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I asked Alex, the Russian SP-er, and he says that in most of Caucasus "it wouldn't be easy to find anything worthy because everything resembling mountain top was climbed many times already", only "unclimbed objects can be found somewhere in Chechenya"... Alex is an expert of Caucasus and knows his stuff. So probably highest unclimbed peaks of Europe are in Chechnya. Besides that... Albania is my guess.

kamil wrote:I found that probably the 'last first ascent' in the Tatras took place in 1952 when Tadeusz Orlowski and Wawrzyniec Zulawski climbed Ladova Straznica (Slovak)/Kapalkowa Straznica (Polish), a little needle in the Slovak part of the range.

I found an update to this. Janusz Kurczab with 3 friends (all Polish) climbed Vysna Mlynarova Kopa/Wyznia Mlynarzowa Kopa in the Slovak Tatras for the first time in 1970. Source: the latest issue of Polish climbing mag Gory (May 2010).

Novaya Zemlya and northern Urals would be my guess.

Ski Mountaineer, got any 1st hand experience or any other good knowledge of that places? Are there any technically difficult peaks or just very remote ones? May be interesting...

Anyways, this summer the SPer Mureksyd and friends climbed 3 new routes in Prokletije/Bjeshket e nemuna in Albania, including 2 previously unclimbed and probably unnamed spires in the group of Maja Bojs/Scokistes. Routes are multi-pitch, VI to VII- UIAA. Congrats guys!
Some more info (in Polish only).

This maybe completley unfounded so feel free to correct me.

last summer i was in chamonix satying at my freinds apt that had an amazing view of petit dru north west face, many questions were raised about the face.
as it seems a huge chunk of the face fell off a while back leaving the face with out any route in its prior condition therefor none of the old routes apply and the face left unclimbed.
(petit dru can be climbed by other routes but as far as im concerned those are a diffrent mountain all togther-see link)
to the best of my knowledge the new face is way thougher than the former.
and no successfull route was registerd,i also remember seeing one of those sender movies about two climbers from boulder who tried to send the first ascent proving unsucssesfull.
i cant recall their names its a soar subject later on in the series thay tried to climb a high peak in india thay dident come back from that.

http://www.summitpost.org/westface-of-t ... t-dru/3331

Good question, Borut
Let's leave the remote areas cos I believe there must be plenty of possibilities. But anything let's say in the Alps? Alpine experts, have your say!

etai101 wrote:to the best of my knowledge the new face is way thougher than the former.

That's a whole different ballgame. Surely there's a lot of new route possibilities on the 'new' Dru face.

Reviving this old thread.
I just made a possible FA in Albania, on Maja Shkurt. It is unclear whether the peak has been climbed before or not.

Probably no one will ever be able to tell you, even perhaps mountain specialists in Albania. After all, many first ascents during the "great era" were not less than "first related ascents" no matter if the guides went for a reconnaissance some days before or if some shepherd did it in order to get some panoramic watchout viewpoint on his herds.
Looking at the map it looks quite prominent in the whole surrounding, and this Maja Shkurt looks kind of full of grassy terraces, even if I believe the difficulty of the scrambles you met on this route. My opinion is that in Europe, unless a peak requires real advanced rock-climbing techniques, the chances that it is unclimbed are tiny... These are areas which were populated for several millenniums.
Anyway congrats for this conquest ! You're a real adventurer.

Thanks Eric, and you may be right in all points. We haven't scouted the mountain that thoroughly and there may still be an even easier line somewhere that would allow a more skillful shepherd to scramble both up and down without any gear.
I didn't see that steel cable thingy but according to Gordan it is a short piece of cable with a loop at the end, something like a via ferrata-style aid, so it must have served a mountaineering purpose. There are some records of Albanian climbing in Hoxha era so John Ely's friends may find something about this one as well...

visentin wrote:Looking at the map it looks quite prominent in the whole surrounding, and this Maja Shkurt looks kind of full of grassy terraces, even if I believe the difficulty of the scrambles you met on this route. My opinion is that in Europe, unless a peak requires real advanced rock-climbing techniques, the chances that it is unclimbed are tiny... These are areas which were populated for several millenniums.

Precisely for this reason I'm pretty sure about our FA of Maja Lagojvet and not quite so about Maja Shkurt. But those mysteries add some extra flavour to our explorations, don't they?

kamil wrote:Precisely for this reason I'm pretty sure about our FA of Maja Lagojvet and not quite so about Maja Shkurt. But those mysteries add some extra flavour to our explorations, don't they?

I remember the one from last year and I think your chances to have done a first ascent on this one are bigger. However, despite Albania is not exactly what we can call a rich country (I mean a country were people have free time and money to spend on going to mountains), there are perhaps few people who do it, and not everyone who rock-climb a peak for fun is a member of SP, neither a blog author, neither someone with a camera all the time or someone for who accomplishments is something to write about.
As for flavour, no doubt. You make everyone jealous here !

It must be every exciting to do FAs, and whether it's a valid case or not, for Kamil surely it was an excitement! I never had this feeling - but at least this year in August I climbed Garoles, and according to the logging notebook placed on the peak I was the first to climb Garoles in 2011, by the 20th August! It was exciting, too!

SP page of Garoles:
http://www.summitpost.org/gar-les/740355

Szani, I liked your page of Garoles. Looks like despite the proximity of Cortina it's such an obscure peak that there's even a disagreement over its name - in such places we can feel like explorers

Some time ago, perhaps 10 years ago I read a magazine about the Pyrenees where some guys baptized a three-thousander that had no name.
Of couse that was the secondary top of something, but naming a peak must be cool

It doesn't mean that the peak was an unclimbed peak Eric

Diego Sahagún wrote:It doesn't mean that the peak was an unclimbed peak Eric

Yes, but unclimbed peaks are fun too isn't it ? Diego, since you are a bit Pyrenean, tell me if you've ever heard of Pic de la Pez, that's the three-thousander in question.