Tomislav "Tomo" Česen (born 5 November 1959) is a Slovenian mountaineer who specializes in solo climbing ascents in the Alps and the Himalayas. In 1986, aged 26, he reported that he had enchained the three

Great north faces of the Alps The six great north faces of the Alps are a group of vertical faces in the Swiss, French, and Italian Alps known in mountaineering for their difficulty, danger, and great height. The "Trilogy" is the three hardest of these north faces, being th ...

, becoming the first person to do so solo in winter; although nobody witnessed his feat. Česen enjoyed a period of fame and sponsorship from his enchainment, and went on to claim a number of increasingly bolder, and in some cases, groundbreaking, solo ascents, including: ''No Siesta'' on the

Grandes Jorasses The Grandes Jorasses (; 4,208 m; 13,806 ft) is a mountain in the Mont Blanc massif, on the boundary between Haute-Savoie in France and Aosta Valley in Italy. The first ascent of the highest peak of the mountain (''Pointe Walker'') was by H ...

, ''Pilier Rouge du Brouillard Direttissima'' on

Mont Blanc Mont Blanc (, ) is a mountain in the Alps, rising above sea level, located right at the Franco-Italian border. It is the highest mountain in Europe outside the Caucasus Mountains, the second-most prominent mountain in Europe (after Mount E ...

, ''Modern Times'' on the south face of the

Marmolada Marmolada (Ladin language, Ladin: ''Marmolèda''; German language, German: ''Marmolata'', ) is a mountain in northeastern Italy and the highest mountain of the Dolomites (a section of the Alps). It lies between the borders of Trentino and Ven ...

, the north face of

Jannu Mount Kumbhakarna or Jannu (Limbu: ''Phoktanglungma'') is the 32nd-highest mountain in the world. It is an important western outlier of Kangchenjunga, the world's third-highest peak. Kumbhakarna is a large and steep peak in its own right, and ha ...

(or Kumbhakarna), and the enormous south face of

Lhotse Lhotse ( ; ; ) is the List of highest mountains#List, fourth-highest mountain on Earth, after Mount Everest, K2, and Kangchenjunga. At an elevation of above sea level, the main summit is on the border between Tibet Autonomous Region of Chin ...

. Many of his boldest solo ascents are now treated with skepticism in the mountaineering community, and particularly his 1990 solo ascent of Lhotse’s south face. He remains a controversial figure in climbing. One of the main climbing routes on K2 is named the Česen Route, after him, when he soloed it in 1986; there is evidence that he probably summitted K2, and his earlier 19-hour solo ascent of

Broad Peak Broad Peak (; ) is one of the eight-thousanders, and is located in the Karakoram range spanning Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan and Xinjiang, China. It is the 12th highest mountain in the world with elevation above sea level. The first ascent of t ...

(made in preparation for K2) is not disputed. His son is the mountaineer, Aleš Česen.

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