Everest can now see up to 200 people attempt to summit in a single weekend and yet just over the border into China lie hundreds of stunning mountains on which nobody has ever set foot. Away from the spotlight of the world’s media, modern climbers are hunting for new routes and summits as hard as ever.

In the last few years, technological advances in digital mapping have combined with a surprising consequence of the fall of the Soviet Union to transform the approach to exploratory mountaineering.

George Cave works as a design engineer for much of the year and travels the world as a mountaineer for the rest. He has developed a particular interest in central Asia with expeditions searching for first ascents in Kyrgyzstan and Russia and he is currently preparing for an expedition to a small unclimbed range in central Tajikistan. He has spoken at TEDxBrum and the Royal Geographical Society and will be sharing tales of adventures in remote mountain ranges as well as discussing how a new generation of mountaineers are using digital technology to facilitate access to some of the world’s least explored summits.