Adventure Mountain

3. October 20243. October 2024

40 years ago: “White Limbo” on Mount Everest

Everest North Face in the last daylight (Great Couloir in the shadwo)

It has never been repeated to this day. That says it all about the “White Limbo” route through the North Face of Mount Everest, which the Australians Tim Macartney-Snape and Greg Mortimer used to reach the summit at 8,849 meters on 3 October 1984 – 40 years ago today. They were climbing without bottled oxygen. The American Everest chronicler Walt Unsworth (1928-2017) once described the Australian expedition as “one of the greatest climbs ever done on the mountain”.

In addition to Macartney-Snape and Mortimer, Geoffrey Bartram, Andrew Henderson and Lincoln Hall were part of the Australian team that set out to open up a new route through the North Face without breathing masks. They named it White Limbo – after a song by the former rock band Australian Crawl from 1983.

27. September 202427. September 2024

Anja Blacha after her Manaslu success: “I had the summit to myself”

After the eight-thousander is before the eight-thousander. This year, this also applies to Anja Blacha, who has now climbed nine of the 14 highest mountains in the world. This makes the 34-year-old the German woman with the most eight-thousander summit successes.

Last spring, she first scaled Makalu (8,485 meters) and then Kangchenjunga (8,586 meters), both without bottled oxygen. She also climbed without a breathing mask during her successful ascent on Manaslu (8,163 meters) on Monday. Now Blacha wants to try her hand at Cho Oyu (8,188 meters). She answered my questions in Tibet.

Anja, Manaslu was your third eight-thousander summit this year. How did you fare on your ascent?

25. September 202425. September 2024

Summit success on Manaslu – eight-thousander number nine for Anja Blacha

German high-altitude mountaineer Anja Blacha has scaled the 8,163-meter-high Manaslu in western Nepal. According to Nepal’s largest expedition operator, Seven Summit Treks, the 34-year-old reached the summit on Monday morning local time – without bottled oxygen.

It was Anja’s ninth eight-thousander summit success – all of them with teams from commercial operators. She achieved eight of them without a breathing mask. She only used bottled oxygen on her two ascents of Mount Everest – in 2017 via the Tibetan north side and in 2021 via the Nepalese south side of the mountain.

21. September 202421. September 2024

Pioneer of alpinism: Hermann Buhl was born 100 years ago

“Clearly the best all-round mountaineer in the world” in his time was the Austrian Hermann Buhl, Reinhold Messner once told me. “Buhl was at least 50 years ahead of his time.”

Buhl achieved the first ascents of two eight-thousanders in Pakistan: Nanga Parbat in 1953 and Broad Peak in 1957 – without bottled oxygen. Only his companion from Broad Peak, the Austrian Kurt Diemberger succeeded who was also the first to climb Dhaulagiri, achieved this feat.

20. September 202420. September 2024

Annoyance at the decline in style on the eight-thousanders

Manaslu, the eighth highest mountain in the world

Jordi Tosas is fed up with what is currently happening on the eight-thousanders. “China has prescribed the use of oxygen and fixed ropes for all ascents. They prohibit alpine-style and solo ascents. Pakistan will triple the price of permits. Nepal has already turned the mountain control into a mafia,” writes the 56-year-old Spanish top mountaineer on social media. “Just one style! Fuck the system!”

It seems like a deep sigh in view of the first success stories of the fall season on the eight-thousanders in Nepal and Tibet. Now that the ropes have been fixed up to the summit on Manaslu, the first clients have also been guided to the summit at 8,163 meters. The commercial teams dominate the headlines. Swiss mountain guide Josette Valloton completed – with bottled oxygen – her collection of 14 eight-thousanders. US-American Tyler Andrews “ran” from base camp to the summit on a prepared slope in less than ten hours – without bottled oxygen.

18. September 202418. September 2024

Nepalese rope-fixing team reaches the summit of Manaslu

The first summit successes of the fall season on the eight-thousanders of Nepal and Tibet are reported from Manaslu. According to Nepal’s largest expedition operator Seven Summit Treks, Namgel Dorjee Tamang, Ngima Tashi Sherpa, Pemba Tashi Sherpa, Dawa Sherpa, Pam Dorjee Sherpa and Sirjangbu Sherpa reached the summit of the eighth highest mountain on earth at 8,163 meters this afternoon local time. They fixed the ropes up to the highest point on the eight-thousander in western Nepal. The numerous members of the commercial teams will be using the ropes to ascend in the coming weeks.

17. September 202417. September 2024

Reinhold Messner is 80 – Confrontation as an elixir of life

Reinhold Messner (in 2013) — Reinhold Messner

Extroverted, self-confident, opinionated, sometimes blustering, often polarizing. That’s Reinhold Messner. “I’m a living provocation,” the mountaineering legend once told me in an interview. No wonder he named his latest book, which was published just in time for his 80th birthday today, “Headwind”.

“Overcoming resistance is written into our genes,” writes Messner. “In untouched nature, we have always had to ensure our survival. The instincts developed in the process force us to react to danger under all circumstances, even where people – with bad intentions – want to harm others. My experience tells me that man-made resistance can be more destructive than natural resistance.”

10. September 202410. September 2024

After the flood – donations for the schoolchildren of Thame

For many people in the mountain village of Thame in the Everest region, the zero hour struck on 16 August. As reported, large parts of the village were destroyed that day – by masses of water, debris and mud from two glacial lakes below Tesi Lapche La (also known as Tashi Lapcha). The 5,755-meter-high pass leads from the Rolwaling Valley into the Khumbu. According to the regional administration, the flood hit at least 18 buildings. These included an elementary school and an infirmary in Thame, both built and financed by the Himalayan Trust, the aid organization of the Everest first ascender Sir Edmund Hillary, who died in 2008.

23. August 202423. August 2024

Balance of the season for commercial expeditions: Business as usual in the Karakoram

K2, the second highest mountain on earth (in 2004)

The commercial mountaineering season in the Karakoram in Pakistan is over. The expedition operators have long been beating the drum for their offers for the coming fall in Nepal and Tibet. As in previous years, the eight-thousander Manaslu in western Nepal is likely to be particularly busy.

This mountain summer in Pakistan, most of the commercial teams gathered once again at the 8,611-meter-high K2. The “King of Eight-thousanders” was long considered too dangerous and challenging for commercial expeditions and was therefore reserved for the world’s best mountaineers. This has now changed radically. In summer, the second highest mountain on earth shares the same fate that has befallen the highest of all mountains, Mount Everest, in spring for many years: Full base camp, fixed ropes up to the summit, rubbish on the normal route, traffic jams at key points.

22. August 202422. August 2024

Gasherbrum IV: Injured Russian climbers rescued, mourning for Sergey Nilov

Southeast Ridge of Gasherbrum IV (center)

Five days after the avalanche accident on the 7,932-meter-high Gasherbrum IV in the Karakoram, the two injured Russian mountaineers Sergei Mironov and Mikhail Mironov have been flown by rescue helicopter to a hospital in the northern Pakistani city of Skardu. “Their condition is satisfactory”, informed the Russian embassy in Pakistan, without giving details of the nature of their injuries. Initial reports had spoken of fractures.

According to the Russian mountaineering portal mountain.ru, the search for Sergey Nilov, who died in the avalanche, has been canceled. Too much fresh snow had fallen in the past few days, it said. The snowfall had also delayed the evacuation of the injured. Two days ago, a five-man rescue team had brought the two Russian climbers to a spot at an altitude of about 6,000 metres where a helicopter could land.

18. August 202421. August 2024

Avalanche drama on Gasherbrum IV – Nilov missing

Tragedy on the almost eight-thousander Gasherbrum IV in the Karakoram in Pakistan: Five Russian mountaineers who had set out to recover the body of their compatriot Dmitry Golovchenko, who died in an accident a year ago, were hit by an ice avalanche. “As the team ascended the mountain, an ice formation, possibly a serac, collapsed, unleashing a catastrophic event. The unforgiving nature of Gasherbrum IV, known for its hazardous terrain, turned their noble mission into a fight for survival,” wrote Karrar Haidri, President of the Alpine Club of Pakistan (ACP), in a press release.

16. August 202417. August 2024

Masses of water and mud hit the mountaineers’ village of Thame in the Everest Region

It took my breath away when I saw the pictures from Thame on the Internet today. The village lies at around 3800 metres in the Khumbu area, the region around Mount Everest. Masses of mud and water rolled through the village, which I visited in 2002 and 2019. According to the Kathmandu-based newspaper “The Himalayan Times”, around half of the village was severely damaged, especially the lower-lying areas. A school, a medical centre, seven houses and five lodges were swept away. Most of the houses were reportedly uninhabitable. At least one person is missing.

A stroke of luck: the water and mudslides hit the village in daylight. Most of the inhabitants were apparently able to reach safety in higher areas. The Gompa of Thame, one of the oldest and most important monasteries in the Khumbu, is located well above the village and is likely to have been spared from the disaster.

15. August 202415. August 2024

Livingstone and Cesen open new route on the nearly 8000er Gasherbrum III

Tom Livingstone (left) and Ales Cesen — Tom Livingstone (l.) and Ales Cesen

It’s climbs like this that keep the belief in true alpinism alive. At the beginning of August, 33-year-old Briton Tom Livingstone and 42-year-old Slovenian Ales Cesen mastered the West Ridge on the 7,952-meter-high Gasherbrum III in the Karakoram in Pakistan for the first time. They climbed in alpine style to the summit, i.e. without bottled oxygen, without fixed ropes, without fixed high camps, without high porters.

On the descent, they traversed to the eight-thousander Gasherbrum II and used the fixed ropes on the normal route of the commercial teams – “which changed our style a little, but made sense,” Livingstone wrote on Instagram. It was the much safer option for the return to base camp.

31. July 202431. July 2024

Search on K2 stopped: Mourning for Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima

The 8,611-meter-high K2 in the Karakoram (in 2004)

Even if it is difficult, it makes no sense to turn a blind eye: Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima paid for their adventure on K2, the second highest mountain on earth, with their lives. In consultation with the families of the two top Japanese climbers, the rescue operation on the second highest mountain on earth was halted yesterday – because the terrain where Hiraide and Nakajima had been located is too steep and too dangerous.

28. July 202430. July 2024

Great concern for Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima on K2

It was the project everyone whose heart beats for real alpinism was looking forward to this summer. The Japanese Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima, who are among the best mountaineers in the world, had set out to climb the extremely challenging West Face of the 8611-meter-high K2 in the Karakoram in Pakistan – on a new route, in alpine style, i.e. without bottled oxygen, without high porters, without fixed camps and without fixed ropes. According to reports from Pakistan, Hiraide and Nakajima fell from an altitude of around 7,500 meters. They had set off on their summit attempt four days ago.