“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.
In the footsteps of their Russian compatriots
The four Russian mountaineers wanted to climb to the summit of the sixth highest mountain on earth this fall – without bottled oxygen – via the long East Ridge. The route had only been mastered once before: by a Russian expedition in fall 1991.
The Nepalese side of Cho Oyu is technically very demanding, which is why almost all commercial expeditions climb the mountain via the Tibetan north side – as was the case when the Austrian Herbert Tichy and his team made the first ascent in 1954.
In fall 2023, Vasiliev and Co. had attempted the Southsouthwest Ridge of Cho Oyu to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Russian Mountaineering Association and had reached an altitude of around 7,350 meters. Bad weather forced them to turn back at that time. Last June, a seven-member team from the commercial operator Seven Summit Treks, led by Nepalese climber Gelje Sherpa, completed this new route to the summit.
