September 2024 - Adventure Mountain

27. September 202427. September 2024

Anja Blacha after her Manaslu success: “I had the summit to myself”

After the eight-thousander is before the eight-thousander. This year, this also applies to Anja Blacha, who has now climbed nine of the 14 highest mountains in the world. This makes the 34-year-old the German woman with the most eight-thousander summit successes.

Last spring, she first scaled Makalu (8,485 meters) and then Kangchenjunga (8,586 meters), both without bottled oxygen. She also climbed without a breathing mask during her successful ascent on Manaslu (8,163 meters) on Monday. Now Blacha wants to try her hand at Cho Oyu (8,188 meters). She answered my questions in Tibet.

Anja, Manaslu was your third eight-thousander summit this year. How did you fare on your ascent?

25. September 202425. September 2024

Summit success on Manaslu – eight-thousander number nine for Anja Blacha

German high-altitude mountaineer Anja Blacha has scaled the 8,163-meter-high Manaslu in western Nepal. According to Nepal’s largest expedition operator, Seven Summit Treks, the 34-year-old reached the summit on Monday morning local time – without bottled oxygen.

It was Anja’s ninth eight-thousander summit success – all of them with teams from commercial operators. She achieved eight of them without a breathing mask. She only used bottled oxygen on her two ascents of Mount Everest – in 2017 via the Tibetan north side and in 2021 via the Nepalese south side of the mountain.

21. September 202421. September 2024

Pioneer of alpinism: Hermann Buhl was born 100 years ago

“Clearly the best all-round mountaineer in the world” in his time was the Austrian Hermann Buhl, Reinhold Messner once told me. “Buhl was at least 50 years ahead of his time.”

Buhl achieved the first ascents of two eight-thousanders in Pakistan: Nanga Parbat in 1953 and Broad Peak in 1957 – without bottled oxygen. Only his companion from Broad Peak, the Austrian Kurt Diemberger succeeded who was also the first to climb Dhaulagiri, achieved this feat.

20. September 202420. September 2024

Annoyance at the decline in style on the eight-thousanders

Manaslu, the eighth highest mountain in the world

Jordi Tosas is fed up with what is currently happening on the eight-thousanders. “China has prescribed the use of oxygen and fixed ropes for all ascents. They prohibit alpine-style and solo ascents. Pakistan will triple the price of permits. Nepal has already turned the mountain control into a mafia,” writes the 56-year-old Spanish top mountaineer on social media. “Just one style! Fuck the system!”

It seems like a deep sigh in view of the first success stories of the fall season on the eight-thousanders in Nepal and Tibet. Now that the ropes have been fixed up to the summit on Manaslu, the first clients have also been guided to the summit at 8,163 meters. The commercial teams dominate the headlines. Swiss mountain guide Josette Valloton completed – with bottled oxygen – her collection of 14 eight-thousanders. US-American Tyler Andrews “ran” from base camp to the summit on a prepared slope in less than ten hours – without bottled oxygen.

18. September 202418. September 2024

Nepalese rope-fixing team reaches the summit of Manaslu

The first summit successes of the fall season on the eight-thousanders of Nepal and Tibet are reported from Manaslu. According to Nepal’s largest expedition operator Seven Summit Treks, Namgel Dorjee Tamang, Ngima Tashi Sherpa, Pemba Tashi Sherpa, Dawa Sherpa, Pam Dorjee Sherpa and Sirjangbu Sherpa reached the summit of the eighth highest mountain on earth at 8,163 meters this afternoon local time. They fixed the ropes up to the highest point on the eight-thousander in western Nepal. The numerous members of the commercial teams will be using the ropes to ascend in the coming weeks.

17. September 202417. September 2024

Reinhold Messner is 80 – Confrontation as an elixir of life

Reinhold Messner (in 2013) — Reinhold Messner

Extroverted, self-confident, opinionated, sometimes blustering, often polarizing. That’s Reinhold Messner. “I’m a living provocation,” the mountaineering legend once told me in an interview. No wonder he named his latest book, which was published just in time for his 80th birthday today, “Headwind”.

“Overcoming resistance is written into our genes,” writes Messner. “In untouched nature, we have always had to ensure our survival. The instincts developed in the process force us to react to danger under all circumstances, even where people – with bad intentions – want to harm others. My experience tells me that man-made resistance can be more destructive than natural resistance.”

10. September 202410. September 2024

After the flood – donations for the schoolchildren of Thame

For many people in the mountain village of Thame in the Everest region, the zero hour struck on 16 August. As reported, large parts of the village were destroyed that day – by masses of water, debris and mud from two glacial lakes below Tesi Lapche La (also known as Tashi Lapcha). The 5,755-meter-high pass leads from the Rolwaling Valley into the Khumbu. According to the regional administration, the flood hit at least 18 buildings. These included an elementary school and an infirmary in Thame, both built and financed by the Himalayan Trust, the aid organization of the Everest first ascender Sir Edmund Hillary, who died in 2008.