Italian mountain guide Francois Cazzanelli along with his teammate Pietro Picco opened a new route variant on Nanga Parbat’s Diamir face on June 26.

The new variant joins the Kinshofer route at 6,000m (at Camp 2). The new route is 1,400m, 90° on ice, and M6 85° on snow. They named the route Aosta Valley Express in tribute to Aosta guides (mountain guides from a region of northwestern Italy) and express because they made it in a single push from Base Camp to 6,000m.

Their entire group descended to base camp on the same day.

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Image source:  Francois Cazzanelli 
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Image source:  Francois Cazzanelli 

The Nanga Parbat team includes two of Cazzanelli’s Tengkampoche partners, Jerome Perruquet and Emrik Favre. Marco Camandona, Pietro Picco, and Roger Bovard have also joined the K2 adventure.

Cazzanelli intends to launch a fast, non-stop push on K2. Afterward, if he feels strong enough, he will head for Broad Peak.

They will then make a speed ascent of K2 and maybe Broad Peak, all without O2 or Sherpa support.

 In 2019, Francois Cazzanelli also raced up Manaslu and made it from Base Camp to foresummit in 13 hours.