Simone Moro is fed up. “The problem is that you can’t really go beyond Camp 1,” the 54-year-old Italian writes on social media, explaining why he is once again breaking camp on the 8,163-meter-high Manaslu in western Nepal. Behind Camp 1 at around 5,600 meters, the avalanche danger is too great “and the wind is a real problem,” writes Simone adding that more snowfall is predicted for the coming days. “Today, all together, with the Sherpas, the companions with whom we shared this experience, we looked reality in the face and decided to end it here.”
This is the fourth time Moro has returned empty-handed from a winter attempt on Manaslu, after 2015, 2019 and 2021. And as with his previous three attempts, the masses of snow on the mountain threw a spanner in the works. “I have spent exactly one year of my life here on Manaslu,” Simone sums up.
“The only reasonable decision”
Spaniard Alex Txikon has not yet spent quite as much time on the eighth-highest mountain in the world, but it was also the second failed attempt for the 40-year-old. As last year, he had also planned this time to climb Manaslu with Moro without bottled oxygen and, if possible, also the 7,992-meter-high Pinnacle East in front of it.
Polish-Portuguese climber and filmmaker Oswald Rodrigo Perreira also declared his winter attempt on Manaslu over. “It’s not an easy decision, but looks like the only reasonable,” Oswald writes on Instagram. “There is more snow coming, and I think it doesn’t make sense to put my life in risk and the lives of the ones that are working and climbing with us.”
