Henry Todd may not have been the greatest climber of his time, but he was undoubtedly an original.
“As an expedition leader, mountaineer and later an oxygen provider to climbers, Henry was a pillar of the Himalayan climbing community,” writes German mountaineer, journalist, and chronicler Billi Bierling in her obituary in the Himalayan Times. “He supported countless people across Nepal and Pakistan, making it possible for many to fulfil the dream of standing on the world’s highest peaks.”
Todd died last Monday in his adopted home of Kathmandu at the age of 80 – from a stroke after undergoing heart surgery a few days earlier.
When I close my eyes and think back to the North Face of Mount Everest 20 years ago, I see the so-called Supercouloir in front of me. The Japanese Couloir in the lower section and the Hornbein Couloir further up run through the wall like a straight line. An aesthetic line, a route that seems almost logical even to amateurs like me. And yet so steep, demanding, and dangerous.
In 2005, I was traveling as a reporter with Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, Ralf Dujmovits, and Hirotaka Takeuchi, and I admired the Supercouloir for weeks from the Advanced Base Camp on the Central Rongbuk Glacier. The trio’s attempt to climb this route failed at the time due to conditions in the lower part of the wall.
Skill and luck
Jim Morrison (in 2018)
The fact that ski mountaineer Jim Morrison skied down this combination of two couloirs yesterday and survived unscathed borders on a minor miracle in my opinion.
“When I finally crossed the bergschrund [crevasse between the base of the wall and the glacier], I cried,” Morrison told a reporter from his sponsor National Geographic. “I’d risked so much, but I was alive.” The 50-year-old must realize that, despite all his skiing skill, he also needed luck – and got it.
On the Tibetan north side of Mount Everest, several members of the team led by American ski mountaineer Jim Morrison have apparently reached the summit at 8,849 meters today. This was reported by the Nepalese internet portal “The Tourism Times,” citing sources close to the expedition. The mountaineers climbed through the Hornbein Couloir, it said. There is no other source for this information as yet.
According to this information, Morrison planned to ski down from the highest point through the couloir on the North Face of Everest. With his project, he wanted to commemorate his partner Hilaree Nelson, who fell to her death in fall 2022 while attempting a joint descent from the summit of Manaslu, according to The Tourism Times. It is not yet known whether Morrison was able to carry out his plan.
It shouldn’t surprise me anymore, because it’s nothing new. And yet I am always astonished at how quickly and comprehensively the media avalanche rolls in as soon as Mount Everest comes into play.
That wouldn’t be so tragic if those involved in the information industry would take the trouble to check the facts before blasting out their news films, videos, and reports on all channels – accompanied by sensationalist headlines and flanked by lurid posts on social networks. On Monday, it happened again.
This means that the Spaniard is now listed in the record books as the oldest person ever to stand on an eight-thousander. He replaces Japanese climber Yuichiro Miura, who climbed Mount Everest in 2013 at the age of 80 – for the third time in his life.
All good things come in threes, people say. On his third attempt, Andrzej Bargiel succeeded in scaling Mount Everest without bottled oxygen and skiing from the summit back down to base camp. “It’s one of the most important milestones in my sports career. Skiing down Everest without oxygen was a dream that had been growing inside me for years,” said the Pole.
He had abandoned his first attempt in fall 2019 because a monster serac around 50 meters high and 30 meters wide was hanging over the Khumbu Icefall and threatening to break off. His second attempt ended in fall 2022 at the South Col at almost 8,000 meters, where the wind was so strong that it was impossible to pitch a tent.
Mount Everest (before sunrise, seen from Gokyo Ri)
The final stop was at around 7,400 meters. After almost ten hours of climbing, Tyler Andrews decided to abandon his speed attempt on Mount Everest and descend again. “Slower pace than planned, snow has gotten worse and harder to break through solo,” it said on his website.
The 35-year-old long-distance runner from the USA wants to climb Everest without bottled oxygen – and faster than anyone has ever done before. The current record for reaching the summit without a breathing mask from the Nepalese south side is 20 hours and 24 minutes, claimed in 1998 by Nepalese mountaineer Kaji Sherpa.
The first reports of success from the 8,163-meter-high Manaslu are trickling in. On Sunday, the six-member Nepalese rope-fixing team – consisting of mountaineers Chhiring Bhote, Pasang Sherpa, Hira Bhote, Tashi Sherpa, Karma Sharki Sherpa, and Lakpa Sherpa – secured the normal route to the highest point and at the same time ensured the first summit successes of the fall season on Nepal’s eight-thousanders.
On Monday and Tuesday, the first commercial clients, accompanied by Nepalese mountaineers, also reached the summit of the eighth highest mountain on earth. Today, the Nepalese tour operator Seven Summit Treks alone reported that 17 clients and 17 Nepalese Climbing Sherpas had reached the top.
Ski mountaineer Andrzej Bargiel (2022 at Mount Everest)
“I’m drawn to Everest,” said Andrzej Bargiel in an interview with his sponsor Red Bull. “Partly out of curiosity, I want to see how my body copes at such altitude. And also because, although this place doesn’t have the best PR, there are moments, like autumn, when it’s peaceful and you can work there independently – without all the commotion.”
The 37-year-old Polish ski mountaineer set off for Nepal this week with eight companions to achieve his big goal on his third attempt: to climb the 8,849-meter summit of Mount Everest without bottled oxygen and ski down from there to base camp.
Bargiel abandoned his first attempt in fall 2019 because a monster serac around 50 meters high and 30 meters wide was hanging over the Khumbu Icefall and threatening to break off. His second attempt ended in fall 2022 at the South Col at just under 8,000 meters, where the wind was so strong that Andrzej and his companion Janusz Golab couldn’t even pitch their tent.
Everest North Face in the last daylight (in spring 2005)
“In 1980 on Everest, I was more wiped out than ever before and not even after that,” Reinhold Messner told me five years ago when we talked about 20 August 1980—the day he stood alone on the summit of the highest mountain on earth.
“I had fantastic weather, was very well acclimatized and made very good progress in the lower part of the mountain. That made me feel cheerful and confident. A few hundred meters below the summit, however, the weather closed up. Fog crawled up from the south side, spilling down over the ridges and the summit to the north. I was suddenly afraid that I would lose orientation. Tiny snowflakes were drizzling.”
View from the helicopter cockpit of the Western Cwm (Lhotse in the background)
“I can’t tell you how many missions I’ve flown per day. It’s not the numbers that are important to me, but the quality of the missions.” This statement says a lot about Maurizio Folini‘s character.
The 59-year-old Italian is not only a helicopter pilot with heart and soul, but also a passionate mountain rescuer. Folini has been flying regular missions on the world’s highest mountains since 2011. In 2013, he achieved the highest helicopter rescue of all time on Mount Everest when he transported a Nepalese mountaineer down from 7,800 meters on a longline.
This Everest spring season, he has once again used his aircraft from the Nepalese company Kailash Helicopter Services to rescue many climbers suffering from high altitude sick from the mountain. “I flew a lot of missions in total. There were days when I landed six to eight times at Camp 2 (at 6,400 meters). On other days, I flew less,” says Maurizio.
A week ago today, German mountaineer Anja Blacha experienced something on Mount Everest that is now a rarity: she had the summit all to herself – because she was the last summit contender of the spring season to reach the highest point on earth at 8,849 meters and was on her way without a Sherpa companion. One day later, the Icefall Doctors declared the season over and began dismantling the ropes and ladders through the dangerous Khumbu Icefall above Everest Base Camp. This deprived Anja of the chance to attempt the neighboring 8,516-meter-high Lhotse without bottled oxygen.
So be it, Blacha can be pleased to be the first German mountaineer and only the eleventh woman in the world to have stood on Mount Everest without a breathing mask. A remarkable achievement that stands out from the almost 800 Everest ascents this spring.
This means that she has climbed twelve of the 14 eight-thousanders – in commercial teams, on the normal routes – without supplemental oxygen. Only Lhotse and Shishapangma in Tibet are still missing from her collection of eight-thousanders. After her safe return from the mountain, Anja Blacha answered my questions.
Anja, first of all, congratulations on your ascent of Everest without bottled oxygen. It was your third summit success on Mount Everest, and you used a breathing mask on the first two. How did you experience the difference – with/without additional oxygen?
“At the moment, I see it above all as an unbalanced combination of numbers.” That was Anja Blacha’s answer a week and a half ago when I asked her what it meant to her that she had climbed eleven of her twelve eight-thousanders without bottled oxygen. Now she has provided a balanced combination of numbers.
The 34-year-old German adventurer also scaled Mount Everest today without a breathing mask. “She was all alone on the summit,” Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, head of the expedition operator Imagine Nepal, informed me at around 8.30 a.m. Central European Summer Time. According to Mingma, Blacha had climbed to the highest point on earth without bottled oxygen and without a Sherpa companion.
View of Mount Everest (l.) and Lhotse (from Namche in fall 2019)
In probability theory, there is the law of large numbers. For example, if I throw the dice 10,000 times, I come closer to the probability of throwing a six every sixth attempt than if I only try 100 times.
There is also a law of large numbers in mountaineering: the more often I climb high peaks, the more likely I am to be noticed. On Mount Everest, where the season is coming to an end as the monsoon approaches, the personal records have been tumbling these days.
Tashi Gyalzen Sherpa reached the summit of Everest – as reported previously – four times this season, more often than anyone before in one year. At this point, it should also be mentioned that Gyalu Sherpa stood on the 8,586-meter-high summit of Kangchenjunga three times this spring. Without high-performing Sherpas – such as those mentioned here by way of example – only a fraction of the summit successes on Nepal’s eight-thousanders would be possible.
This also applies to Lakpa “Makalu” Sherpa. First he led the rope-fixing teams to the summits of Makalu and Dhaulagiri, then he led a successful expedition of Seven Summit Treks on Kangchenjunga – without climbing the third highest peak on earth himself. Hats off to these strong mountaineers from Nepal!
P.S.: The so-called “Race on Everest” between the speed climbers Karl Egloff – who has a Swiss and an Ecuadorian passport – and the US-American Tyler Andrews, which was hyped by many media, failed due to the weather.
Egloff, who set off without oxygen, turned back at Camp 3 at around 7,300 meters, Andrews above the South Col. Due to the stormy weather, Tyler had already decided before his start at base camp to use a breathing mask in the upper part of the mountain.
On 9 May, Tashi had been part of 8K Expeditions’ seven-man rope-fixing team, which had made the first Everest ascent of the season. This was followed by his summit success number two on 14 May, number three on 19 May and number four today, 23 May. Never before has a person stood on the summit of Mount Everest so many times in one season.
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