with Stefan Nestler
Despite the restrictions resulting from the corona pandemic, Mount Everest will apparently not remain completely deserted this spring. There is growing evidence that a Chinese expedition will approach the highest mountain on earth from the Tibetan north side. According to the Kathmandu-based newspaper „The Himalayan Times“, at least 26 mountaineers from China, including six women, will attempt to climb Everest.
Continue reading “Chinese expedition to Everest?”
I just went shopping at a supermarket. I wanted to buy a kilo of flour. There was a sign on the pallet saying that each customer could only take a maximum of four packages. But not a single one was left there. Three checkouts were open, long lines formed in front of them. Most of the customers had filled their shopping trolleys to the top. Panic in Germany in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. As I stood in line at the checkout, I thought of Nepal. Many people there already lack the most necessary things. How will they survive the corona crisis?
Continue reading “Mingma Gyalje Sherpa: “All in Nepal’s tourism business will suffer””
The spring climbing season in the Himalayas is over before it has begun. After the Chinese-Tibetan authorities announced that they would not issue permits for the Tibetan north side of Mount Everest and other mountains to foreign expedition teams this spring, the Nepalese government has now pulled the rip cord too. Due to the global spread of the coronavirus, no permits will be issued for expeditions to Everest and the other high mountains of Nepal from March 14 to April 30, the government in Kathmandu announced. The already issued climbing permits are invalid. It is understood that the regulation also applies to trekking tours.
Even if the decree was withdrawn at the beginning of May, the remaining time for expeditions would be too short. The season finishes at the end of May due to the start of the monsoon season.
Continue reading “Coronavirus crisis: No permits for expeditions to Everest and Co. in Nepal”
The Chinese-Tibetan authorities have closed the Tibetan north side of Mount Everest for this spring season. This I learned from a reliable source. The decision is official, it is said. This had already been indicated in the past weeks.
The Tibetans had advised the expedition teams to travel to the north side of Everest via Kathmandu rather than via the Chinese airport in Chengdu, as is often the case, because of the corona epidemic. The Nepalese authorities declared on Monday that all land crossings to China will remain closed for the time being due to the corona crisis. This would also have made it impossible to travel via the Kerung border crossing.
Continue reading “North side of Everest to remain closed this spring”
“It will be the least crowded year on Everest for decades.” Thus Lukas Furtenbach, head of the Austrian expedition operator Furtenbach Adventures, advertised this year’s expeditions to the highest mountain on earth a few days ago. Unlike in previous years, the company not only offers the ascent on the Tibetan north side but also on the south side of Everest – not least because of the still unclear situation caused by the worldwide corona crisis. “We are preparing everything for both sides and are thus prepared to move everything to one (open) side – if necessary”, Lukas writes to me. “Let’s hope for the best!”
Continue reading “Nepal tightens entry requirements for Germans, French and Spanish”
This Sunday is International Women’s Day. Also in Nepal. Nepalese women still have a hard time in high altitude mountaineering. The Nepalese Lhakpa Sherpa, who was born in Nepal and lives in the USA, is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most successful woman on Mount Everest with nine summit successes. This spring she plans to reach the summit for the tenth time, from the Nepalese south side of the mountain. But the 46-year-old also has difficulties finding sponsors. To be able to finance her project, Lhakpa has started a crowdfunding campaign.
Since Pasang Lhamu Sherpa was the first Nepalese woman to reach the summit of Everest on 22 April 1993 (she died on the descent at the 8,749-meter-high South Summit), 66 ascents have been made by women from Nepal – half of them in the last four years, according to the mountain chronicle Himalayan Database.
Continue reading “Dawa Yangzum Sherpa: “Many female climbers from Nepal disappear again after Everest””
Jost Kobusch also designs the end of his Everest winter expedition “deliberately decelerated”, as he says. The 27-year-old mountaineer, who has already been in Nepal since mid-September, will return to Germany only in a week. Jost had attempted to climb Mount Everest solo and without bottled oxygen, on the ambitious, rarely climbed route over the Lho La, a 6000-meter-high pass between Nepal and Tibet, and the West Ridge. He had climbed up to an altitude of 7,366 meters. I reached Kobusch by phone in a hotel in Kathmandu.
Jost, how satisfied are you with the result of your Everest winter expedition?
I am quite happy. My goal was to reach 7,200 meters. I managed that, learned a lot, and I am very grateful for this experience.
What exactly did you learn?
Continue reading “Jost Kobusch: “Steep learning curve on Mount Everest””
I like solo expeditions. They are challenging and therefore exciting. And if the goal is not reached, there is no one afterwards to whom the adventurer can blame for it – except nature or himself. Even before his solo winter expedition to Mount Everest, Jost Kobusch had already told me that his main concern was to find out whether his plan to climb the highest mountain on earth solo, without bottled oxygen and on an ambitious route was realistic. “My personal goal would be to reach an altitude of about 7,200 meters. Anything above that would be a bonus, the summit anyway,” Jost had said before leaving for Nepal. In the end the bonus was 166 meters.
On his last attempt, the 27-year-old German climbed up to 7,366 meters at the Everest West Shoulder. The fact that he reached his altitude despite his damaged left foot makes him very happy, Kobusch wrote on Facebook, back in Kathmandu. “Sometimes you just have to set intermediate goals to get closer to the final goal.”
Continue reading “After 8000-meter winter expeditions: Satisfaction and trouble”
Nepal tightens the entry requirements because of the Corona epidemic. From 10 March onwards, travellers from the five countries in which the highest incidence of the disease has so far been detected will no longer be able to obtain entry visas at the borders of Nepal. This applies to citizens of China, South Korea, Italy, Iran and Japan. According to the government in Kathmandu, however, this does not mean a complete ban on entry. Anyone who wants to come to Nepal from one of these countries can apply for a visa at the Nepalese embassy in their home country, but must also provide a current health certificate.
This should also have an impact on the upcoming spring season on Mount Everest and the other high mountains of Nepal. Even before the government’s decision, Nepalese expedition operators had reported that Chinese clients had cancelled their registrations due to the corona epidemic. There had also been cancellations from Italy.
Continue reading “Commercial expeditions in times of Corona”
Mount Everest remains unclimbed in this (meteorological) winter. After the German solo climber had abandoned his last attempt on Tuesday at 7,360 meters on the West Shoulder, the two teams on the normal route also turned back today at about 7,000 meters. “No way to get to Camp 3. 45 centimeter of fresh, unstable snow on the Lhotse Face have proven too dangerous”, Alex Txikon let us know. „We also had some close calls with avalanches yesterday . It’s frustrating, we’re strong and willing to go on, but conditions are unforgiving! We must go down.“ This means that after 2017 and 2018, the 38-year-old Spaniard’s third attempt to climb Everest in winter without bottled oxygen has failed too.
Also the four Sherpas of the “Breathless Winter Everest” team, who showed up at base camp only on Monday and planned a winter speed ascent of the highest mountain on earth, threw in the towel just below Camp 3. Expedition leader Tashi Lakpa Sherpa, like Txikon, pointed out the dangerous conditions in the Lhotse flank: too much unstable fresh snow, underneath blue ice.
Continue reading “All Everest summit attempts abandoned”
Is it over? As Jost Kobusch’s GPS tracker showed today, he descended from the Everest West Shoulder to Lho La. On the 6,000-meter-high pass between Nepal and Tibet he had set up his Camp 1. Yesterday, Monday, the 27-year-old German climber had reached an altitude of about 7,300 meters, but had then climbed down again to his Camp 2 at about 6,800 meters.
Kobusch had set himself the extremely ambitious goal of climbing the highest mountain on earth solo and without bottled oxygen, via the rather rarely climbed West Ridge and the Hornbein Couloir in the North Face. Before his current try he had spoken of the “final attempt”. This was also in line with his announcement before the expedition to break down his tents on Everest by the end of the calendrical winter next Saturday at the latest.
Continue reading “Everest winter expeditions: Kobusch down, the others up”
Will the four-year-old Mateo Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo junior, aged nine, one day enchant the football world like their famous fathers? Quite possible. The two sons of the superstars Lionel Messi from Argentina and Cristiano Ronaldo from Portugal already showed a remarkable feeling for the ball as little children. But that they really follow in their fathers’ footsteps is by no means guaranteed.
Simon Messner, son of the legendary Reinhold Messner, didn’t even want to know anything about mountaineering. “The subject was too present in my family, too commonplace,” the 29-year-old explains on his website the astonishing fact that he started climbing only as a teenager. In addition, Simon was afraid of heights, which had to be overcome: “Don’t fall, then nothing can happen, was my motto. It has remained so to this day.”
Today Simon regularly goes into the mountains and also on expeditions: Last summer he achieved two first ascents of six-thousanders in Pakistan. Simon Messner actually studied molecular biology, but then switched “from the microworld of molecules back to the macroworld of mountains,” as he says. That doesn’t just include climbing. With his 75-year-old father Reinhold, Simon Messner also makes documentary films in and about the mountains.
Simon, do you currently see yourself more as an alpinist or as a filmmaker?
Continue reading “Simon Messner: “I am a climber by passion””
There can be no more than one summit attempt. Jost Kobusch and Alex Txikon agree on this. Both want to climb Mount Everest without bottled oxygen this winter, but in different styles and on different routes. The German solo climber Kobusch wants to do it via the West Ridge and then through the Hornbein Couloir in the North Face to the highest point at 8,850 meters, the Spaniard Txikon with three Sherpas via the Lhotse flank and the South Col.
Kobusch has again ascended to Lho La, a pass of about 6,000 meters on the border between Nepal and Tibet, at the foot of the West Ridge. Yesterday, he reported on Facebook in “light snowfall” from Camp 1. He has rejected all alternative routes, the 27-year-old announced, sounding not very optimistic: “I will make my last and final attempt on the heavily icy route I explored last time in a 17-hour push.“ Before, Jost had complained about new pains in his stressed left foot.
Continue reading “Winter expeditions: Time of decision on Everest”
“(It) Is Enough!” That Denis Urubko with this statement on Monday did not only mean the failed winter expedition on Broad Peak, but also his eight-thousander career, was not really clear. But then it gradually seeped through the social networks: The 46-year-old says goodbye to expeditionary mountaineering after two decades. “I plan to stop risky mountaineering, in any mountains,” Denis confirmed yesterday to the Spanish website desnivel.com. “I want to walk on hills and sport climbing.” He will probably do the latter mainly with his partner, the Spanish climber Maria “Pipi” Cardell.
The Russian, who also has a Polish passport, has stood on the top of eight-thousanders 22 times, most recently in summer 2019, when he solo climbed a new route on Gasherbrum II.
Continue reading “Denis Urubko announces the end of his eight-thousander career”
“I am (back) in base camp”, Denis Urubko wrote today in a text message to his partner, the Spanish climber Maria “Pipi” Cardell”. “No summit, but (I) survived despite some incidents.” The Russian-born, who has a Polish passport too, left yesterday for his, as he had announced, last summit attempt on Broad Peak. The wind in the summit area was blowing at 70 to 80 kilometers per hour, Denis reported to Cardell. “An avalanche (made me) slide for 100 m, then I fell down with a broken fixed rope for 50 m – not into a crevasse fortunately. I fought despite everything. (It) is enough!”
Continue reading “Urubko abandons summit attempt on Broad Peak”
