News Link: 61-year-old Swiss-Canadian climber Jean Troillet has completed a new route on the north face of the Matterhorn with French climbers Martial Dumas and Jean-Yves Fredriksen. Sébastien Gay (600m, ABO) takes a direct line between the 1935 and 1965 lines, following nearly overhanging ground for the first 400 meters. The three men bivied once in “a hammock” during this section. After a total of about 600 meters of climbing, the new line joins existing routes.

Troillet has climbed ten 8,000-meter peaks without supplementary oxygen and snowboarded from the summit of Everest, but he is perhaps most famous for his remarkable 39-hour climb of Everest’s north face in 1986 with Erhard Loretan.

See Planet Mountain for more details and a climbing photo from the route.

8/17/09 - UPDATE: Lindsay Griffin at the BMC website reports that the Swiss-French route may not be new after all. The Troillet-Dumas-Fredriksen line may cover much the same ground as a little-known Czechoslovak ascent from 1972. Grffin has asked the climbers for a photo of their line to compare with this summer's route and will update his report if further information becomes available.

Date of Ascent: July 2009

Sources: Planetmountain.com, Troillet.ch

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