Summer 2015 | Mariano Galvan Summited Broad Peak a Week before Andrzej Bargiel

There has been a remarkable ascent of Broad Peak a week before Andrzej Bargiel’s dashing summit-bid and ski-descent. Argentinian star climber Mariano Galvan summited Broad Peak - alone, via Carlos Carsolio’s unrepeated 1994 route, in a marathon 52 hour summit-bid above C3 including two shelter-less bivouacs at 7600m & 7200m, without using fixed ropes except on descent below C2. He stood at the top on July 17th at 0800am local time.
Mariano Galvan on Broad Peak; Source

In third week of July, when Sherpa/HAPs had just fixed the ropes to lower C3 at 6800m and climbers started to reach the camp for acclimatization, they witnessed footprints of an unknown climber above C3. However, no one was seen going above or coming down (probably because Mariano was on a different route?) and the mystical tracks generated all kind of speculations on the mountain. Now we know that it was Mariano Galvan who had gone up and summited Broad Peak. It appears that the Argentinean didn't share this news with other climbers.

A few days later, on July 23rd, Mariano climbed to C3 (at 7000m) on K2 from BC in a single day with five other climbers. However, horrible conditions thwarted their summit push.
Topography of Carlos Carsolio’s 1994 route (published in AAJ 1995). It's not known whether Mariano climbed the full route or  only above C3.

Mariano Galvan had previously climbed four eight-thousanders: Lhotse (2011), Everest (2012), GI and GII (2013) - all without supplemental oxygen. In summer 2013, he was the first climber to reach summit of GII and GI - well before Sherpa/HAPs could fix the route to the top. In 2012, he was amongst the few climbers who summited Everest without bottled oxygen. He was the only climber to reach Lhotse summit on May 18th, 2011; route to summit wasn't fixed at that time.

We will update the post as full summit report and summit photos reach us.
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