When self-styled ‘adventure traveler’ and blogger Jackson Groves carried his selfie stick on his final steps to the ‘summit’ of Manaslu, he inadvertently opened Pandora’s box. As he panned the camera around himself, the video showed the steep fluted sides of the summit ridge on a crystal clear day. There is a line of other climbers clearly visible, waiting for their turn on the top. 

But the video also shows that this summit point, decorated with a Nepali flag and a handful of Tibetan prayer flags, is obviously not the highest point on the mountain. Looking closer, one can see another small team of climbers inching across a precarious and near-vertical snow field towards the true top of the peak. 

The leading speck is famously bull-headed Nepali mountaineer Mingma Gyaljie who made it to the true summit of Manaslu for the first time since Guy Cotter brought a group of clients there in 2012, and for the first autumn ascent of the mountain since 1976.

The definition of the word ‘summit’ is not terribly controversial, and the vertical profile of the final meters of Manaslu is quite clearly defined - in Groves’ video, the fixed ropes end at a point from which the mountain clearly continues to rise.  This all begs the question: Why have climbers been claiming false summits on Manaslu for so many years? 

The answer is more complicated than one would expect.

When Mingma and 18 members of his climbing team reached the true summit of Manaslu, he hoped that this would put an end to the controversy for good. On his facebook feed, he posted “I hope there will be no fore summit in future... Top is always (the) top, no more ups, everything below you.” 

This perspective was backed up by the Himalayan Database, the de facto authority on mountaineering ascents in the Himalayas. In a statement the Database affirmed that from now onward, the foresummit will no longer be recognized as a true ascent of the mountain.

“With the clearly documented summit success of Mingma Gyalje and his team, the Himalayan Database has decided that from 2022 it will only credit the summit to those who reach the highest point shown in the drone picture taken by Jackson Grove. Those who reach the tops shown as Shelf 2, C2 and C3 in the picture will be credited with the fore summit … This change in summit accreditation is recommended and supported by  foreign and Nepali operators who we have consulted in Kathmandu.”

But in a controversial move, they also decided that previous ascents to the foresummit of the mountain would still be considered as true summits. This has vast implications for a generation of record-chasing mountaineers, including media personality Nirmal Purja or ‘Nimsdai’ who only reached the foresummit during his heavily publicized ascent of all 14 8,000 meter peaks in just over six months. For now, their records still stand.

But some climbers are already booking tickets back to Nepal this spring to reach the true summit.