Now there is also the first success report of the spring season from the fifth highest mountain on earth. According to expedition operator Pionier Adventure, Nepalese climbers Kami Sherpa and Pem Lakpa Sherpa led a client from the U.S. and another from Mongolia to the 8,485-meter-high summit of Makalu today – using bottled oxygen. The success of Pem Lakpa and the Mongolian was also confirmed by the operator 8K Expeditions.
Dissent over rope-fixing team
Nepal’s Ministry of Tourism has given permission to 39 foreign climbers to climb Makalu this spring (as of 8 May). Actually, the first summit successes of the season on this eight-thousander had been expected for the end of April. According to the Internet portal ExplorersWeb, the ascent had been delayed because the commercial operators could not initially agree on who should secure the normal route with fixed ropes. In the end, two teams had decided to share the task.
Update 10 May: Ahead of the four-man team from Nepal, the USA and Mongolia, the American Adrian Ballinger and the Sherpas Dorji Sonam and Pasang Sona reached the summit – as became known later. Ballinger, according to his own words, descended on skis. From where exactly, he will surely explain to us soon. Nico Miranda and Karl Egloff from Ecuador climbed Makalu according to their own information without bottled oxygen – and needed only 17 hours and 18 minutes to reach the summit from the Advanced Base Camp at 5,700 meters.
