Le Gang Des Moustaches

Congrats to Helias, Ben and Fred from Le Gang des Moustaches!! To climb Nuptse south face in alpine style has been the dream for many of the most tallented alpinists during generations. And after 3 years of attempts this 3 young french guides did-it!

Kilian Jornet

C’est peut être une rupture … Là le niveau de difficulté pourrait être proche d’une face nord des Grandes Jorasses. A cette altitude, c’est très impressionnant

Stéphane Benoist

A very beautiful line, c’est magnifique…Le gang des moustaches seem pretty nonchalant about this… piolet d’or for sure.

Fergal

Awesome news from the French team on Nuptse – new route and from accounts of last year a really technical one. congrats, look forward to seeing some pictures!

Jon Griffith

My god – what a phenomenal looking route. Even getting hints as to the scale; “For me, this type of climb is not an annual occurrence. I’m aware that we have tempted fate, and that to repeat such ascents often would be suicide.” Wow.

Kevin Woods

That is a line. No Himalayan snow plodding there. Great effort and good report.

Patrick Roman

Not sure I’ve ever seen such a chilled and joyous team of climbers filming themselves on such a monster, hard alpine-style route. They’re clearly utterly nails hard to pull off that nonchalant image.

TonyM

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Current Mission: Completed

Nuptse South Face

Nuptse south face, one of the most coveted walls in the world, a 2500 m face of steep rock and ice, 4 km across and topping out at 7861 m at the highest point.

With only four ascents by big names in alpinism, a new route up this face will put the Gang des Moustaches into the history books.

Nuptse which is connected to Everest, currently has just one route (out of the four) attempted in alpine style. A handful of well known names; Chris Bonington Valeri Babanov, Stephane Benoit, Patrice Glairon-Rappaz, Steve House, and Marko Prezelj, Koshelenko lay claim to this face, mostly succeeding by using fixed rope or in heavy himalayan style.

Media Coverage

See more media articles

Outdoor Journal

UKC

Montagnes Magazine

Alpine Mag

Le Dauphine

Journal papier du 4 novembre

The Gang Des Moustaches

Obsessed by the weight of their packs and the shape of their moustaches …….

Fred Degoulet

Fred is at the forefront of an exciting new breed of ice and mixed climber. He has taken his competition experience of dry tooling into the high
mountains and achieved ambitious new routes previously thought of as impossible.

These achievements have seen Fred included twice in recent years, in the Piolet d’Or long list.

As well as the successes of the Gang, Fred was notably in the media, including TV coverage in 2015 opening a new difficult line in the Ecrins Massive, something of a rarity these days. www.freddegoulet.com

Ben Guigonnet

Ben is one of the most gifted mountaineers of recent years. His impressive figures speak for themselves: an 8c climber, 8a block, 8a on sight in trad, grade 7 in ice, M10 on sight and a guide at 23 years old. The man who is cut like a SNCF sandwich doesn’t seem so imposing but he is a monster in the mountains!

This skinny beast is obsessed by kit weight optimisation. Based in Nice, he lives for climbing and alpinism.

Ben has been prolifically opening and repeated extreme routes on major alpine summits and around the world, pushing the boundaries of difficulty and altitude.

Helias Millerioux

Over the last few year Helias has been one of the most active high altitude mountaineer of his time. Often featured in more than one film at the same mountain festival, Helias has accumulated an impressive list of ascents with some legendary climbers at high altitude.

This experience has made Helias extremely experienced at managing expeditions. He is an extremely strong mixed climber with a great deal of experience including 8 high altitude pursuits in Argentina, Peru, Alaska, Nepal and Pakistan. Notably the Slovak Direct route on Denali over 8 days, Siula Chico in Peru and he has attempted a new route on Diamir Face of Nanga Parbat.