The Leopard of higher ground
WORDS → Francesca Robasto
DATE → 2026-07-17
15 days on the wall and difficulties up to 7b for Siebe Vanhee, Sean Villanueva O’Driscoll, and Symon Welfringer, authors of an achievement from another era in the Karakoram
There are walls that remain trapped in climbers’ minds like impossible knots to untie. For Siebe Vanhee, the west face of Tahu Rutum (6,651 meters, Karakoram) had become an obsession ever since 2014, when he heard the story of Kyle Dempster’s legendary solo attempt.
Eighteen years after that epic retreat just a breath away from the summit, Vanhee, together with Sean Villanueva O’Driscoll and Symon Welfringer, Millet athlete, closed the circle by signing one of the most extraordinary achievements of the high-altitude season: “The Leopard of Higher Ground”.
The line, completed on June 27, 2026, stretches for 1,500 meters along the untouched and extremely harsh west face of the Pakistani giant. Until now, the mountain had seen only one ascent, made by a Japanese expedition back in 1977 along a much less forbidding side. The essence of the French-Belgian trio’s success lies entirely in their style. Left as a team of three after Pete Whittaker was forced to return due to altitude sickness, the climbers chose not to bypass the obstacle but to face it head-on. This decision forced them into grueling work: fifteen days in total on the mountain, hauling portaledges, static ropes, and supplies through a maze of loose rock and snow couloirs before even reaching the final barrier.
“We chose the most ridiculous line, one that no classic climber would have ever considered,” commented Vanhee, highlighting the true big-waller approach applied to over six thousand meters in the Karakoram. This light-siege strategy proved successful when a violent snowstorm trapped them on the wall for three days, allowing them to hold out and start again as soon as the weather cleared. The crux came on the twelfth day, above 6,200 meters: a sequence of vertical and overhanging pitches entirely free-climbed up to 7b, in conditions of total isolation and thin air. Not even the scare of a haul rope partially cut by a sharp rock edge during bag maneuvers could stop the trio’s momentum.
The name chosen for the route is a deep dedication: a tribute to the local language (in which Tahu Rutum means “the home of the snow leopard”) and to Dempster, whose memory guided the team through the folds of a wall that, from today, has a magnificent new story to tell.
An epic adventure that deserves to be explored in depth: soon we will dig even deeper into the secrets of this incredible climb.
