News of the historic ascent quickly spread across the world, followed by fanfare and controversy. The Russians returned home as national heroes. Having been on the face myself and figuring an alpine-style ascent to be virtually impossible, I gave the Russians full credit for a truly great achievement in Himalayan mountaineering. Soon, however, news began to circulate that the Russians had left all of their fixed ropes and a portaledge camp on the face. Many climbers, particularly in the U.S. — even those accepting of the heavy-handed style — were shocked to hear about the volume of abandoned ropes.
The Jannu ascent won the prestigious Piolet d’Or award for 2004, presented this past February, and Odintsov attended the ceremonies in Grenoble on behalf of the team. Also in attendance was the American alpinist Steve House, an award nominee as well as a vocal “light-and-fast” purist. House later wrote an article about the ceremony for the French magazine Vertical in which he clearly states his opinion of the Jannu ascent:
“Their climb was an amazing accomplishment. At the same time I was astounded that they used such words as ‘impossible’ and ‘extreme’ when the comforts of their basecamp were never more than a few rappels down their many fixed ropes. I was also struck by the fact that they left those seventy-seven ropes fixed on the mountain. I was appalled that they abandoned their camps and their equipment on the wall. ... The Russians did climb the north face of Jannu ... but they also mutilated it with their heavy style. The Piolet d’Or pretends to award ascents that represent the ‘evolution’ of alpinism. I maintain that the Russians’ ascent of the north face of Jannu is irrelevant to modern alpinism.”
The Russians and their accomplishments in the Himalaya in the past fifteen years have been anything but irrelevant. The north face of Jannu was only the latest in a string of Russian conquests spearheaded, led, and largely financed by Alexander Odintsov in a massive world-wide effort called the Russian Big Wall Project. The project aims to establish Russian routes on the ten biggest walls in the world; Jannu was number seven. Objectives already checked off includes new lines on Peak 4810 (1995) and the west face of Rocky Ak Su (1996), both in the Pamir Alai; the 4000-foot Trollveggen (1997) in Norway; the north face of Bhagirathi III (1998) in India; the northwest face of Great Trango Tower (1999) in Pakistan; Great Sail Peak (2002) on Baffin Island; and most recently Jannu (2003 attempt, 2004). In addition to Odintsov’s teams’ effort, several other world-class Russian teams and individuals have made first ascents of numerous last great problems in the Himalaya in recent years, including the south face and the middle summit of Lhotse, the west face of Makalu, the north face of Changabang, the north face of Meru, the southeast pillar of Nuptse, and the north face of Everest. No other country comes close to matching Russia’s tally in recent times.

I first met Alexander Odintsov not at a contentious Grenoble convention, but on a snowy ledge at 18,000 feet, halfway up the northwest face of Great Trango Tower in Pakistan. It was 1999 and Alex Lowe, Jared Ogden, and I had been sitting in our portaledge for nearly a week, waiting out a storm, when we suddenly heard voices. Alex unzipped the portaledge door and there in front of us was a crazy-looking dude wearing a warm-up suit, Boreal Invernals, an old-school orange helmet, and a carpenter’s tool belt. We had heard over our radio that a Russian team had showed up in camp but we never thought we’d see them up on the wall; we had a good two-week head start on them.
It was a cold, blustery day, and I’ll never forget Odintsov saying something about the weather being pretty good. Hah, hah, good joke, we thought — but then we realized he wasn’t laughing. While we had been sitting on our butts in the “storm,” thinking about bailing, the Russians had been climbing, firing off the lower wall in less than half the time it had taken us.
Soon we were joined by the rest of the Russian team: Yuri Koshelenko, Igor Potan’kin, and Ivan Samoilenko. It was not entirely a coincidence that we were now meeting on this ledge. A few months earlier at the outdoor trade show in Salt Lake City I had met Samoilenko, the official cameraman of the Russian Big Wall Project. He showed me some pictures from their Bhagirathi ascent, and the images were truly inspirational. We got to talking about upcoming projects and when he pulled out a picture of Great Trango’s east face, I pulled out a photo of Trango’s northwest face that I had been planning to keep secret. I remember Ivan looking at it carefully and asking, “So, this one is pretty good, huh?”
Now, on a ledge in the Karakoram, Ivan and I shared a warm handshake and he said, “Yes, Mark, you were right, this one’s pretty good!”
Above our shared ledge, the Russians chose a line about 300 feet to the right of ours and immediately began fixing ropes. Although the language barrier was difficult, we hung out together at night and shared stories and hot drinks. I remember coming down from leading a long pitch and being greeted on the patch of ground between our two camps by Koshelenko, who gave me a pat on the back and a shot of grain alcohol. We seriously discussed joining into one seven-man team. Lowe and the Russians were all for it, but Ogden and I selfishly shot down the idea, greedy for as many leads as possible.