“We had the mountain to ourselves. With perfect conditions,” Lukas Furtenbach enthuses on Instagram. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and not many people will experience an empty Everest ever again. I am aware how magical this is. Have I deserved it? I am not sure. But I am so thankful for the best Everest summit I ever had.”
For the 46-year-old head of the expedition operator Furtenbach Adventures, it was the fourth Everest summit success after 2016, 2019 and 2022, the second (after 2019) via the Tibetan north side. The Austrian led a small team over the Northeast Ridge to the highest point at 8,849 meters early this morning local time. The group had only entered Tibet from Nepal eleven days ago after the Chinese-Tibetan authorities had taken a long time to issue climbing permits.
Nepalese side of Mount Everest (seen from Kala Patthar in 2002)
The many success stories from Mount Everest are intermingled with the sad news of two missing climbers on the highest mountain on earth. The newspaper “Himalayan Times” reports that a British and a Nepalese mountaineer fell yesterday, Tuesday, while descending from the summit at the height of the former Hillary Step (8,790 meters). There has been no trace of them since then. The chances of finding them alive are dwindling by the minute.
If the two are declared dead, it would be the third and fourth deaths on Mount Everest this season. Last week, two Mongolian climbers passed away on the descent. In addition, a Romanian climber who wanted to climb the neighboring eight-thousander Lhotse without bottled oxygen also died yesterday in Camp 3 at around 7,300 meters.
Last weekend brought what commercial mountaineering on Mount Everest stands for above all else: plenty of success stories. According to US mountain blogger Alan Arnette (who always keeps track of the numerous commercial expedition teams), at least 130 people reached the highest point on earth at 8,849 meters on Sunday alone.
Concern turned into sad certainty. A four-man Nepalese search team from the operator 8K Expeditions found the body of the Mongolian mountaineer Usukhjargal Tsedendamba in the summit zone of Mount Everest at 8,550 meters. This was reported by the Kathmandu-based newspaper “The Himalayan Times”.
The 53-year-old and his 31-year-old compatriot Purevsuren Lkhagvajav have been missing since last weekend. “The fate of the other climber Purevsuren is still unknown,” said Lakpa Sherpa from 8K Expeditions. Realistically, the chances of finding the Mongolian alive are close to zero. The search operation in the summit area of Mount Everest had to be temporarily interrupted due to strong winds.
Two climbers from Mongolia are missing in the summit zone of Mount Everest. As the Nepalese newspaper My Republica reports, citing the Ministry of Tourism, members of other teams last saw the two on Monday morning local time as they were climbing towards the summit. Since then, there has been no sign of life from them. A rescue operation has been launched, it said.
Farewell to Lhakpa Tenji Sherpa. Today, Monday, family and friends – including his wife, his daughter, his two sons and his brothers – paid their last respects to him at a funeral in Kathmandu. Lhakpa Tenji had led a Jordanian client to the 8,485-metre-high summit of Makalu on Monday last week (6 May) and died on the descent to Camp 3 at around 7,500 meters – probably from high altitude sickness. Opinions differ as to whether the experienced mountaineer’s death could have been prevented.
Kami Rita Sherpa – climbing Everest again and again
The first summit wave on Mount Everest is rolling. After a team of ten Nepalese climbers – as reported – fixed the ropes to the summit on Friday evening local time, the first commercial teams with their clients also reached the highest point on earth at 8,849 meters today. The Nepalese operator Seven Summit Treks announced the summit success of a 20-member team, seven clients and 13 Nepalese companions.
Among the latter was Kami Rita Sherpa. This was his 29th time on the summit of Everest. No one has scaled the highest mountain on earth more often than the 54-year-old from the village of Thame in the Khumbu region.
The first summit wave of the spring season can now also roll in on the Nepalese south side of Mount Everest. The Nepalese operator Seven Summit Treks reported that the ten-man rope-fixing team led by Dendi Sherpa reached the summit at 8,849 meters this evening. The route to the highest point has been secured with ropes and is now open, it said.
First the rope-fixing team, then the others. This is how commercial mountaineering on eight-thousanders usually works. Mount Everest is no exception. Today, the first summit success of the spring was reported from the highest mountain on earth.
In the morning local time, the Tibet Himalaya Expedition team, which fixed the ropes on the Tibetan north side of the mountain, reached the highest point at 8,849 meters. This was confirmed to me by Mingma Sherpa, head of the Nepalese expedition operator Climbalaya, and Lukas Furtenbach, head of the Austrian company Furtenbach Adventures.
View of Mount Everest (l.) and Lhotse (from Namche in 2019)
“At altitudes between 6800 m and 7600 m, there are many places with open blue ice,” warned Valeriy Babanov on Instagram a few days ago. “Therefore, fit and sharpen your crampons well. To avoid misunderstandings on long ice slopes. As you remember, luck always favors the strong and prepared!” Babanov is one of the strong.
The Russian has twice been awarded the Piolet d’Or, the “Oscar of mountaineering”: in 2002 for his solo ascent of the North Face of the six-thousander Meru in the Indian Himalayas, and in 2004 (together with Yuri Koschelenko) for the first ascent of the 7,804-meter-high Nuptse Shar I – in the vicinity of Mount Everest. Now aged 59, Babanov wants to scale the highest mountain on earth without bottled oxygen. If he succeeds, he would be the oldest person on Everest without a breathing mask. So far, the Italian Abele Blanc is in the record lists having achieved this feat. When he summited in 2010, Blanc was 55 years and 264 days old.
Babanov wanted to set off today from Everest Base Camp towards the South Col at just below 8,000 meters – “for the final acclimatization”, as he wrote in his Instagram story.
“A few steps more and we emerged on the very highest point of the mountain, a triangular ice-and-snow-covered piece of ground, about five square metres, commanding a panoramic view to the farthest horizon. A head wind hit us with full force.” This is how Hsu Ching (other spelling Xu Jing) , the leader of the Chinese expedition, described the moment exactly 60 years ago today when people first set foot on the summit of Shishapangma. It was 10.20 a.m. Beijing time on 2 May 1964 when the first of a total of ten climbers arrived at the highest point at 8,027 meters, reported Hsu.
This was the last of the 14 eight-thousanders to be climbed – 14 years after the first ascent of the first eight-thousander, Annapurna I, by the Frenchmen Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal. Shishapangma – translated as “crest above the grassy plains” – is the lowest eight-thousander and the only one that lies entirely on Chinese-Tibetan soil.
This much is already clear: Mount Everest will also be a much lonelier mountain on the Tibetan north side this spring than on the Nepalese south side. While the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism has so far (as of 24 April) issued 388 climbing permits for Everest, the Chinese-Tibetan authorities – as reported – are still stalling the foreign expedition teams. In any case, the number of permits is capped at 300. But there will be nowhere near that many this spring.
If you attempt Mount Everest, you should be aware that you are risking your life. You can get caught in an avalanche, fall into a crevasse, be hit by falling rocks, fall off, freeze to death, die of exhaustion, high altitude cerebral or pulmonary edema. With their “SUMMIT” study, Nepalese and Swiss scientists have now drawn attention to another potential danger that can also be fatal in extreme cases: Cardiac arrhythmias during the ascent from Everest Base Camp at 5,300 meters to the summit at 8,849 meters.
Shishapangma, the only eight-thousander located entirely in Tibet
An unusually large number of foreign eight-thousander climbers have been staying in the Langtang National Park, around 50 kilometers north of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, these days. The reason was obvious: the border to Tibet is close by and the five- and six-thousanders of Langtang are ideal for acclimatization. The teams were waiting for entry and climbing permits for China, where they wanted to try their hand at the eight-thousanders Shishapangma and Mount Everest this spring.
All those who wanted to climb the 8,027-meter-high Shishapangma received disappointing news today: the lowest of the 14 eight-thousanders remains closed. “After 17 days of waiting for an answer about the possibility of climbing Shishapangma in Tibet, we were informed that climbing in the region will not be allowed this year,” wrote Brazilian Moeses Fiamoncini on Instagram. “Now is the time to rethink our plans and redirect our energy towards exploring new challenges.”
Everest permits only after the Chinese holidays
Fiamoncini has already summited seven eight-thousanders without bottled oxygen; Shishapangma was to be number eight. Several dozen climbers had applied for permits for this eight-thousander. “It’s cancelled for this season,” confirms Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, head of the expedition operator Imagine Nepal, “but Everest will happen.” Mingma expects the permits for the highest mountain on earth “on May 6 or 7, maybe even earlier”.
Tibetan north side of Mount Everest (in spring 2005)
While Labor Day is celebrated worldwide on 1 May, in China all stores, offices and schools remain closed until 5 May to mark the occasion. Other expedition operators told ExplorersWeb that 7 May would be the date on which the border will open for the Everest teams. In return, the season should last longer than usual: until 11 June. Lukas Furtenbach, head of the Austrian operator Furtenbach Adventures, disagrees. The season also ends in Tibet on 1 June, he writes to me. Part of his team on the north side is now moving to the south side, says Lukas. The remaining clients continue to wait.
After a four-year break, the foreign expeditions want to return to the north side of Mount Everest this year. It is shaping up to be a comeback with obstacles. Meanwhile, the Nepalese government has so far (as of 22 April) issued 364 permits for the south side of Everest. Last year at this time (21 April 2023), there were already 454 climbing permits. A decrease of 23.8 percent.
Update 24 April: After the British operator Adventure Peak, the Dutch expedition leader Arnold Coster, who lives in Nepal, has also pulled the ripcord and sent his team to the south side of Nepal. “The Chinese authorities keep delaying our entry date and now I feel like waiting any longer is too risky,” Coster writes on Instagram. “After more than a dozen Everest North expeditions I simply think the gamble on a late summit is too big. Yes, there been years when people summited late, but I have also seen years when the season just abruptly stops when the monsoon arrives.”
Update 25 April: The field of teams that wanted to ascend via the north side of Everest is getting smaller and smaller. Now Andreas Neuschmid, expedition leader of the Swiss operator Kobler & Partner, has also announced that his team switches to the Nepalese south side.
Norrdine Nouar has scaled his second eight-thousander without bottled oxygen. Last Sunday (14 April), the 36-year-old German mountaineer stood on the 8,091-meter-high summit of Annapurna I in western Nepal. In spring 2023, Nouar had already scaled the 8,516-meter-high Lhotse. Norrdine did not join any large teams on either occasion, but went it alone – on the normal routes, which were secured with fixed ropes by the commercial teams.
Nouar was a late bloomer when it came to mountaineering. Neither his family nor his friends were drawn to the mountains. He is the son of a native Algerian who came to the former GDR as a guest worker and met his future German wife there. Norrine grew up in the southern German state of Franconia, studied International Technology Management and spent his free time playing computer games rather than going out into nature.
So why did the mountain fever take hold of him at some point? “Ever since I can remember, I have been driven by an insatiable curiosity, a thirst for adventure and the constant urge to take on a new challenge,” Norrdine writes on his website. “I couldn’t help but opt for an uncertain adventure. So I went to the mountains, albeit late.” He reached his first summit at the age of 23. He later climbed four-thousand-metre peaks in the Alps, in the High Atlas in Morocco and also high mountains in the Caucasus and other mountain regions around the world. Nouar has stood on the summits of Mont Blanc, Elbrus and Kilimanjaro, among others. He lives in the municipality of Oberstaufen in the Bavarion region of Allgäu.
After his summit success on Annapurna, Norrdine, currently in Kathmandu, answered my questions.
Norrdine, congratulations on your summit success on Annapurna I. What was going through your mind on the summit?
Notice: Undefined index: sfsi_riaIcon_order in /home/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 165
Notice: Undefined index: sfsi_inhaIcon_order in /home/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 166
Notice: Undefined index: sfsi_mastodonIcon_order in /home/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 177
Notice: Undefined index: sfsi_mastodon_display in /home/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 276
Notice: Undefined index: sfsi_snapchat_display in /home/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 285
Notice: Undefined index: sfsi_reddit_display in /home/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 282
Notice: Undefined index: sfsi_fbmessenger_display in /home/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 279
Notice: Undefined index: sfsi_tiktok_display in /home/www/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 273
