face and upper west ridge, by Christophe Ogier, Victor Saucede and Jerome Sullivan (France), 25 to 29 June (official site).
• Jirishanca (Peru), by Alik Berg and Quentin Roberts, and a special mention for Sedna on the Northern Sun Spire, Greenland, by Caro North, Nadia Royo and Capucine Cotteaux: both from a Planetmountain headline and search summary. The page would not open, so these are unconfirmed.

The Walter Bonatti lifetime award

The lifetime award is named after its first recipient, Walter Bonatti, in 2009. The official site lists the recipients below; we give surnames only where the site's page as read did not show first names.

For other climbs reported by the climbing press, see notable ascents.