“No mountain, not even a first ascent, is worth dying for or even freezing a finger off for. With a little distance, everyone will realize that, too,” Luis Stitzinger told me before we set off in 2014 for the previously unclimbed seven-thousander Kokodak Dome in western China. Nine years later, Luis is dead – having…
All hope was in vain, now it is sad certainty. Luis Stitzinger, one of the most successful high-altitude climbers in Germany, is dead. A Sherpa search team of the Nepalese expedition operator Seven Summit Treks (SST) found 54-year-old on Kangchenjunga lifeless at an altitude of about 8,400 meters, SST chairman Mingma Sherpa told the Kathmandu-based…
The weather god had mercy. After fog had prevented the helicopter from taking off yesterday in the lower altitudes around the eight-thousander Kangchenjunga in eastern Nepal, it cleared up this morning Nepalese local time. The four-man Sherpa search team of the Nepalese expedition operator Seven Summit Treks was dropped off at base camp at around…
Luis Stitzinger, one of the most successful German high-altitude mountaineers, has been missing since Thursday evening local time in the upper area of the eight-thousander Kangchenjunga in eastern Nepal. According to information from his wife, mountaineer Alix von Melle, Luis reached the summit of the third highest mountain on earth at around 5 p.m. –…
The drama concerning Hungarian climber Szilard Suhajda in the summit area of Mount Everest did not end well. Today, the search for the 40-year-old was abandoned – “despite the superhuman efforts of a search team of top Nepalese mountain guides,” according to Suhajda’s team back home. Three Sherpas, including Gelje Sherpa, one of the winter…
What is Kilian Jornet up to on Mount Everest? That’s what many observers of the hustle and bustle on Mount Everest have been wondering ever since the Spaniard, known for his speed ascents, showed up at the highest mountain on earth. In April, the 35-year-old had run from Namche Bazaar, the main village in the…
And again a piece of true alpinism in the Himalayas. Within four days the two Czechs Marek Holecek and Matej Bernat succeeded in the first ascent of the approximately 1,300-meter-high Northwest face of the 6,764-meter-high Sura Peak (also known as Honku or Hongku Chuli Nup) – in alpine style, i.e. without bottled oxygen, without Sherpa…
As expected, Kami Rita Sherpa has also climbed Mount Everest for the second time this spring season. According to his employer, the Nepalese expedition provider Seven Summit Treks, the 53-year-old – on bottled oxygen – reached the highest point on earth at 8849 meters this morning local time and, with now 28 summit successes, may…
The spring season on Mount Everest is turning into the home stretch. For this Wednesday the possibly last summit day of the season is expected. After that, the weather will probably become more unstable and windy. Traditionally, the season ends at the end of May, only in exceptional cases it is extended by a few…
“Good news, South Face of Meru South Peak is climbed,” Swiss Roger Schäli wrote on Instagram today. “On the second attempt it worked. Big dreams need more than one try!” Schäli, Frenchman Mathieu Maynadier and South Tyrolean Simon Gietl climbed the South Face of the about 6,600-meter-high Meru Peak in India’s Garhwal Himalayas late last…
Today, Wednesday, was the most successful summit day of the spring season on Mount Everest so far. According to the newspaper “The Himalayan Times”, more than 100 members of commercial teams reached the highest point on earth at 8,849 meters. So, it is likely that there was jostling at the summit and also on the…
They still exist, the ambitious alpinistic projects in the Himalayas, although rarely on the eight-thousanders. Last Friday, the Slovak Peter Hamor, the Slovenian Bojan Jan and the Italian couple Nives Meroi and Romano Benet climbed for the first time the West Face of the 7,318-meter-high Kabru South – “on a new route, without bottled oxygen,…
The good weather window over the Himalayas with little wind seems to hold. And accordingly, it is hardly surprising that summit successes from the eight-thousanders are now being reported daily. After on Saturday – as reported – a nine-man team of the operator Imagine Nepal had fixed the ropes up to the summit of Mount…
Unbelievable what kind of idiots there are – also on Mount Everest. New Zealander Guy Cotter, head of the commercial expedition operator Adventure Consultants, sounds the alarm. At the last high camp, on the South Col at an altitude of just under 8,000 meters, he says, one of his team’s material stores has been looted….
It was half as long ago as the first ascent of Mount Everest, which this year marks its 70th anniversary. Exactly 35 years ago today, on 12 May 1988, Stephen Venables became the first Briton to reach the highest point on earth at 8,849 meters without bottled oxygen. Beforehand, he had succeeded together with the…
