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The « first 14 » on this planet, the mountains above 8000 m in altitude, have largely fed the news of the Himalayan mountaineering history. From the golden age of their first ascents in the 1950s to the recent link-up in 92 days, focus has evolved from pioneer climbing to High Altitude Sports Competition confined to crowded normal routes. If there are still possibilities for new routes or significant repetitions in alpine style on the 8000ers, it’s worth taking a step back from this sole 8000ers paradigm and compare it with the « second 14 », the highest 7000ers on the planet.
The « second 14 » are lonely places with rare visits and some with no attempts for decades. With the same geographic criteria at stake for the 8000ers, the « true » mountains with more than 7 % Orometrical Dominance (independence), the 14 highest mountains below 8000 meters are Gyachung Kang, Annapurna II, Gasherbrum IV, Himalchuli, Disteghil Sar, Ngadi Chuli, Kunyang Chhish, Masherbrum, Nanda Devi, Chomo Lönzo, Batura Sar, Rakaposhi, Namcha Barwa and Kanjut Sar. Two well-known peaks are not included because of a lack of independence : Gasherbrum III (4.47 %) and Nuptse (3.88 %).
There are a lot of historical achievements noted in the climbing history of the « second 14 ». On 4th February 2008 German climber Philipp Kunz accompanied by Nepalese Sherpa climbers Lhakpa Thinduk, Temba Nurbu and the late Lhakpa Ongyal ascended the first and so far only one of them in winter, Annapurna II.
In 2014 there was one attempt on the formidable NE Face of Masherbrum by the late David Lama and Hansjörg Auer with Peter Ortner. The last first ascent of a new route of one of them was on 2nd July 2019, when Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima from Japan ascended the South Face/SE Ridge of Rakaposhi. This mountain was also climbed again in 2021 by French climbers Patrick Wagnon and Hélias Millerioux by the first ascent route in alpine style and also by Czech climbers Petr Macek and Jakub Vlček and Pakistani climber Wajid Ullah Nagri. And just this season Sergey Nilov and Dmitry Golovchenko from Russia attempted a new route on Gasherbrum IV, which sadly resulted in a tragedy, when Dmitry Golovchenko did not survive the attempt.
Only three mountaineers climbed two of them, Zygmunt Andrzej Heinrich (Poland) ascended Kunyang Chhish and Batura Sar, Timothy Macartney-Snape (Australia) Annapurna II and Gasherbrum IV and Masafumi Teramoto (Japan) Nanda Devi and Kanjut Sar.
And only two of them were climbed by women so far. The first one was in 1979 on Rakaposhi, when the Polish lady climbers Anna Czerwińska and Krystyna Palmowska were successful. In 1981 then Indian lady climbers Chandra Prabha Aitwal, Harshvanti Bisht and Rekha Sharma ascended Nanda Devi and since then, more than 40 years, no woman was interested to ascend one of these iconic mountains.
All relevant data about these mountains can be found in four tables.
1) Geographic table with different first ascents
2) Nation statistics table with Japan in the lead with ascents of 9 of them
3) Three mountaineers with two of them
4) Different routes table with dates and nation info
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