Anja Blacha has achieved her goal for this spring season. As previously reported, the 35-year-old German mountaineer reached the summit of the 8,516-meter-high Lhotse a week and a half ago – without bottled oxygen and without a Sherpa guide. For Anja, it was the 13th eight-thousander she has climbed without a breathing mask. Now, the…
This is the first fatality of this year’s spring season on Mount Everest – even though the accident occurred below base camp. According to Nepalese media reports, Lakpa Dendi Sherpa fell and died last Sunday while hiking from Gorak Shep, the last inhabited settlement in the Everest valley, to base camp. The 51-year-old Nepalese guide…
“The gateway to the Roof of the World is open,” the Nepalese expedition operator 14 Peaks Expedition announced jubilantly in a Facebook post. Other commercial teams on Mount Everest have also confirmed that the route through the Khumbu Icefall up to Camp 2 at 6,400 meters is finally clear. Breakthrough achieved on Sunday In a…
The world is increasingly becoming a glacier graveyard. In a study published at the end of February, scientists from 35 research teams determined that glaciers worldwide have lost an average of 273 billion tons of ice per year since 2000. An “alarming increase” has been recorded over the last ten years. Michael Zemp, one of…
