Expeditions Archive - Page 12 of 17

22. December 201922. December 2019

8000er winter expeditions run up

The time for differences of opinion is over – at least as far as winter ascents in the northern half of the world are concerned. This Sunday marked the beginning of the two months in which the meteorological winter (1 December to 29 February) and the calendar winter (22 December to 31 March) overlap. Should a summit success be achieved by the end of February, it will be noted everywhere and by everyone as a winter ascent. At a later date, there are some (few) like Denis Urubko who complain. For the native Kazakh, who meanwhile has a Russian and a Polish passport, the climate is decisive, not the calendar. In March, he argues, the temperature and the conditions mean less winter than in December: “In this context the ‘astronomical’ year is only naked abstraction which doesn’t have a real embodiment for terrestrial conditions.“

9. December 20199. December 2019

How many 8000er winter expeditions are left?

The meteorological winter has begun, the calendrical is just around the corner. And yet it is still not quite clear how many eight-thousander winter expeditions will really take place in this cold season. The expedition announced in September by Mingma Gyalje Sherpa (Nepal), John Snorri Sigurjonsson (Iceland) and Gao Li (China) to K2, the only eight-thousander not yet summited in winter, is on the brink due to financial problems. “We have raised money from our pocket but calculating everything, we found it’s beyond our budget,” Mingma writes on Facebook. “As this is winter climb, there are huge hidden cost.” The 33-year-old, who has already scaled K2 twice in summer, has started a crowdfunding campaign (click here) to raise the obviously still missing sum of 75,000 US dollars.

27. November 201927. November 2019

Simone Moro and Tamara Lunger plan Gasherbrum double traverse in winter

The 33-year-old South Tyrolean Tamara Lunger and the 52-year-old Italian Simone Moro follow in the footsteps of Reinhold Messner and Hans Kammerlander. In summer 1984, 35 years ago, the South Tyrolean Messner and Kammerlander had written alpine history in the Karakoram in Pakistan, when they had traversed the eight-thousanders Gasherbrum II (8,034 meters) and Gasherbrum I (8,080 meters): in Alpine style, in one push, i.e. without descending – a pioneering act that has not been repeated on these two eight-thousanders to this day. The Spaniards Alberto Inurrategi, Juan Vallejo and Mikel Zabalza last failed in 2016 and 2017 in attempting the double traverse oft he Gasherbrum summits. “We raise the bar on it,“ says Simone Moro, „daring both eight-thousand meter peaks including the crossing as a winter expedition.“

23. November 201924. November 2019

China again fuels the permit price spiral for Everest and Co.

Permits for eight-thousander expeditions in Tibet will be significantly more expensive from next spring. The Chinese Mountaineering Association (CMA) has now sent out the new tariffs, which are to apply from the beginning of 2020 to the end of 2022. The price increase for Mount Everest is particularly high. According to the list available to me, the foreign summit candidates for the world’s highest mountain will now have to pay 15,800 US dollars instead of 9,950. That is an increase of around 58 percent. For Cho Oyu, 9,300 dollars per mountaineer will have to be paid next spring. So far it was 7,400 dollars, which results in a plus of 25 percent. The permits for Shishapangma will cost 9,300 dollars for the normal route via the North Face (previously 7,150 dollars, plus 30 percent), 9,400 dollars for the South Face (previously 7,650, plus 22 percent).

18. November 20194. December 2019

Giant flag on Ama Dablam divides opinion

Nailing one’s colors to the mast is actually regarded as something positive. But does the flag have to be 100 x 30 meters and fly from a 6812-meter-high summit? That’s exactly what happened on Tuesday last week on the beautiful Ama Dablam in the Everest region. A giant flag of Kuwait was rolled out from the summit ridge down the striking hanging glacier. Even in the village of Khumjung, a good ten kilometers away as the crow flies, the flag was still visible. Since then, the mountaineering scene has been discussing the action fiercely. Some see the mountain desecrated and the alpinistic values betrayed, others cheer the daring of the action.

29. October 201929. October 2019

Nirmal Purja completes eight-thousanders in six months

Nims did it. “Mission achieved”, Nirmal, called “Nims” Purja announced today, after his “Project Possible” team had reached the 8,027-meter-high summit of Shishapangma in Tibet. The 36-year-old former soldier of the British Gurkha Regiment has thus successfully completed his plan to climb all 14 eight-thousanders in seven months. It was even faster than planned. Only six months and six days passed between his first eight-thousander success on Annapurna on 23 April and that on Shishapangma. For comparison: The fastest eight-thousander collector to date, the South Korean Kim Chang-ho, needed seven years, ten months and six days.

25. October 201925. October 2019

Felix Prokop: Without breathing mask on Cho Oyu, down with skis

Felix Prokop during the ascent to Cho Oyu

Felix Prokop was among those who met Nirmal Purja on the mountain this fall. The 28-year-old German mountaineer crossed the way of the Nepalese – who is expected tp successfully complete his “Project Possible” (all 14 eight-thousanders in less than seven months) on Shishapangma in the next few days – below Camp 1 on Cho Oyu. “Nims” had just ticked off his twelfth eight-thousander. “I congratulated him on his summit access,” Felix writes to me. “He was quite friendly and visibly in a hurry to descend as quickly as possible. I think he wanted to be back at Manaslu Base Camp the next day. On site, he’s a little bit like a rock star. Even the Sherpas seem to be very impressed by him.” Not without reason: Four days later, on 27 September, Purja stood on the summit of Manaslu, his 13th eight-thousander since the end of April.

23. October 201926. October 2019

Nirmal Purja: Toothache before Shishapangma summit attempt

Every slight movement of the jaw hurts up to the ears, even speaking. Anyone who has ever had toothache at high altitudes knows what Nirmal “Nims” Purja is going through in Shishapangma Base Camp. “I’m having a massive trouble with my wisdom tooth. It’s so bloody painful and it’s getting me fever,” the 36-year-old Nepalese climber writes on Facebook, adding ” Yes I have been brushing my teeth and have been using dental floss too.” Toothaches are anything but ideal conditions for a summit attempt on the 8,027-meter-high mountain in Tibet – the last one that Nims still needs to successfully complete his ambitious “Project Possible” (all 14 eight-thousanders in seven months).

16. October 201910. December 2019

Exciting attempts on Chamlang and Hongku Chuli

“I’m fine. The mountain is traversed”, Frederick II said on 17 August 1786. Reportedly these were the last words of the Prussian king. Even though it is not known that he chose them on his deathbed because he had a passion for mountains, many climbers would subscribe the statement of “Old Fritz”, as the King was called at that time. The traverse of a technically difficult mountain is still considered a special achievement. Not far from the eight-thousander Makalu in eastern Nepal, two teams are currently trying their hand at traverses.

The professional climbers David Göttler from Germany, Hervé Barmasse from Italy and the Colombian Andres Marin, who lives in the USA, have set themselves the goal of crossing the three peaks of the seven-thousander Chamlang. The trio already set up their base camp at the foot of the mountain last weekend. According to Hervé, their acclimatization is completed. Last week, the three climbers had got used to the thinner air in the mountains around the village of Chukhung in the Khumbu region.

15. October 201915. October 2019

Nirmal Purja is allowed to climb Shishapangma

The week-long adjourned game has come to an end. “With full of mixed emotions ; I feel very humble, thankful and proud today. Finally me and my team has got the permit to climb Shishapangma,” the Nepalese climber Nirmal “Nims” Purja announces on the social networks. His patience had been put to a hard test in the last weeks.

Since the end of April, the 36-year-old former soldier of the British Gurkha Regiment has scaled 13 of the 14 eight-thousanders in an unprecedented tour de force. Only the 8,027-meter-high Shishapangma is missing to successfully complete his “Project Possible” (all 14 eight-thousanders in seven months). The Chinese-Tibetan authorities had actually closed the lowest of the eight-thousanders for this fall season – for safety reasons, it was said.

11. October 201913. October 2019

Summit attempt on Dhaulagiri abandoned – Purja still waiting for Shishapangma permit

Camp 3 at 7,250 meters was the end of the lines. The Nepalese operator “Expedition Base” informed on Facebook that all mountaineers who had set off on Tuesday for another summit attempt on the eight-thousander Dhaulagiri descended towards the base camp today. The Spaniard Carlos Soria and his teammates were among those who turned back. “The wind was very strong, and the weather forecasts for the summit area have not turned better,” the 80-year-old let us know via Twitter.

9. October 201910. October 2019

Moeses Fiamoncini: Fall on Dhaulagiri

The Brazilian climber Moeses Fiamoncini, according to his own words, has cheated death on Dhaulagiri last Thursday. “Due to an accident at 8,120 meters, I was unable to reach the summit of Dhaulagiri. I was only 47 meters short to conquer my fifth eight-thousander,” the 39-year-old informed after returning to Kathmandu. When he crossed near the summit a rock band which was covered with 30 centimeters of snow, he slipped and fell 20 meters, said Fiamoncini, adding that his helmet was broken and his down suit, gloves and shoes had filled with snow. “I almost died of hypothermia,” reports Moeses – especially since he had been en route without a sherpa and bottled oxygen.

7. October 2019

Kilian Jornet turns around on Everest at 8,300 meters

Kilian Jornet above the South Col (view to Lhotse)

The fall season on Mount Everest has come to an end without a climber being able to reach the summit at 8,850 meters. “All the other teams have gone home, climbers are off the mountain and I’m the last one here,” the American expedition leader Garrett Madison wrote on Sunday from the base camp on the Nepalese south side of the mountain. Until the end he and his team had hoped that the giant Serac, which – as reported – hangs about 800 meters above the Khumbu Icefall and threatens to fall at any moment, would break off. “Even if the Serac came down, our climbers were able to return to base camp in a few days, and we had perfect weather and route conditions to climb, it would take us over two weeks beyond our orginial end date to climb the mountain.” The only summit attempt of the season on Everest was made by the Spanish speed specialist Kilian Jornet – solo.

3. October 20199. October 2019

Summit successes on Dhaulagiri

“I’ve reached the top,” the Spaniard Sergi Mingote announced today via Twitter. The ascent from Camp 3 at 7,250 meters to the summit of Dhaulagiri at 8,167 meters took him 13 hours. “In only 444 days this is the seventh 8000-meter-summit, without the help of artificial oxygen.” In 2018, the 38-year-old had scaled Broad Peak, K2 and Manaslu, this year already Lhotse, Nanga Parbat and Gasherbrum II before Dhaulagiri. Sergi has resolved to climb all 14 eight-thousanders within 1000 days without breathing mask. At the scheduled end of his project in May 2021, he wants to scale Mount Everest.

2. October 20192. October 2019

Mount Everest: When the serac threatens

The tyrant Dionysios had a large sword hung over Damocles, held only by a single hair of a horse’s tail. In this way Dionysius wanted to demonstrate to the obsequious courtier the transience of life. This is what‘s currently also happening to the climbers at Mount Everest. Like the Sword of Damocles in the Greek saga, a monster serac is hanging 800 meters above the Khumbu Icefall and looks as if it will break off at any moment.

As heavy as 675 trucks

Polish ski mountaineer Andrzej Bargiel, who photographed the shaky ice tower, estimates the icy monster to be 50 meters high and 30 meters wide. If we take these values as a basis and assume a depth of 20 meters based on the proportions in Bargiel’s photo, the volume would be about 30,000 cubic meters. Ice weighs around 900 kilograms per cubic meter, giving us a total weight of about 27,000 tons – equivalent to 675 fully loaded 40-ton trucks. No wonder that some fall climbing teams have already broken down their tents at Everest Base Camp because of the threatening giant serac.