April 2022 - Adventure Mountain

28. April 202230. April 2022

Summit successes on Annapurna I – Hans Wenzl’s tenth coup

Summit day on Annapurna I. About 20 climbers from three commercial teams reached the summit of the tenth highest mountain on earth at 8,091 meters today, according to the Internet portal ExplorersWeb: about half Climbing Sherpas, the other half paying clients. In the latter group was also the Austrian Hans Wenzl, who thus scaled his tenth eight-thousander.

This is particularly remarkable for two reasons. First, Hans is not a professional mountaineer – nor is he a zillionaire: The 51-year-old earns his money as a foreman for an Austrian construction company, and takes time off for his expeditions. Wenzl lives in Metnitz, a town with 2,500 inhabitants in northern Carinthia, and has two grown-up sons with his wife Sonja.

On the other hand, he climbed his first nine eight-thousanders before Annapurna all without bottled oxygen. And I have no reason to believe that this time was any different.

26. April 202228. April 2022

Summit attempts on Kangchenjunga, Annapurna and Makalu

Mingma Gyalje Sherpa is again in the lead. After leading the first commercial team to an eight-thousander this spring, on the 8167-meter-high Dhaulagiri, the head of the Nepalese expedition operator Imagine Nepal had himself flown by helicopter to Kangchenjunga in the east of the country. There, his Climbing Sherpas had already begun securing the normal route on the south side of the mountain.

Today, Mingma and Co. wanted to fix the ropes above Camp 4 (at about 7,550 meters). Planned summit day is Wednesday. The highest point is at 8,586 meters. This makes Kangchenjunga the third highest mountain on earth after Mount Everest and K2.

19. April 202221. April 2022

Dhaulagiri again “bitchy” to Carlos Soria

Carlos Soria (l.) and Sito Carcavilla (r.)

Probably no other climber on the eight-thousanders in Nepal this spring has as many people crossing their fingers as the Spanish senior Carlos Soria. And just as many are likely to be a bit disappointed again today: “After seeing the weather forecasts, Carlos Soria and Sito Carcavilla decided to descend to base camp and wait for a more favorable opportunity,” Carlos’ team let it be known via Twitter. Snowfall is expected for the next few days on Dhaulagiri in western Nepal.

The climber, now 83, his Spanish teammate Sito Carcavilla and their six-member Sherpa team had ascended to Camp 3 at around 7,400 meters. One stage was still missing to the summit at 8,167 meters.

17. April 202217. April 2022

Happy Easter!

I wish you all and your loved ones happy and peaceful Easter days. And the “Picasso of the Rhine” ? has once again put you an Easter riddle. Which mountain I have conjured on the egg?

12. April 202212. April 2022

Antonis Sykaris dies on Dhaulagiri

Two days after the first summit success of the spring season on the eight-thousanders of Nepal, the first death is reported from the same mountain. Antonis Sykaris, the most successful high-altitude climber in Greece to date, died while descending from the summit of Dhaulagiri at an altitude of 7,400 meters, near Camp 3, “after a huge physical and mental effort and a lack of supplemental oxygen,” the 59-year-old’s Facebook page reads.

On Monday, Nepali expedition operator Seven Summit Treks (SST) had reported that Sykaris and his companion Dawa Sherpa had reached the summit at 8,167 meters. Dawa Sherpa, who remained with Antonis until the Greek’s death, is apparently waiting for support at Camp 3. According to SST, a rescue operation has been started.

9. April 20229. April 2022

Summit success reported from Dhaulagiri

The first success report from a commercial expedition this spring season on Nepal’s eight-thousanders is in. The operator Imagine Nepal let it be known that today 22 team members reached the 8,167-meter-high summit of Dhaulagiri in the west of the country: expedition leader Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, the head of the company and eleven Nepalese Climbing Sherpas, as well as ten clients from seven countries. It was not disclosed whether anyone climbed without bottled oxygen. Mingma, one of ten Nepali climbers who succeeded in the first winter ascent of K2 in 2021, had announced two days ago that the team’s summit push was underway.

8. April 20228. April 2022

Mount Everest: Route through Khumbu Icefall completed

Dangerous job: Icefall Doctor in the Khumbu Icefall

The season of commercial expeditions on Mount Everest can begin. The Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) announced today that the six Icefall Doctors – Ang Sarki Sherpa, Dawa Nuru Sherpa, Pemba Tshering Sherpa, Sonam Tshering Sherpa, Chewang Nuru Sherpa and Ngima Gyaljen Sherpa – have successfully completed their work in and above the dangerous Khumbu Icefall after two and a half weeks.

Every year, the Icefall Doctors prepare the route for the commercial teams – with fixed ropes and ladders up to Camp 2 at around 6,400 meters. They also maintain the route until the end of the season in early June. For this service, the teams have to pay $600 per expedition member to the SPCC.

7. April 20227. April 2022

Mountain tourists return to Nepal

Ang Dorjee Sherpa is pleased. “Today 471 trekking tourists arrived in Namche, a new record this spring,” the 53-year-old owner of the “A.D. Friendship Lodge” in Namche Bazaar, the main village of the Everest region, wrote me yesterday, Tuesday. By comparison, last fall there were a peak of about 250 new arrivals per day.

Lodge owners like Ang Dorjee are thirsty for guests – two lean years in the wake of the corona pandemic lie behind the people of the Khumbu region, almost all of whom live from mountain tourism. According to Ang Dorjee, 33 planes and helicopters landed at the airfield in Lukla, the gateway to the Khumbu, on Tuesday. That almost sounds like normalcy again.

4. April 20224. April 2022

Mourning for Pakistan’s legendary mountaineer “Little Karim”

Little Karim, Kurt Diemberger, Stefan Nestler — Legendary Pakistani high altitude porter “Little Karim” (l., on the right Kurt Diemberger and me in summer 2004)

The only 1.58 meter “Little” was one of the greats. According to Pakistani media reports, the legendary Pakistani mountaineer Mohammad Karim, whom everyone only called “Little Karim” because of his height, died today at the age of 71 in a military hospital in the city of Rawalpindi. Karim was suffering from liver cancer, and the regional government of Gilgit-Baltistan had only recently declared that it would cover the costs of “Little Karim’s” treatment. As a result, he had been transported from his home in the mountain village of Hushe to Rawalpindi.