As the commercial climbing season on fall “fashion” eight-thousander Manaslu in western Nepal draws to a close, the first summit successes are being reported from Dhaulagiri, not far away. According to the Nepalese operator Seven Summit Treks, at least 13 members of theirs team reached the summit at 8,167 meters today.
Among them, in addition to the Sherpas who fixed the ropes to the highest point, was also (with bottled oxygen) the founder of the company, Mingma Sherpa. This means that Mingma has now undoubtedly reached all the “True Summits” of the eight-thousanders, SST announced. The now 45-year-old, celebrated in 2011 as the first Nepalese on all 14 eight-thousanders, had also scaled Manaslu again nine days ago to make up for not having stood on the very highest point before.
According to SST, three of the 13 team members climbed Dhaulagiri without bottled oxygen: Mingtemba Sherpa and Pasang Nurbu Sherpa of Nepal, and Brazilian Moeses Fiamoncini. Also the Nepalese Nirmal Purja, head of operator Elite Exped, reached the summit at the head of his team without a breathing mask, according to information from the newspaper Himalayan Times.
Eyes now on Tibet
On Manaslu, commercial teams – due to exceptionally stable weather – had celebrated some 250 summit successes this fall. There had been no accidents. Now, Nepalese expedition operators are concentrating primarily on the two eight-thousanders Cho Oyu and Shishapangma, whose normal routes – albeit late – were cleared by the Chinese-Tibetan authorities in the fall for the first time in years. Previously, the eight-thousanders located in Tibet had remained closed to foreign teams for three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
