No chance. “Biting cold and strong winds made it impossible to proceed,” said Sanu Sherpa, according to the Nepalese portal The Tourism Times. The rescue team led by Sanu returned from Camp IV at around 7,900 meters to the base camp at the foot of Makalu.
The rescuers from the commercial expedition operators Makalu Adventure and 8K Expeditions would return to Kathmandu in the coming days after what was now their second unsuccessful attempt, it was reported. Further ascents would be too dangerous in view of the continuing bad weather and the high altitude.
It’s a media spectacle – no question about it. When top US climber Alex Honnold free solos (climbing alone and without any safety equipment) the 509-meter-high Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taiwan on Friday night/Saturday morning German time, and Netflix streams it live, Alexander Huber will probably be fast asleep.
“Climbing Taipei 101 will not provide any new insights into climbing, so from that point of view, the event is not relevant to us as climbers,” writes the younger of the two Huber brothers to me. “But of course, it will reach a very wide audience via Netflix, and Alex is obviously entitled to do it.”
The 8,485-meter-high Makalu in Nepal (left, with the 7,000er Chamlang on the right)
The line between triumph and tragedy can be very thin on eight-thousanders. Yesterday, Thursday, the second winter ascent of Makalu was celebrated; today, a Nepalese mountaineer who lost his life is being mourned.
“This morning, at 10:27, our client Abolfazl Gozali and his guide Sanu Sherpa reached the summit of Mount Makalu (8,485 m),” reported Nepalese expedition operator Makalu Adventure on Facebook.
Indian client Piyali Basak felt unwell at Camp 3 and returned to base camp, it said. The successful summit team is expected to return there tomorrow, Friday.
The fifth-highest mountain on earth had previously been climbed only once in winter: in February 2009 by Italian Simone Moro and Denis Urubko, who was born in the Russian North Caucasus. As with all their ascents, the two professional mountaineers did not use bottled oxygen.
“If you have a dream and dedicate yourself and never give up, you can achieve anything – whatever life throws at you.” With these words, Hari Budha Magar commented on Instagram about his ascent of the 4,892-meter-high Mount Vinson in Antarctica.
The Nepalese mountaineer, who has had both legs amputated, has thus completed his collection of the Seven Summits – at least those that are currently possible for him.
Second attempt: A team from the commercial Nepalese expedition operator Makalu Adventure is making another attempt this winter to take Iranian mountaineer Abolfazl Gozali to the 8,485-meter-high Makalu – with bottled oxygen.
As Gozali revealed yesterday in an Instagram story, the team fixed the ropes up to an altitude of 6,000 meters and transported equipment there.
It is the only expedition on an eight-thousander in Nepal this winter so far. Simone Moro’s winter project on Manaslu ended in mid-December before it had really begun. As reported, the Italian suffered a heart attack during acclimatization in the Khumbu region.
Last October, Mingma Gyalje Sherpa announced a possible winter expedition to Mount Everest, with the goal being the first winter ascent of the world’s highest mountain by a woman. Nothing came of it, “because of financial issues,” as the head of the operator Imagine Nepal wrote to me.
After several days of uncertainty, Simone Moro has spoken out. His most important statement: “Now I’m feeling good.” What happened? Over the weekend, Nepalese media reported that the 58-year-old top mountaineer from Italy had to be flown out of the mountains to Kathmandu by helicopter.
That was true, but the medical details initially reported were contradictory. In such cases, it is advisable to wait until reliable information is available. Simone himself provided that information, sitting in a tracksuit in the hospital, with a statement that he posted on Instagram, among other places.
Sirbaz Khan (center) is the first president of the KMGA
This is another important step on the long-overdue path to emancipation for Pakistani mountaineers.
Last weekend, in a hotel in the city of Skardu in northern Pakistan, they launched the Karakoram Mountain Guides Association (KMGA), which they proudly announced afterwards as “the first national body created by mountaineers, for mountaineers.”
Lukas Waldner, Francois Cazzanelli, Giuseppe Vidoni, and Benjamin Zörer (from right to left) at the summit of Kimshung
It was one of the many exciting alpinistic highlights of this fall season in the Himalayas. The two Austrians Lukas Waldner (24) and Benjamin Zörer (24) and the Italians Francois Cazzanelli (35) and Giuseppe Vidoni (31) succeeded in making the first ascent of Kimshung in Nepal in alpine style.
The 6,781-meter-high mountain, also known as Tsangbu Ri, is located in Langtang National Park, about 75 kilometers north of the capital Kathmandu as the crow flies.
On 20 October, the four mountaineers climbed from their advanced camp at 5,450 meters on the Kimshung Glacier to the summit in just ten hours and descended again on the same day. They named their route (1,300 meters, 60°, AI4, M5) “Destiny”: “for the many stories that converged beneath this mountain – including the meeting of the four climbers who return home not only with a proud ascent, but above all, with a great new friendship,” as the quartet wrote on Instagram.
The 6,781-meter-high Kimshung in Nepal
Two rope teams joined forces
The mountaineers from Austria and Italy had only met at the foot of the mountain and decided to climb together. Cazzanelli had already attempted Kimshung twice without success. In 2015, his team had been stopped by the devastating earthquake in Nepal, which killed almost 9,000 people. In 2016, Francois had to abandon his attempt on Kimshung after being hit by a rock at an altitude of almost 6,000 meters.
After returning from Nepal, Tyrolean mountaineer Lukas Waldner answered my questions about the now successful expedition.
Lukas, how do you rank the first ascent of Kimshung in your personal career?
James Price (l.) and George Ponsonby (r.) on the summit of Aikache Chhok
The members of the “Young Alpinist Group” from Great Britain and Ireland are actually only supposed to gain initial experience in the world’s great mountains. However, two of them have now achieved a real mountaineering coup in northern Pakistan.
At the end of October, Briton James Price and Irishman George Ponsonby opened a difficult 3,000-meter route in alpine style on the 6,673-meter-high Aikache Chhok via the previously unclimbed Northwest Ridge and then descended via the also virgin Southwest Face.
Henry Todd may not have been the greatest climber of his time, but he was undoubtedly an original.
“As an expedition leader, mountaineer and later an oxygen provider to climbers, Henry was a pillar of the Himalayan climbing community,” writes German mountaineer, journalist, and chronicler Billi Bierling in her obituary in the Himalayan Times. “He supported countless people across Nepal and Pakistan, making it possible for many to fulfil the dream of standing on the world’s highest peaks.”
Todd died last Monday in his adopted home of Kathmandu at the age of 80 – from a stroke after undergoing heart surgery a few days earlier.
Seven people died in an avalanche on Yalung Ri in Nepal
“Nature is unpredictable and is becoming increasingly so,” mountaineering legend Reinhold Messner told the SouthTyrolean internet portal altoadige.it: “It has changed radically and has also become more dangerous due to climate change, which has led to a rise in temperatures, making the mountains and glaciers much more fragile and unstable.”
In recent days, there have been avalanches in both the Alps and the Himalayas, resulting in numerous fatalities.
Classic alpinism is alive and well! For me, this is evident in the fact that I can hardly keep up with reporting on all the extraordinary climbs this fall season in Nepal.
The Russian team opened a “new alpine-style route on the immense, uncharted Southwest Face,” Anna wrote on Facebook. Andrey sent her a short message from the highest point: “(We) Made the summit, just got back to the tent. It was brutal. The wind up there was insane.”
