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"I'm incredibly proud to receive a Piolet d'Or, but I never got into climbing for awards," he said.

He was awarded the Piolet d'Or, dubbed mountaineering's Oscars, for summitting the previously unclimbed Jugal Spire in Nepal.

Though Messner accepted the lifetime achievement Piolet d’Or in 2010, an award created a year earlier, he too dismisses climbing prizes as reductive.

Uisdean Hawthorn, a 28-year-old Scottish climber, is another recipient of a Piolet d’Or this year with his partner, Ethan Berman, for their new route on Mount Robson’s Emperor Face, in Canada.

“And none of those people and climbs, in my mind, should qualify for the Piolet d’Or. If we want to create a culture in which not so many of the top guys end up dying, we need to make some changes.”