Winter Expeditions Archive - Page 5 of 5

17. April 201917. April 2019

Where to with the dirty K2 laundry?

It’s quite normal that mountaineers return from an expedition with dirty clothes. After all, it’s important to travel with as little weight as possible. And that’s why, after the trip, the strong smell in the laundry room at home from clothes worn too long is simply part of it. But is it really necessary to wash your dirty laundry in public? For days, the members of the two recently failed K2 winter expeditions have been engaged in a media exchange of blows. With the meanwhile almost usual echo on the social networks – from people who weren’t there, but think they have to put their oar in.

18. March 201918. March 2019

K2 remains unclimbed in winter

The second highest mountain on earth has once again shown its teeth in winter. After the team from Kazakhstan, Russia and Kyrgyzstan, led by Vassiliy Pivtsov, had broken off their summit attempt on the Southeast Ridge of K2 at 7,500 meters due to poor visibility a week and a half ago, the Spaniard Alex Txikon and his Sherpa team now also returned to base camp without summit success. Their Camp 3 at about 7,050 meters altitude was the end of the line.

“The strong wind didn’t let us climb upwards,” Alex explained. “Winter K2 resists, but we must respect it. You have to listen to the mountain. This winter has showed us that it is not the time yet. I will definitely return!” Perhaps already next summer. Txikon has announced that he wants to try the first traverse of the mountain: ascent via the Chinese side of K2, descent via the Pakistani side. Let’s see if the Chinese authorities will grant him a permit.

1. March 20191. March 2019

Bad weather and bureaucracy hinder search for missing climbers

A lost day. Low clouds around Nanga Parbat today prevented the helicopters from taking off again to search for the two climbers missing since Sunday, 42-year-old Italian Daniele Nardi and 30-year-old Brit Tom Ballard. In addition there were bureaucratic problems. According to Daniele’s home team, the private agency Askari, which handles the Pakistan Army’s rescue flights, demanded an advance payment for a helicopter to pick up Spanish climber Alex Txikon and three of his team members from K2 Base Camp. Alex and Co. had offered to fly to Nanga Parbat to support the search for Nardi and Ballard. Nardi’s family wanted to advance the necessary money. Valuable time was lost through the back and forth, the weather worsened and the flight had to be postponed to tomorrow’s Saturday.

27. February 2019

Nanga Parbat: Concern for Nardi and Ballard

With every hour that passes without any sign of life from Daniele Nardi and Tom Ballard, the concern for the two mountaineers grows. The last call of the 42-year-old Italian and the 30-year-old Briton by satellite phone from Nanga Parbat was received on Sunday from an altitude of about 6,300 meters – from the “Mummery Rib”, which they wanted to climb completely for the first time. Since then radio silence. This does not necessarily mean that something has happened to them. Maybe they are stuck in a radio hole. Or the battery of the satellite phone has run out. Nevertheless, an uneasy feeling is spreading.

23. February 201925. February 2019

How long does the good weather last on Nanga Parbat and K2?

Nardi and Ballard ascending to the Mummery Rib

Let’s go up! It’s as if someone had opened the gate of a pasture where a herd of bulls had been penned for almost two weeks. As soon as the weather improved on K2 and Nanga Parbat, the climbers of the winter expeditions made their way up. On the 8,125-meter-high Nanga Parbat, the Italian Daniele Nardi and the Brit Tom Ballard, according to their home team, today pitched up their tent at about 6,000 meters – after entering the “Mummery Rib”. They want to climb the striking rock spur completely for the first time and then make their way to the summit. “We are a bit tired because we had to carry heavy backpacks up to pitch up Camp 3,” Daniele let us know.

21. February 201922. February 2019

Winter expeditions: After storm and snowfall, before the ascent?

This is how it often looked on K2 over the past few days

The “torture of climbers” is coming to an end. For almost two weeks, the members of the winter expeditions on the eight-thousanders K2 and Nanga Parbat in Pakistan were more or less condemned to do nothing because of the adverse weather conditions. Hardly anything is worse for mountaineers, who are always drawn outside and up. But strong wind and snowfall prevented ascents into high altitudes. In K2 Base Camp, the team of Spanish expedition leader Alex Txikon built a 1.80 meter high and 20 centimeter wide ice wall in front of the tents to protect themselves against the expected hurricane gusts. A good idea. Wind speeds of more than 100 kilometres per hour were measured (see Alex’ video below) .

13. February 201914. February 2019

Eight-thousanders aren’t dumps!

I don’t give a damn. According to this maxim many mountaineers seem to be en route on the highest mountains in the world. Instead of removing their fixed ropes, they leave them hanging, instead of taking their garbage with them, they leave it lying there. Vassily Pivtsov, leader of the K2 winter expedition from Kazakhstan, Russia and Kyrgyzstan, reported that he and his team mates had found a lot of used and full oxygen bottles below House’s Chimney, one of the key points of the route via the Southeast Ridge, as well as further rubbish like old tents.

9. February 201911. February 2019

Pivtsov’s team on K2 at 7,000 meters

The spot Pivtsov and Co. reached on Saturday

They defied the wind. On K2, the second highest mountain on earth, winter expedition leader Vassiliy Pivtsov, his Kazakh compatriot Tursunali Aubakirov, Russian Roman Abildaev and Kyrgyz Mikhail Danichkin reached an altitude of 7,000 today. The four climbers pitched their tents below the so-called “Black Pyramid”, one of the key points of the route via the Southeast ridge: 400 meters of steep rock and ice, often with dangerous layers of snow on the rock slabs.

2. February 20194. February 2019

8000er winter expeditions: Between flight and race

Winter expeditions to eight-thousanders are not a walk in the park. This winter proves that once again. As reported, Manaslu in Nepal has already put the Italian Simone Moro and his Nepalese climbing partner Pemba Gyalje Sherpa to rout. According to Simone, fresh snow in the base camp piled up to six meters. The danger of avalanches was correspondingly high. Time to disappear: “Sometimes giving up is an essential ingredient for future success,” Moro wrote on Facebook. “With this decision I want to honor the nickname ‘winter maestro’ I have been given.” Having scaled Shishapangma, Makalu, Gasherbrum II and Nanga Parbat in the cold season, the 51-year-old had succeeded first winter ascents on four of the 14 eight-thousanders. Today is the eighth anniversary of Simone’s success on G II in the Karakoram.

22. January 201922. January 2019

Winter expeditions: Waiting for end of snowfall

Bad weather forces the climbers of the winter expeditions on the eight-thousanders K2 and Nanga Parbat in Pakistan and on Manaslu in Nepal to inactivity. The team from Kazakhstan, Russia and Kyrgyzstan led by Vassiliy Pivtsov returned to K2 Base Camp yesterday after the seven climbers, according to their own words, had fixed ropes on the classical Abruzzi route up to an altitude of 6,300 meters. The Spaniard Alex Txikon’s team has not yet ascended, but built in the base camp three igloos, in which a total of ten to 14 people can sleep. Alex was thrilled after his first igloo night.

15. January 201918. January 2019

Nanga Parbat: Nardi and Co. in Camp 3

While the winter expedition teams at the eight-thousanders K2 and Manaslu have only just moved into their base camps, the Italian Daniele Nardi and his three companions on Nanga Parbat are in a more advanced phase. Today Daniele, the Brit Tom Ballard and the two Pakistani mountaineers Rahmat Ullah Baig and Karim Hayat ascended again to Camp 3 at 5,700 meters, directly below the Mummery Rib. Five days ago, the four climbers had deposited a tent there and then returned to base camp.

4. January 201918. January 2019

Winter expeditions are on

Alex Txikon (l.) and Simone Moro in Lhukla

Several winter expeditions in the Himalayas and Karakoram started in the first days of the year. Two of the three climbers who had succeeded the first winter ascent of Nanga Parbat in 2016 met in Lhukla in Nepal, however now with different goals: The Spaniard Alex Txikon wants to tackle K2 in Pakistan, the last remaining eight-thousander to be climbed for the first time in the cold season, the Italian Simone Moro is drawn to Manaslu again. The 51-year-old and the South Tyrolean Tamara Lunger had failed on the 8167-meter-high mountain in western Nepal in 2015 because of the enormous snow masses of that winter. This year, according to the Kathmandu-based newspaper “The Himalayan Times”, Moro plans to climb with the Nepalese Pemba Gyalje Sherpa on the normal route without bottled oxygen. In order to acclimatize, they wanted to climb the 6,476-meter-high Mera Peak in the Khumbu region. Continue reading “Winter expeditions are on”