Adventure Mountain

7. January 20257. January 2025

Strong earthquake in Tibet near Mount Everest

Approach to Mount Everest (center) through the Tibetan region of Tingri (in 2005)

The border region between Tibet and Nepal not far from Mount Everest was shaken by a strong earthquake today. According to Chinese reports, it reached a magnitude of 6.8 on the Richter scale, while the US earthquake observatory measured a magnitude of 7.1.

Chinese state media reported at least around 120 dead and hundreds injured on the Tibetan side. The epicenter was in the county of Tingri, around 80 kilometers north of Everest.

Tingri is the gateway for many mountaineers and trekking tourists making their way to the Tibetan north side of Mount Everest – or to the north side of the eight-thousander Cho Oyu.

In the Khumbu, the region on the Nepalese south side of Everest, the earth also shook. No major damage has been reported from there so far. The earth tremors were also felt in the capital Kathmandu, as well as in the neighboring countries of Bhutan and India.

1. January 20251. January 2025

Happy New Year!

I wish you all a peaceful 2025 with many wonderful experiences and encounters – whether in the mountains or elsewhere. 🙏

30. December 20245. January 2025

Jost Kobusch after Everest attempt: “It would have been too dangerous to climb any higher”

Jost Kobusch on the West Shoulder of Mount Everest

Jost Kobusch kept a cool head on Mount Everest. On his first push this winter, the 32-year-old German climber reached an altitude of 7,537 meters on the West Ridge. The altimeter on his watch showed this value on 27 December. His GPS tracker measured the highest altitude at 7,488 meters. On another model, the figure was 7,553 meters. Such differences are not unusual for altimeters.

In any case, Jost climbed around 200 meters higher than during his most successful attempt to date in the winter of 2019/2020, when he turned back on the West Shoulder. This time, he sniffed into the upper part of the West Ridge. I asked Jost via WhatsApp if he hadn’t been tempted to pitch his tent there and climb further up.

27. December 202427. December 2024

Jost Kobusch on Mount Everest at around 7,500 meters

If his GPS tracker sends correct information, Jost Kobusch has almost reached the goal of his winter expedition to Mount Everest this year. According to the data sent by the GPS tracker, the 32-year-old German mountaineer climbed over the West Shoulder onto Everest’s West Ridge today and reached an altitude of 7,488 meters. Jost, who is climbing solo and without bottled oxygen, then set off on his descent again. His last signal today, Friday, was sent from an altitude of just below 7,000 meters.

24. December 202421. December 2024

Merry Christmas!

I wish you a wonderful, peaceful and blessed Christmas. Enjoy the days with your loved ones!

21. December 202421. December 2024

Mount Everest, Manaslu, Annapurna: Starting signal for eight-thousander winter expeditions in Nepal

Winter solstice. This Saturday, at 10.19 am Central European Time (9.19 am Universal Time), the calendar winter began. And that was also the official starting signal for three winter expeditions on eight-thousanders in Nepal. “My expedition will start right the next day on 22nd of December so that I‘m certain I start my climb fully in winter,” writes Jost Kobusch on Instagram.

In the past, there have always been discussions among mountaineers about what exactly is meant by a winter expedition. On the one hand, there were those who took the meteorological winter (1 December to 28/29 February) as a basis and insisted that the summit success had to be achieved by the end of February at the latest. On the other side were those for whom the calendar winter was the measure of all things: with the start on the winter solstice and the beginning of spring (in 2025 on 20 March) as deadline.

19. December 202419. December 2024

Discussion again about ban on commercial helicopter flights in the Everest region

Helicopter takes off above Namche Bazaar

Same old, same old – it’s like in the Hollywood movie “Groundhog Day”. Once again, the regional administration of the Everest region has launched an attempt to restrict helicopter traffic. The Khumbu Pasanglhamu Rural Municipality has announced that commercial helicopter flights will be prohibited in Sagarmatha National Park from 1 January 2025. Only rescue flights will then be permitted, and these must be coordinated with the national park authority.

30. November 202430. November 2024

Dawa Yangzum Sherpa: “14 peaks not important as a record”

Dawa Yangzum Sherpa on the summit of Shishapangma

Anyone who regularly reads my blog knows that I have a very distanced relationship with supposed “records” in mountaineering. I make an exception for Dawa Yangzum Sherpa, because she is a true pioneer of women’s mountaineering. For more than a decade, she has been campaigning for women in her home country of Nepal to be given the opportunity to climb mountains and earn a living there. On 9 October, Dawa Yangzum summited the 8,027-meter-high Shishapangma in Tibet, becoming the first woman from Nepal to have saled all 14 eight-thousanders.

First Asian woman with an international mountain guide certificate

The Sherpani, who grew up with three brothers and two sisters in a small mountain village in the Rolwaling Valley, had already set milestones before. In 2014, she reached the summit of K2 with her compatriots Maya Sherpa and Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita. They were the first women from Nepal to scale the second highest mountain on earth. In 2017, Dawa Yangzum became the first woman in Asia to receive an international mountain guide certificate and has been working regularly as a mountain guide ever since, among others on Mount Everest.

Since 2020, she has been offering climbing courses for young Nepalese women in the Khumbu region. She herself has lived in Boulder in the USA for years and works for the expedition operator Alpine Ascents International. The 34-year-old Nepalese answered my questions.

Dawa Yangzum, first of all, congratulations on completing your collection of eight-thousanders. Would you highlight one of the 14 ascents in particular?

29. November 202429. November 2024

“School up – far west” successfully completed

Thank you! The most important words belongs at the beginning. “All the construction work has been completed,” Nepalhilfe Beilngries lets me know. The school in the village of Rama in the Humla District in the far west of Nepal has been completed.

Around 350 children from Rama and the surrounding hamlets in the municipality of Tanjakot now have a safe roof over their heads as they study, hopefully giving them a good foundation for their future lives. Nepalhilfe Beilngries had two school buildings built on a mountainside at an altitude of around 2,600 meters – with a total of twelve classrooms, a kitchen block and separate toilets for girls and boys. The construction was made possible by your donations for “School up – far west”!

14. November 202414. November 2024

Farewell on Putha Hiunchuli: Alix von Melle scatters the ashes of her husband Luis Stitzinger

At the summit of Putha Hiunchuli, Alix von Melle leaves Luis' ashes to the wind — At the summit of Putha Hiunchuli, Alix von Melle leaves Luis’ ashes to the wind

I often think about Luis Stitzinger these days. Now that his widow Alix von Melle has spread his ashes on the 7,246-meter-high Putha Hiunchuli in western Nepal. The same place where I first attempted a seven-thousander in 2011 – in vain, I had to turn back at 7,150 meters. Alix’s expedition leader on Putha Hiunchuli was now the Austrian Herbert Wolf – as he was for me 13 years ago.

And with Eva-Maria Ramsebner, from Austria too, there was also someone en route from the team with whom I was able to celebrate the first ascent of the 7,129-meter-high Kokodak Dome in western China in 2014. Expedition leader at the time: Luis Stitzinger. So many interfaces – no wonder I remember him so often these days.

6. November 20246. November 2024

Piolet d’Or posthumously awarded to Japanese mountaineers Hiraide and Nakjima

For the second time in five years, the Piolet d’ Or will be awarded posthumously to two mountaineers. As announced by the jury, the late Japanese climbers Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima are among this year’s winners. They will be awarded the “Oscar of Mountaineering” for their first ascent of the North face of Tirich Mir in summer 2023. The 7708-meter-high Tirich Mir is the highest mountain in the Hindu Kush. The jury emphasized that the Japanese had almost no prior information about the remote North Face. It was a “splendid traverse of a high-altitude mountain”, it said.

5. November 20245. November 2024

Summit attempt of the Russian Cho Oyu expedition abandoned

View from the East Ridge at around 7,300 meters towards the summit of Cho Oyu

“We have decided to go down. We can’t get to the night camp behind the hollow (on the summit ridge) in one day. We have neither the time nor the strength to make it. Today we’ll collect the equipment. Tomorrow – down.” With these words, the Russian mountaineer Andrej Vasiliev announced to the portal mountain.ru the end of the summit attempt on the Nepalese side of the 8,188-meter-high Cho Oyu.

Vasiliev and his compatriots Vitaly Shipilov, Kirill Eizeman and Sergei Kondrashin turned back on the summit ridge at an altitude of around 8,000 meters. They had previously reported deep snow on the route. It was their fourth unsuccessful attempt since the start of their expedition at the end of September, which is now likely to be over.

3. November 20247. November 2024

Death on Langtang Lirung: Mourning for Slovakian mountaineer Ondrej Huserka

The small spark of hope that the Slovakian climber Ondrej Huse r ka could be rescued alive from a crevasse on the 7,227-meter-high Langtang Lirung in Nepal has been extinguished. His Czech climbing partner Marek Holecek reported on Facebook that Ondrej died in his arms after falling into a crevasse on the descent on Thursday.

“I was rappelling down from (an) Abalakov thread. Ondra rappelled after me. What held fine for me proved fatal for him. (The) Abalakov thread cracked, and he fell into an ice crevasse. First, he hit an angled surface after an eight-meter drop, then continued down a labyrinth into the depths of the glacier. I rappelled down to him and stayed with him for four hours until his light faded. There’s nothing more to add.”

2. November 20242. November 2024

Drama on Langtang Lirung: Concern for Slovakian climber Ondrej Huserka

There is a fine line between triumph and tragedy on the world’s highest mountains. Three days after the news of the first ascent of the extremely challenging East Face of the seven-thousander Langtang Lirung in Nepal by the Czech Marek Holecek and the Slovak Ondrej Huserka, there is bad news: Ondrej fell into a crevasse on the descent two days ago, reports Slovakian mountaineer Eva Milovka, who is part of Huserka’s home team, on Facebook.

“His partner – Marek Holecek – was not able to recover him and after shouting to him and hearing no response, he assessed that Ondrej is dead and descended alone to the base camp. Yesterday was a helicopter rescue flight and nobody was willing to descent onto to glacier due to some objective dangers of the place. We have hope that Ondrej is still alive.”

31. October 202431. October 2024

Holecek and Huserka succeed in first ascent of the East Face of the seven-thousander Langtang Lirung in Nepal

Marek Holecek (l.) and Ondrej Huserka in the tent — Marek Holecek (l.) and Ondrej Huserka

Marek Holecek gave himself an early present for his 50th birthday on 5 November. The Czech top mountaineer, together with 34-year-old Slovakian Ondrej Huserka, climbed the extremely challenging 2,200-meter-high East Face of the 7,227-meter-high Langtang Lirung for the first time. Holecek let it be known via satellite phone that it took them a total of five and a half days to complete the climb and that they reached the summit yesterday, Wednesday, at 11 am. The two were climbing in alpine style – i.e. without fixed ropes and without fixed high camps.