Over the last week and a half, we have done our best to present a list of the 10 best expeditions of 2025 among the hundreds we have covered at ExplorersWeb.
Yet, comparing such wildly different expeditions — from ocean rowing to mountaineering to extreme ski descents — is difficult, perhaps impossible, and highly subjective.
Like last year, the least we can do is mention some of the many other worthy projects that we didn’t include in our top 10. Below, in chronological order, we round up some of the other notable expeditions from the last 12 months.
Winter 2025
Zara Lachlan. Photo: Zara Lachlan
February: Zara Lachlan became the first woman and youngest person to solo row from Europe to mainland South America. The 21-year-old rowed 6,670km from Portugal to French Guiana in 97 days, 9 hours, and 20 minutes.
After initially struggling to escape the coastline, she was plagued with either high winds or water so calm that she barely moved for almost the entire row. Storms capsized the boat, snapped one of her oars, and left her with a broken finger and a hoard of damaged equipment.
February/March: Having slogged 1,785km across the Mongolian Gobi pulling a cart in 2018, Polish adventurer Mateusz Waligora returned in February to cycle 1,400km by fat bike.
March: Italian alpinist Herve Barmasse completed the first solo winter traverse of all 17 main summits in the Grand Sasso d’Italia massif in the Apennines. The non-stop effort covered 67km horizontally and 7,200m of vertical gain, involving skiing, rock climbing, and ice climbing across ridges, spires, and snow gullies.
Spring 2025
March: Roger Schaeli, Filippo Sala, and Silvan Schupbach completed the first ascent of the north face of 3,237m Punta Pioda in the Sciora group of Switzerland’s Graubunden canton. Over four days, from March 6-9, they established a 700m route named Luce e Tenebre (Light and Shadows), graded M8, A3, and 70°. The climb involved challenging mixed terrain with loose rock, freezing temperatures, and long, complex pitches blending aid and free climbing.
The first ascent of the north face of Punta Pioda. Photo: Thomas Crauwels
March: Cyril Derreumaux completed his solo kayak journey across the Atlantic Ocean. He became the first person to kayak alone across both the Pacific and Atlantic. Over 71 days, 14 hours, and 57 minutes, he paddled 4,630km from the Canary Islands to Martinique.
Derreumaux paddled for over 10 hours per day and had to contend with seasickness and sleep deprivation. Arriving in Martinique, an unexpected northward current meant he was forced to accept assistance for the last 45km of his journey.
May: Kayakers Mathew Schweizer and Brody Duncan of New Zealand, along with Andy Gill of Scotland, completed a 32-day expedition through remote southern Patagonia. They covered nearly 900km of isolated fiords and rugged coastline.
May: Slovak climber Peter Hamor and Italians Nives Meroi and Romano Benet achieved the first ascent of the west face of 7,412m Kabru I in the Kangchenjunga region of Nepal. They summited on May 4 via a new route without fixed ropes, bottled oxygen, high camps, or helicopters.
The moderately difficult (D-grade) climb featured unstable weather, snow, high winds, and avalanche risk. The team set up base camp on the Yalung Glacier, retreated from an initial attempt, and succeeded on their second push on a 22-hour summit day.
The new line up the west face of Kabru I. Photo: Peter Hamor
May 23: Karl Egloff of Ecuador attempted a FKT for a return trip between Base Camp and the summit on Everest but turned around before Camp 3 as “conditions were not suitable for a no-oxygen ascent.”
Meanwhile, American Tyler Andrews aimed for an FKT one way, from Base Camp to the summit. He launched three attempts, including one with supplementary oxygen. Unable to bag the FKT, he returned to Everest in the fall, seizing an opportunity while a large team was on the mountain. Again, he aborted his ascent at 8,000m.
Tyler Andrews and Chris Fisher leave Everest Base Camp after the first Everest FKT attempt. Photo: Tyler Andrews
Summer 2025
June: Icelanders Hoddi Tryggvason and Halldor Meyer complete a massive 4,200km circular snowkiting journey on Greenland’s ice sheet. The 50-day expedition began and finished near Tasiilaq on Greenland’s southeastern coast.
Bjorn Lindhardt Wils, Hoddi Tryggvason, and Halldor Meyer. Photo: Höddi Tryggvason
June: French climber Mathieu Maynadier and Pakistani climber Mueez Ud Din opened a new route called Zindabad on the previously unclimbed east ridge of 7,029m Spantik in the Karakoram. They graded the 1,800m route M5, A1, with up to 80° slopes. The duo overcame logistical challenges, including a 35km crevassed approach and geopolitical tensions that nearly canceled the expedition. They spent 25 days waiting for their four-day push starting on June 2. They reached 6,999m, stopping just short of the summit because of a massive wind slab. However, they achieved a significant milestone by opening the east ridge, potentially the first major new route in Pakistan led by a local climber.
Zindabad. Photo: Mathieu Maynadier
June 9: Czech climbers Radoslav Groh and Zdenek Hak achieved the first ascent of the southeast face of 6,270m Hunza Peak in Pakistan. The duo established a new 2,300m route named Eid al-Adha in alpine style. The climb involved multiple bivouacs and a final summit push featuring challenging pitches up to M6+, WI5, and 90° steepness, with a prominent ice/snow tower reminiscent of Patagonia.
Topo of the new Czech route on Hunza Peak. Photo: Zdenek Hak
June 23: Canadian adventurers Dave Greene and Gaia Aish complete a 1,725km bike and canoe journey from British Columbia to the shores of the Arctic Ocean over 30 days.
June 24: After several attempts in past years, David Goettler of Germany climbed the Schell route up the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat, and then paraglided from the summit. Partners Tiphaine Duperier and Boris Langenstein of France also reached the summit and completed the first ski descent of the Rupal Face. Read an interview with Goettler about the expedition here.
Goettler flies back to Base Camp after summiting Nanga Parbat via the Schell route. Photo: David Goettler
July 18: Pascal Smyth completed a 2,202km kayak journey from Canada to Alaska. Smyth, 35, set off from Vancouver on May 1 and reached the coastal city of Skagway on July 18. The wilderness journey took 72 days, including 15 days on shore, either resting or windbound. Smyth’s route followed the Inside Passage, a network of largely protected waterways stretching up the Pacific Northwest coast.
July 18: Polish paddlesports athlete Sebastian Szubski claims the fastest kayak circumnavigation of Great Britain. Szubski covered the 3,000km route in 37 days, finishing three days faster than Dougal Glashier, the previous record holder from 2023.
July: A Chinese expedition successfully made the first ascent of unclimbed 6,706m Chomolhari III, a subsidiary peak east of the main Chomolhari summit along the border with Bhutan. Liu Yang, Song Yuancheng, and He Lang started their ascent on July 23, simul-climbing past a previous high point and navigating avalanche risks by climbing at night, then tackling three rock bands on the north spur.
After overcoming mixed pitches, M4-M5 climbing, and a challenging final wall of unstable deep snow, they reached the summit following bivouacs at 6,200m and 6,450m.
Chomolhari III in the center, with the north spur facing the camera. Photo: Zhang Chengxin/American Alpine Journal
August: Swiss endurance swimmer Noam Yaron completed the longest recorded non-stop wetsuit swim. Setting off from Corsica, he swam 191km across the Mediterranean and was in the water for 102 hours and 24 minutes.
Just two kilometers from Monaco, Yaron’s support team had to pull him from the water. Salt water had swollen his tongue to the point where breathing was a struggle, and friction between his wetsuit and the sea salt left him with second-degree burns on 15 percent of his body.
August 13: An all-female team that called themselves the Hudson Bay Girls completed an 80-day canoe expedition across northern Canada, paddling from Grand Portage, Minnesota, on Lake Superior to Hudson Bay. Americans Olivia Bledsoe, Emma Brackett, Abby Cichocki, and Helena Karlstrom, all in their early twenties, arrived at their finish point of York Factory after 1,900km of paddling.
The Hudson Bay Girls. Photo: Aidan Thompson
August: Jamie, Ewan, and Lachlan MacLean completed the fastest human-powered crossing of the Pacific Ocean. Over 139 days, 5 hours, and 52 minutes, they rowed from Lima, Peru, to Cairns, Australia.
The Scottish brothers faced an anti-cyclone, 36-hour storms, and six-meter waves. At one point, the weather was so violent that Lachlan was thrown overboard.
Autumn 2025
September 5: James Baxter, 65, stepped into the Indian Ocean, marking the end of his 5,639km bicycle journey across Africa, from Namibia to Tanzania in 119 days.
September 7: American climber Colin Haley achieved the first solo winter ascent of Cerro Torre in Patagonia, climbing alone up the tough Ragni Route to the summit under a full moon. He started the main climb on September 6, dealing with brittle ice, hard self-belaying, and a tough three-hour struggle to cross a deep crack near the top. The descent was also challenging, with equipment problems, rope issues, and bad weather.
Looking up the last pitch of Cerro Torre from the penultimate pitch. Photo: Colin Haley
September: Over four months, ultramarathon swimmer Ross Edgely completed a 1,610km circumnavigation of Iceland. Starting in Reykjavik, he swam clockwise, covering approximately 30km each day. (Even Olympic swimmers only swim about 10km per day while training.) Freezing temperatures forced him to swim in a wetsuit throughout his six-hour on, six-hour off schedule.
September: For the first time in history, we had two Everest ski descents, from the North and the South sides of the mountain. The two expeditions had large support teams who fixed ropes and broke trail, as well as film crews.
The ski descents were stunning. Andrzej Bargiel of Poland summited Everest and skied down to Base Camp without supplemental oxygen on September 22. It was a complete ski descent, including the Hillary Step, the summit ridge, and the treacherous Khumbu Icefall. Bargiel told us about it in an interview.
Andrzej Bargiel skiing down the Hillary Step on Everest. Photo: Bartek Bargiel/Red Bull Content Pool
American Jim Morrison skied down the infamous Hornbein Couloir and continued down to the base of the North Face, a total of 3,650m from the summit to the Rongbuk Glacier.
Jim Morrison looks tiny while skiing the huge Hornbein Couloir on the North Face of Everest. Photo: Frame from a video shared by National Geographic
September 20: Piolet d’Or laureates Dane Steadman and Cody Winckler joined forces with Blake Berghoff to visit the remote northern ranges of Pakistan, aiming for unclimbed Dansam Peak. Though it proved inaccessible, the climbers discovered a paradise of rocky spires. Instead, they bagged a first ascent on a 6,082m rock tower that they graded as 5.10, A2+, AI4, M6, plus a mixed climb to the stunning north buttress of an unnamed 6,300m peak at the head of the valley.
The essence of mountain adventure. An unclimbed summit of an unnamed peak in a remote area. Photo: Dane Steadman
September 23: Poles Marco Schwidergall and Tomasz Rodzynkiewicz, plus Matej Prcin of Slovakia, made the first ascent of a 6,232m peak in the Ghujerab Mountains of the Karakoram. Their 1,800m M5 route featured ice to 85°. They tentatively named the peak Tumladen Sar, pending local approval. They began on September 21, with the team spending two bivouacs on the wall, before summiting on September 23. After 10 rappels down the south side and navigating a complex glacier, they safely returned to base camp on September 24.
A climber rappels down seracs during the expedition to the Ghujerab Mountains. Photo: Polski Himalaizm Sportowy
September 30: American Jacob Pepper completed a 9,334km thru-hike of the Eastern Continental Trail, starting in Key West, Florida, on January 1 and finishing in Hay Cove, Newfoundland, Canada, on September 30. Over 273 days, Pepper spent 250 days on the trail, climbing a total of 231,495m in elevation.
October 12: After 10 years and several attempts, Francois Cazzanelli of Italy fulfilled his dream of climbing Kimshung (6,781m), a virgin peak in Nepal’s Langtang. He climbed with Giuseppe Vidoni, Benjamin Zoerer, and Lukas Waldner.
“The route is quite impressive, very steep from base to summit,” Cazzanelli said. “There is no specific crux or a particular section with more difficulty or exposure. Rather, it is a line of sustained difficulty, constantly demanding.”
Steep snow ramp with no spot to place protection on Kimshung. Photo: CVA Kimshung 2025
October 18-19: Adam Bielecki of Poland, Herve Barmasse of Italy, and Felix Berg of Germany opened a new route up the south face of 6,958m Numbur, in Nepal’s Rolwaling Valley. The trio survived exposed sections and a bivouac at 6,900m without a tent or sleeping bag in temperatures of -25°C.
“Technically, you can be ready to climb anything, but for an adventure like this, you can never be ready enough,” Barmasse wrote about the climb, assessed as ED-, WI 5, M4, and called Nepali Ice Spa.
Adam Bielecki, Herve Barmasse, and Felix Berg endure a tough bivy night. Photo: Herve Barmasse
October 20: After 480 days and 7,810km of paddling, 24-year-old Peter Frank completed a canoe journey around most of the Great Loop, a roughly 9,700km circuit through the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic coast. It’s typically traveled by cruise boats in a counter-clockwise direction, but Frank went the “wrong way,” beginning and ending in Escanaba, Michigan.
Frank paddles in Wisconsin. Photo: Tom McKleskey
October 24: Japanese university students on the 2025 Himalaya Camp team successfully climbed a new route on 6,111m Bijora Hiunchuli in western Nepal, in alpine style.
The Himalaya Camp team acclimatized on 4,985m Tserko Ri before heading to Bijora Hiunchuli. Photo: Himalaya Camp
November 3: American alpinists Benjamin Lieber and Alex Hansen made the first ascent of 6,233m Changla Khang West in Western Nepal.
“The expedition matched the goals we had: go to a place we have not seen before, look around at all the mountains, and then try to climb one,” Lieber told ExplorersWeb. The team summited in a single day via the southwest ridge. The 1,200m route had a difficulty of WI4, M4.
Benjamin Lieber on the summit of Changla Khang West. Photo: Alex Hansen
November: Daragh Morgan became the first person to swim around Ireland. Starting in Galway, he swam clockwise for five months and covered 1,468km. He averaged around six hours a day in the water for the duration of the tidal-assisted staged swim.
