To manub: Re:

[highman]

I am not the mountaineering authority. This info was takem from www.k2climb.net - the bigest Climbing and mountaineering portal:

from K2climb.net:
1) "The polish climbers are the masters of winter climbing and they always reached the summit much later than December 21. The NOT valid winter climbs are those starting before the 1st of December (compare Lafaille who started on November 8 for his Shisha Pangma climb and summited on December 11 back in 2004). And summit bids starting before December 21 are not valid either, of course." Simone Moro
2)The climbing community invalidated Lafaille’s claims of a winter climb. One of the critics was Wielicki - the current Nanga Parbat expedition leader, who has no less than 3 first winter summits on 8000ers. Aside from rules set up by the community, Wielicki also noted his experience that December generally offers pretty good weather

Kind Regards,

Wojtek

[manub]

ok, i didn't know of this controversy... Mountaineering is full of such stories and battles of egos.
Lafaille's not here anymore to participate to this dispute. r.i.p.

thanks anyway!
emmanuel