Stefan Nestler, Autor bei Adventure Mountain

2. November 20232. November 2023

Russian expedition abandons Cho Oyu expedition – first ascents on six-thousanders

Cho Oyu (in the center of the picture the mentioned rock tower)

For the time being there is no new route on the Nepalese south side of the eight-thousander Cho Oyu. A five-member Russian team abandoned its attempt to reach – without bottled oxygen – the summit at 8,188 meters via the still unclimbed South-Southwest ridge and headed home.

Gale-force winds had prevented further ascent, the team announced on the website of the Russian Mountaineering Federation. In addition, time was running out. “The main reason for turning back was the understanding that there was still infinitely much ahead,” expedition leader Andrey Vasiliev told mountain.ru. “We had about four kilometers left to the top.”

For weeks, Vasiliev, Viktoria Klimenko, Vitaly Shipilov, Sergei Kondrashkin and Kirill Eizeman had worked their way up – repeatedly stopped by bad weather that forced them to retreat. Their highest point reached was around 7,350 meters, below a high rock tower.

26. October 202326. October 2023

Piolets d’Or for three routes on six-thousanders

The alpinistic music is currently not playing on the eight-thousanders, but on lower peaks. This is also demonstrated by the three groundbreaking climbs that will be awarded Piolets d’Or this year. The “Oscars of Mountaineering” will be handed out on 15 November in Briancon in the French Alps.

One Golden Ice Axe each will be given to three teams that have opened extremely challenging routes on six-thousanders. Already on the longlist, the pre-selection of the 53 “significant ascents” of the year 2022, neither tours on eight-thousanders nor on seven-thousanders had appeared, but instead 16 new routes on six-thousanders. The last Piolet d’Or for an eight-thousander ascent had been awarded in 2018 to the two Czechs Marek Holecek and Zdenek Hak, after they had climbed for the first time through the complete Southwest Face of Gasherbrum I in the Karakoram.

18. October 202319. October 2023

Rousseau, Marvell and Cornell pull off a coup on the 7000er Jannu

Matt Cornell, Alan Rousseau and Jackson Marvell on the summit of Jannu — Matt Cornell, Alan Rousseau and Jackson Marvell (from l. to r.) on the summit of Jannu.

It’s projects like this that show that alpinism is far from dead – even if the crisis of meaning in eight-thousander mountaineering sometimes makes it seem that way. The U.S. Americans Alan Rousseau, Jackson Marvell and Matt Cornell opened a new route on the 7,710-meter-high Jannu in eastern Nepal through the extremely steep, demanding and therefore rarely climbed North Face. It was the first time the 2,700-meter-high so-called “Wall of Shadows” had been mastered in alpine style – that is, without bottled oxygen, fixed high camps, fixed ropes or Sherpa support.

“So for three years I’ve been trying to climb the North Face of Jannu in alpine style with Matt and Jackson,” Alan Rousseau writes on Instagram. “We finally got it done! In a 7 day push BC (Base Camp) to BC.” The three climbers christened their route “Round trip ticket”.

15. October 202315. October 2023

Fatal fall on Dhaulagiri – mourning for Nadya Oleneva

Dhaulagiri in the first daylight — Dhaulagiri (in 2004)

Miracles – like last spring’s survival of Indian climber Anurag Maloo in a crevasse on Annapurna – are unfortunately the exception on eight-thousanders. On the 8167-meter Dhaulagiri, not far away, Russian climber Nadya Oleneva died in a fall yesterday. This is reported by the Russian mountaineering portal mountain.ru.

According to this information, Oleneva had set out on Friday with her Russian compatriots Roman Abildaev and Rasim Kashapov for a summit attempt without bottled oxygen. Yesterday, they climbed separately and rope-free from Camp 1 at 6,050 meters towards Camp 2 at 6,880 meters. After Roman and Rasim arrived there shortly after each other, they wondered where Elena was, who had been only a short time behind them. Rasim searched for her in vain, but spotted one of her sticks and a slide down track into the depths. The two immediately requested a helicopter rescue and descended to base camp. The helicopter could not take off until today, Sunday. Oleneva’s lifeless body was discovered at an altitude of about 6,100 meters.

13. October 202313. October 2023

Anurag Maloo, survivor on Annapurna I: “Never take a mountain lightly”

“We saw last year on Manaslu and this year on Shishapangma that even the easiest mountain can become the most difficult one, depending on the weather condition or different circumstances,” Anurag Maloo tells me. “Mountaineering is not a race, it’s your own individual journey with the mountains you go to. You shouldn’t compare yourself to others, whether it’s the 14 eight-thousanders or the Seven Summits or whatever. People shouldn’t feel that kind of a competitive mindset.”

The Indian mountaineer was referring to the avalanches in fall 2022 on the eight-thousander Manaslu in western Nepal, in which the Nepalese Anup Rai and Dawa Chhiring Sherpa and the American ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson were killed. On the other hand, the avalanches of last Saturday on Shishapangma in Tibet, in which the US-American Anna Gutu and her Nepalese mountain guide Mingmar Sherpa as well as Gina Marie Rzucidlo, also from the USA, and her Nepalese mountain guide Tenjen “Lama” Sherpa lost their lives. Others on the ground – such as the Pakistani climber Naila Kiani – had reported a real race between the two U.S. climbers with hard bandages. Both wanted to be the first woman from the USA on all 14 eight-thousanders.

9. October 202311. October 2023

Shishapangma: Mourning for four avalanche victims

The Chinese-Tibetan authorities have pulled the brakes. After two avalanches hit the summit zone of the eight-thousander Shishapangma on Saturday, they declared that “all climbing activities have been suspended in view of the unstable snow conditions on the mountain.” Apparently, this applies not only currently, but also for the rest of the fall season.

On Saturday, as reported, the US American Anna Gutu and her Nepalese mountain guide Mingmar Sherpa had died in a first avalanche. Their bodies had been found – unlike those of Gina Marie Rzucidlo, also from the U.S., and her Nepalese mountain guide Tenjen “Lama” Sherpa, who were swept away by another avalanche about two hours later. The search for the two missing people was suspended.

7. October 202311. October 2023

Avalanche on Shishapangma: Two dead, two missing

Sad news from the eight-thousander Shishapangma: According to the newspaper “The Himalayan Times”, the American climber Anna Gutu and her Nepalese guide Mingmar Sherpa died today in an avalanche accident on the 8,027-meter-high mountain in Tibet. Gina Marie Rzucidlo, also from the U.S. and her Nepalese mountain guide Tenjen “Lama” Sherpa were reported missing. Apparently there is little hope of recovering the two missing alive.

Naila Kiani and Sirbaz Khan, both from Pakistan, who were also on the mountain and eyewitnessed the disaster, spoke of four dead. They abandoned their summit attempt and descended back to Camp 1. They were “very shaken and distressed” after witnessing how the avalanche swept their friends to their deaths, they let it be known via Instagram. Apparently, two avalanches had gone off at an altitude of around 7,800 meters. The four climbers ascending on the normal route had been caught by the snow masses.

4. October 20234. October 2023

“School up – far west”: Another ceiling concreted

The construction of the school in the small mountain village of Rama in the far west of Nepal is progressing. According to Shyam Pandit, the program coordinator of the German aid organization Nepalhilfe Beilngries in the Himalayan state, the second floor slab of the second school building has now been concreted. You made it possible – through your donation for “School up – far west”. I had started the project in summer 2022. It is also supported by the Austrian top mountaineer Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner.

At the moment, there is relatively stable and largely dry fall weather in Humla District, where the village of Rama is located. A good time to build. In winter, if at all, only interior work will probably be possible. On the one hand, because of the precipitation and the sometimes bitter cold – for example, in winter 2021/2022, the schools were closed for two months because of the extremely low temperatures. On the other hand, because it will be no longer possible to transport materials over the makeshift pistes in snow and ice.

2. October 20234. October 2023

Summit successes on Cho Oyu

The weather gods remain in favor of the commercial expedition teams this fall. After numerous summit successes on Manaslu and some on Dhaulagiri – both eight-thousanders are located in western Nepal – the first ascents of the season of Cho Oyu are also reported from Tibet today. Operator Imagine Nepal announced that eight team members led by company head Mingma Gyalje Sherpa reached thesummit of the sixth-highest mountain on earth at 8,188 meters, “just five days after crossing the Tibet border, as they were well acclimatized from their Manaslu expedition”

29. September 202329. September 2023

Summit successes reported from Dhaulagiri

As the commercial climbing season on fall “fashion” eight-thousander Manaslu in western Nepal draws to a close, the first summit successes are being reported from Dhaulagiri, not far away. According to the Nepalese operator Seven Summit Treks, at least 13 members of theirs team reached the summit at 8,167 meters today.

Among them, in addition to the Sherpas who fixed the ropes to the highest point, was also (with bottled oxygen) the founder of the company, Mingma Sherpa. This means that Mingma has now undoubtedly reached all the “True Summits” of the eight-thousanders, SST announced. The now 45-year-old, celebrated in 2011 as the first Nepalese on all 14 eight-thousanders, had also scaled Manaslu again nine days ago to make up for not having stood on the very highest point before.

22. September 202322. September 2023

Pioneer and mentor: Marko Prezelj receives the Paul Preuss Prize

Actually, Marko Prejelj is a skeptic when it comes to climbers being awarded. “Basically it’s impossible to compare any climbs, because every climb has a different emotion,” the Slovenian told me in Chamonix in 2015 at the award ceremony for the Piolet d’Or, the “Oscar of climbers”. “It’s bizarre. It’s like you are making love and making an article out of it. If it’s poetry, maybe it’s okay. But it is a thin line between romantic poetry and pornography.”

If it goes by that, Marko is a great poet of the mountains. It’s not for nothing that – despite his aversion to prizes – he was the first mountaineer to be awarded the Piolet d’Or four times: in 1992, 2007, 2015 and 2016. Apart from him, only the Briton Paul Ramsden has managed this so far.

This Saturday, Prezelj will receive another trophy, the prestigious Paul Preuss Prize, at Reinhold Messner’s Mountain Museum at Sigmundskron Castle near Bolzano. The award has been presented for ten years to “extreme mountaineers or climbers who, in the course of their entire mountaineering development, have not only shown outstanding achievements in the mountains, but have also dedicated themselves to free climbing in the spirit of Paul Preuss’ philosophy with the renunciation of technical ascending gear,” the international Paul Preuss Society lets it be known. The jury is formed by the honorary chairman Messner, last year’s laureate (in the current case Thomas Huber, who was awarded in 2022) and five other members of the society. It is not a “current peak performance” that counts, but the “mountaineering life’s work,” the society emphasizes.

21. September 202315. November 2023

Everest ski descent via Hornbein Couloir?

The Tibetan north side of Mount Everest (in 2005) — The Tibetan North Face of Mount Everest (in 2005)

Fall projects on Mount Everest, once commonplace, have become rare. Because of the often rather bad weather, commercial expeditions give the highest mountain on earth a wide berth in the post-monsoon season, concentrating instead on Manaslu in western Nepal or the eight-thousanders Cho Oyu and Shishapanga in Tibet – provided the Chinese-Tibetan authorities clear these mountains.

In fall 2022, a Polish team led by ski mountaineer Andrzej Bargiel had attempted the Nepalese south side of Everest. Bargiel, who wanted to climb to the summit without bottled oxygen and ski down to base camp, and his companion Janusz Golab had aborted their summit attempt at the South Col at almost 8,000 meters. They had been greeted by such violent gusts of wind that they had not even been able to pitch their tent.

20. September 202321. September 2023

Summit successes of commercial teams on Manaslu

Manaslu in the first dailight — Manaslu (in 2007)

The first summit successes of the eight-thousander fall season are reported from Manaslu. Yesterday, Tuesday, a team of the operator Elite Exped reached the summit. The head of the company, Nepal’s “mountaineering star” Nirmal Purja, sent a video from the “True Summit” at 8,163 meters. In it, “Nims” thanked his “strong team” and announced that he would now travel on to Tibet to guide clients up the eight-thousanders Cho Oyu and Shishapangma.

Today, Wednesday, Nepalese operators Seven Summit Treks (SST) and Imagine Nepal also announced summit successes on Manaslu. For this fall, the government in Kathmandu has so far (as of 15 Sept) sold 301 climbing permits to foreign climbers for the eighth-highest mountain on earth. In fall 2022, it had issued 404 Manaslu permits.

11. September 202312. September 2023

After drama on Gasherbrum IV: Mourning for Dmitry Golovchenko

The drama happened on 31 August, on Gasherbrum IV in Pakistan, at 7,684 meters, about 250 meters below the summit. Dmitry Golovchenko and Sergey Nilov had found a small spot on the ridge to pitch their tent for the night. The ground appeared problematic, broken rock covered with ice. The two Russians fixed the tent to a rope loop.

Very quickly, however, they realized that the ground was too sloped, and the tent was in danger of slipping. Sergey climbed out to level the platform and threw Dmitry a safety rope. A short time later, Sergey heard his friend call out, “Seryoga, I’m falling.” Nilov watched the tent with Golovchenko and their gear slide down the slope and disappear into the couloir below.

10. September 202310. September 2023

Muhammad Hassan’s death on K2: Report renounces for blame

Memorial for the dead from K2, Broad Peak in the background (in 2004).

Could Muhammad Hassan still be alive today? The report of the commission of inquiry answers this question only indirectly: Yes, the father of three small children could still be alive if he had not been on K2, the second highest mountain in the world, located in Pakistan, on that 27 July. Because he simply didn’t belong there.

It was Hassan’s first eight-thousander expedition, according to the report of the five-member commission appointed by the regional government of Gilgit-Baltistan province after the death of the High Altitude Porter. Before that, Muhammad had only worked as a “Low Altitude Porter” on K2 (8,611 meters) and Spantik (7,027 meters), i.e. he had carried material to the base camps but not up the mountains.