Cho Oyu Archive - Adventure Mountain

14. October 202514. October 2025

Afsaneh Hesamifard is the first Iranian woman on all 14 eight-thousanders

Afsaneh Hesamifard at the summit of Cho Oyu

I must admit that I have almost given up trying to keep track of who has climbed how many eight-thousanders, when, and in what style.

There are now so many commercial expeditions that it is – at least for me – hardly possible to keep track of them all and verify their success stories, which are mostly published on social media. The periods in which paying clients of commercial operators “tick off” the 14 eight-thousanders are also getting shorter and shorter. Therefore, I make no claim to completeness.

Today, Chhang Dawa Sherpa, board member of the Nepalese operator Seven Summit Treks, announced via Instagram the summit success of a five-member team on the 8,188-meter-high Cho Oyu in Tibet. Afsaneh Hesamifard was also part of the team, completing her collection of the 14 eight-thousanders (with bottled oxygen) – the first woman from Iran to do so.

It took her three and a half years to achieve the feat. Cho Oyu was Afsaneh’s third eight-thousander this year, after Kangchenjunga in spring and Dhaulagiri in fall.

1. October 20252. October 2025

First ascent of the 6000er Adinesh Chuli – Summit successes on Cho Oyu

Benjamin Vedrines (l.) and Nicolas Jean on the summit of Anidesh Chuli

French climbers Benjamin Vedrines and Nicolas Jean have filled in a blank spot on the map of high mountains. The strong duo climbed the 6,808-meter-high Anidesh Chuli in eastern Nepal, not far from the eight-thousander Kangchenjunga, in one day – in alpine style, i.e. without bottled oxygen, without fixed high camps, without fixed ropes, and without Sherpa support.

5. November 20245. November 2024

Summit attempt of the Russian Cho Oyu expedition abandoned

View from the East Ridge at around 7,300 meters towards the summit of Cho Oyu

“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.

7. October 20247. October 2024

Summit success on Cho Oyu – the tenth eight-thousander for Anja Blacha

Now she’s in double figures. Last Saturday (5 October), Anja Blacha and Ngima Dorchi Sherpa scaled the 8,188-meter-high Cho Oyu via the Tibetan north side, her fourth eight-thousander this year – “Ngima with, me without a breathing mask,” as Anja writes to me. “It was a bit windy, but otherwise the conditions were great.”

For the 34-year-old German, it was the tenth of the 14 eight-thousanders, the ninth without bottled oxygen. “I know my body well enough by now to know how it reacts to altitude and that it can usually cope with it. So why not do without this aid if I can?,” Blacha wrote to me at the end of September after her summit success on Manaslu.

4. October 20244. October 2024

Summit successes reported on Shishapangma and Cho Oyu

The first summit successes of the fall season on the eight-thousanders in Tibet are now perfect. The expedition operator Imagine Nepal announced that an eleven-member team led by Mingma Gyalje Sherpa reached the summit of Shishapangma at 8,027 meters today. Five team members had completed their eight-thousand-meter collection, it said: the Nepalese Mingma Gyalje Sherpa and Dawa Gyalje Sherpa, the US-American Tracee Lee Metcalfe, the Japanese Naoki Ishikawa and the Pakistani Sirbaz Khan.

27. September 202427. September 2024

Anja Blacha after her Manaslu success: “I had the summit to myself”

After the eight-thousander is before the eight-thousander. This year, this also applies to Anja Blacha, who has now climbed nine of the 14 highest mountains in the world. This makes the 34-year-old the German woman with the most eight-thousander summit successes.

Last spring, she first scaled Makalu (8,485 meters) and then Kangchenjunga (8,586 meters), both without bottled oxygen. She also climbed without a breathing mask during her successful ascent on Manaslu (8,163 meters) on Monday. Now Blacha wants to try her hand at Cho Oyu (8,188 meters). She answered my questions in Tibet.

Anja, Manaslu was your third eight-thousander summit this year. How did you fare on your ascent?

Tag: Cho Oyu