The starting signal for the spring climbing season on Mount Everest has been given: A total of nine members of the so-called “Icefall Doctors” team set off this week from Namche Bazaar, the main town in the Everest region, to the base camp on the Nepalese south side of the highest mountain on earth. Six…
The eight-thousander Manaslu in western Nepal remains an almost impregnable winter fortress. With the Spaniards Alex Txikon and Inaki Alvarez and their Sherpa team, the last climbers on the eighth highest mountain on earth also threw in the towel at the weekend. “We were very close, but in the end it was not possible,” said…
Again nothing. For the second time in five days, the team around the Spaniard Alex Txikon had to end their summit attempt on the eight-thousander Manaslu in western Nepal at an altitude of about 7,000 meters. Just like last Sunday, the weather put a spoke in their wheel today. Txikon, his Spanish compatriot Inaki Alvarez…
It will be a race against time. For Saturday, on the 8,163-meter-high Manaslu in western Nepal, strong winds in high altitude are expected again. Nevertheless, the Spaniards Alex Txikon and Inaki Alvarez, the Italian Simone Moro and the three Sherpas Chhepal, Gelum and Namja set off yesterday for another summit attempt. Moro, however, turned back…
“Pakistan has lost a great mountaineer, my father and two other climbers are no more with us.” Sajid Ali Sadpara said today at a press conference in Skardu in northern Pakistan what had actually been in the air for days, but no one wanted to announce publicly. But as difficult as it is to admit…
The good news first: all climbers on the eight-thousander Manaslu in western Nepal have returned safely to base camp from their summit attempt. The not-so-good news: the hard work done by Alex Txikon’s team over the past few days was in the end in vain. According to Txikon, the end of the line was at…
“My tin whistle is an essential part of my climbing equipment,” says Sean Villanueva O’Driscoll. “When I’m dangling high up a vertical cliff, stuck in a storm in a small portaledge for days in a row, my tin whistle is there to make sure that I’m not waiting. I’m being. I play music.” The climber…
Conditions on Manaslu are not ideal, but when are they ever in winter? In the past few days it has been snowing on the eighth highest mountain on earth. And so the two Spaniards Alex Txikon and Inaki Alvarez, the Italian Simone Moro and four Sherpas, who support the Europeans, have to work their way…
Bad weather on K2 prevents for the time being the further search for the three missing climbers Muhammad Ali Sadpara, John Snorri Sigurjonsson and Juan Pablo Mohr. The mountain rescuers were standing by, the Pakistani military said. As soon as weather permitted, the search would continue, it said. Flights by rescue helicopters had been suspended…
The sad news just don’t stop. Italian ski mountaineer Carlalberto, called “Cala” Cimenti has been buried by an avalanche while freeriding on a mountain near the northern Italian resort of Sestriere. The 45-year-old and a friend with whom he was skiing could only be recovered dead.
Giving up is not an option – not yet. For the third day in a row, Pakistan Army rescue helicopters searched the mountain flanks of the 8,611-meter-high K2 for the three climbers missing since Friday: Muhammad Ali Sadpara from Pakistan, John Snorri Sigurjonsson from Iceland and Juan Pablo Mohr from Chile. The result as on…
The great concerns about the Icelander John Snorri Sigurjonsson, the Pakistani Muhammad Ali Sadpara and the Chilean Juan Pablo Mohr continue. Again today, rescue helicopters of the Pakistani army flew twice to the 8,611-meter-high K2 in the Karakoram to search for the missing climbers on the flanks of the mountain: again no trace of the…
Alex Txikon sums it up: ” Waiting for the miracle is the only thing we have.” The Spanish climber follows the rescue operation on K2 in Pakistan at the base camp on the eight-thousander Manaslu in Nepal. For more than a day there has been no news or trace of John Snorri Sigurjonsson from Iceland,…
Sad news from the second highest mountain on earth: Bulgarian climber Atanas Skatov fell to his death on K2 while descending from Camp 3. His body was recovered by the crew of a Pakistani rescue helicopter. Atanas was only 42 years old. “While changing his safety from one rope to the other, seems some errors…
It smells of further winter summit successes on K2. After ten Nepalese succeeded in the first winter ascent of the second highest mountain on earth on 16 January, at least about a dozen climbers reached Camp 3 at 7,300 meters today. From there, they planned to set off towards the summit on Friday. As before,…
