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…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
