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. Like this one: According to Anna Piunova from the Russian mountaineering portal mountain.ru, Andrey Vasilyev, Sergey Kondrashkin, Natalia Belyankina, Kirill Eyserman, and Vitaly…
Once again, there has been a great achievement of true alpinism in the Himalayas in Nepal: by “the three Bs.” Felix Berg from Germany, Hervé Barmasse from Italy, and Adam Bielecki from Poland opened a new route through the approximately 1,000-meter-high South Face of the rarely climbed 6,958-meter-high Numbur in the Rolwaling Valley, not far…
“Sometimes an ascent can change your life. I think this one did,” writes Benjamin Vedrines on Instagram. The first ascent of the 7,468-meter-high Jannu East is “undoubtedly the greatest achievement of my mountaineering career,” said the 33-year-old Frenchman after his coup in eastern Nepal, which he accomplished together with his 27-year-old compatriot Nicolas Jean. “Climbing…
“We would have liked to bring Laura home. But it wasn’t possible to get her,” Andreas Dahlmeier, father of former world-class biathlete and mountaineer Laura Dahlmeier, who died in an accident on the six-thousander Laila Peak in Pakistan at the end of July, told the German magazine “Der Spiegel”. “It was too dangerous after the…
When I close my eyes and think back to the North Face of Mount Everest 20 years ago, I see the so-called Supercouloir in front of me. The Japanese Couloir in the lower section and the Hornbein Couloir further up run through the wall like a straight line. An aesthetic line, a route that seems…
On the Tibetan north side of Mount Everest, several members of the team led by American ski mountaineer Jim Morrison have apparently reached the summit at 8,849 meters today. This was reported by the Nepalese internet portal “The Tourism Times,” citing sources close to the expedition. The mountaineers climbed through the Hornbein Couloir, it said….
I must admit that I have almost given up trying to keep track of who has climbed how many eight-thousanders, when, and in what style. There are now so many commercial expeditions that it is – at least for me – hardly possible to keep track of them all and verify their success stories, which…
It shouldn’t surprise me anymore, because it’s nothing new. And yet I am always astonished at how quickly and comprehensively the media avalanche rolls in as soon as Mount Everest comes into play. That wouldn’t be so tragic if those involved in the information industry would take the trouble to check the facts before blasting…
French climbers Benjamin Vedrines and Nicolas Jean have filled in a blank spot on the map of high mountains. The strong duo climbed the 6,808-meter-high Anidesh Chuli in eastern Nepal, not far from the eight-thousander Kangchenjunga, in one day – in alpine style, i.e. without bottled oxygen, without fixed high camps, without fixed ropes, and…
