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.

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Summit successes on Dhaulagiri

Sergi Mingote on Dhaulagiri (in Camp 2)

“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.

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Mount Everest: When the serac threatens

Monster serac above the Khumbu Icefall

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.

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Shishapangma permit for Nirmal Purja after all?

Positive signals for Nirmal Purja

The numerous appeals to the Chinese-Tibetan authorities may have borne fruit. After all, there are now signals from Lhasa that Nirmal “Nims” Purja will possibly receive a special permit for this fall to climb the 8,027-meter-high Shishapangma. “Chinese authorities have clearly conveyed me a message that Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu will do necessary arrangement to secure a Shishapangma climbing permit for Purja and his team of ‘Project Possible‘ at the earliest,” Dawa Sherpa, managing director of the Nepalese expedition operator “Climbalaya Treks”, told the newspaper “The Himalayan Times”.

At the earliest could mean: after the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the communist state in China are over. However, there is still no official confirmation, neither from the China Tibet Mountaineering Association (CTMA), which is responsible for issuing the permit, nor from Nirmal Purja himself.

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Open letter in the matter of Nims and Shishapangma

Nirmal Purja

Dear Chinese-Tibetan authorities, now it is up to you whether Nirmal, called “Nims” Purja can successfully complete his “Project Possible” – all 14 eight-thousanders in seven months – or not. Today he has also scaled the 8,163-meter-high Manaslu, the eighth highest mountain on earth. It was the 13th eight-thousander for the 36-year-old Nepalese since the end of April, when the former soldier of the British Gurkha Regiment opened the dance with his success on Annapurna. Now he is only missing the Shishapangma, with 8,027 meters the “lowest” eight-thousander. And that’s where you come in.

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Summit wave rolling on Manaslu

Rope fixing team, including Muhammad Ali “Sadpara” (r.)

It’s served on the “fall trend eight-thousander” Manaslu. According to the Nepalese expedition operator “Seven Summit Treks”, a team of five reached today the summit at 8,163 meters. Ngima Dorje Sherpa, Ngima Thenduk Sherpa, Tenji Chhumbi Sherpa, Namja Bhote and the Pakistani Muhammad Ali “Sadpara” fixed the ropes up to the highest point in a three-day “tireless effort”, it said. 

Number eight for Ali “Sadpara”

For Muhammad Ali, it was his eighth eight-thousander. The 43-year-old, one of the first winter ascenders of Nanga Parbat in 2016, has now scaled Lhotse, Makalu and Manaslu in Nepal in addition to the five eight-thousanders of his home country Pakistan. 

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Eight-thousander No. 12 for Nirmal Purja

Nirmal Purja on Cho Oyu

The Nepalese climber Nirmal, called “Nims” Purja has filled the dozen. The 36-year-old former soldier of the British Gurkha Regiment scaled today – along with seven other mountaineers – the 8,188-meter-high Cho Oyu in Tibet, the sixth highest mountain on earth. It was the first eight-thousander success in this fall season. Since the end of April, Nims has climbed twelve of the 14 eight-thousanders and is approaching the goal of successfully completing his “Project Possible” – all eight-thousanders in seven months.

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Ski mountaineer Davo Karnicar is dead

Davo Karnicar (1962-2019)

Mourning for Davo Karnicar: The first person to ski from the summit of Mount Everest to the base camp died in a forest accident in his Slovenian hometown of Jezersko. Karnicar succumbed to his severe injuries on Monday. A tree he had tried to cut down with a chainsaw had fallen on him. Davo was 56 years old. He leaves behind seven children from two marriages. 

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Jost Kobusch: “8000 meters would be a mega success”

Jost Kobusch

“For me, time is the key to success,” says Jost Kobusch. And so the 27-year-old German mountaineer will already be heading for Nepal next Sunday – three months before the actual start of his expedition. Jost plans to climb Everest in winter, from the south side, over the Lho La (a 6,000 meter high pass to Tibet) to the West Ridge, through the Hornbein-Couloir to the summit – without bottled oxygen, solo. Beforehand he wants to acclimatize in peace and climb a six- as well as a seven-thousander, in preparation for the highest of all mountains. 

The only mountaineer so far to stand without breathing mask on the 8,850-meter-high summit in winter was the legendary Ang Rita Sherpa, on 22 December 1987, exactly at the beginning of the calendrical winter. Some purists argue that Ang Rita ascended in the meteorological winter (which begins on 1 December), but in the calendrical fall – and that it was therefore, strictly speaking, not an Everest winter ascent. 

Jost Kobusch wants to start his expedition at the beginning of the calendrical winter and finish it before the end of the meteorological winter (29 February). “The beginning of December and March doesn’t feel like winter for me,” says Jost. 

In 2015, Kobusch became internationally known in one fell swoop when he shot a video of the avalanche, which – triggered by the devastating earthquake in Nepal – came down from Pumori, hit the base camp at the foot of Mount Everest and killed 19 people. At that time Kobusch actually wanted to climb Lhotse. In 2016 he scaled Annapurna, his first eight-thousander, without bottled oxygen. In 2017 he succeeded in the first ascent of the 7,321-meter-high Nangpai Gosum II in eastern Nepal, also without breathing mask.

Jost, you haven’t tried an eight-thousander in winter so far. Why immediately Mount Everest, the highest mountain on earth? 

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Nirmal Purja’s “Project Possible” becomes a political issue

Manaslu

On his way to number 12. Nirmal, called “Nims” Purja and his team arrived at the base camp at the foot of Manaslu. The 36-year-old Nepalese, an ex-soldier of the British Ghurka regiment, wants to reach the last three summits this fall in the third phase of his “Project Possible” (all 14 eight-thousanders in seven months): Manaslu, Cho Oyu and Shishapangma. The first he will tackle is Manaslu in Nepal, the eighth highest mountain on earth.

260 foreign mountaineers from 26 expedition teams, to whom the Nepalese government has issued permits for this fall, also want to climb the 8,163-meter-high peak. So the Manaslu summit ridge is likely to be crowded once again – especially if the commercial expeditions take the latest findings about the highest point of this mountain seriously and lead their clients far over the ridge to the “real” summit. In recent years, many commercial teams had declared one of the slightly lower elevations on the ridge to be the summit and had turned back from there.

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Steve Swenson after the first ascent of Link Sar: “Maybe my swan song”

Link Sar

I’m not really good at keeping things tidy on my desk, including the digital one. Most of the time my desktop swells over with used pictures and documents – until I lose track of them and finally fill the trash. The adjoining image of Link Sar by Steve Swenson seemed to develop into a “shelf warmer” on my screen. It lay there unused for two years. However, not like most other files because of my sloppiness, but because I was convinced that I would need it one day. Now it’s time. This summer the Americans Swenson, Mark Richey, Graham Zimmerman and Chris Wright succeded the first ascent of the technically extremely difficult 7,041-meter- high Link Sar in northern Pakistan.

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Mingma David Sherpa: Only Shishapangma is still missing

Mingma Gyabu (“David”) Sherpa

Shishapangma, of all places. The lowest of the 14 eight-thousanders is not only one of the three peaks missing from the Nepalese Nirmal “Nims” Purja to successfully complete his “Project Possible” – all 14 eight-thousanders in seven months. One of his faithful helpers, Mingma Gyabu Sherpa, also wants to scale the 8,027-meter-high mountain in Tibet this fall. If successful, Mingma “David”, as he also calls himself, would have completed the 14 eight-thousanders. But it is still uncertain whether the Chinese-Tibetan authorities will really make an exception for Nims’ team. As reported, no permits are supposed to be issued for Shishapangma in the upcoming fall season. In this case, the mountain would remain closed.

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Ski mountaineer Bargiel and speed specialist Jornet want to scale Everest

Mount Everest

For almost nine years the summit of Mount Everest was deserted in fall. That could change now. The Kathmandu-based newspaper „The Himalayan Times“ reports that ten climbers have received permits for the world’s highest mountain for the upcoming season. Among them are Polish ski mountaineer Andrzej Bargiel and his older brother Grzegorz.

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Eight-thousander discussion: How far up is the top?

Annapurna summit ridge

“Were you on the summit?” Actually, this question should be easy to answer. After all, common sense whispers that the summit is where you can’t get higher. But there are vagaries of nature. Not every mountain is shaped like a pyramid, with a clear peak. In seven years of research, a team led by Eberhard Jurgalski, the German chronicler of high-altitude mountaineering, has investigated three of the 14 eight-thousanders which, due to topographical conditions, have repeatedly been misjudged by climbers: Annapurna, Dhaulagiri and Manaslu. “It is clear now after all this research and communication that many mountaineers, including some well-known ones, have definitely failed to reach the very highest points on one or more of these mountains, ” writes Eberhard on his webside 8000ers.com.

Take Annapurna, for example: Based on high-resolution satellite images, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) made available to Jurgalski and Co. a profile of the Annapurna summit ridge, which is more than 300 meters long, with centimeter-accurate data on the elevations. There are some of them: besides the “real” 8,091-meter-high summit more than a handful of cornices, which could be and partly in fact were taken for the summit. One of these points is only a few centimeters lower than the summit, while the difference on another is almost 27 meters.

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Herbert Hellmuth: On top of K2 with 180 meters of rope in his backpack

Herbert Hellmuth on the summit of K2

“I have never been so scared as I was on this mountain”, says Herbert Hellmuth about K2 in the Karakoram in Pakistan. On 25 July, at three o’clock in the morning, still in the dark, he stood on the 8611-meter-high summit of the second highest mountain on earth – and wanted to descend again as quickly as possible: “At the summit a really strong wind blew, and it was accordingly cold: without wind chill between minus 30, minus 35 degrees. When the wind whistles, you are quickly at minus 40, minus 50 degrees. Then, if the camera isn’t frozen, you take two quick pictures and make sure you get away as soon as possible.”

Camp 4 below the Bottleneck

Especially the so-called “Bottleneck”, a narrow couloir at about 8,000 meters under a hanging glacier, made him afraid, Herbert tells me: “You’re standing under this serac and see chunks of ice as big as cars in front of you. And you know very well that they fell down recently.” He managed to “put his fear aside”, says the 50-year-old. He simply had no alternative. “I thought to myself: the others also ran up there yesterday. Nothing will happen.”

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