The first summit successes of the summer season on the eight-thousanders Broad Peak and Gasherbrum II are reported from the Karakoram in Pakistan. „I’m standing on the summit at 8,051 meters,“ Horia Colibasanu announced today via satellite phone from Broad Peak. „It was a strenuous twelve-hour climb. A very long ridge. (A) very difficult summit because I didn’t know which of the ridge tops was the actual summit. I climbed up, I’m tired, I want to start the descent as soon as possible and I hope to get to base camp as soon as possible.“ For the 46-year-old Romanian, it was the tenth eight-thousander he scaled without bottled oxygen and without a Sherpa companion.
The Nepalese commercial operator Seven Summit Treks announced that also seven team members had reached the highest point at 8,051 meters, three of them Sherpas – apparently all with bottled oxygen, otherwise this operator actually always reports it.
Number 11 for Tenjen Sherpa and Kristin Harila
On Gasherbrum II, Nepalese Tenjen Sherpa and Norwegian Kristin Harila – also wearing breathing masks – stood on the 8,035-meter summit today. For the two it was in their time chase the eleventh eight-thousander success this year. They were accompanied this time by Mingtemba Sherpa.
„It was a hard climb,“ Kristin said in an audio message, adding that they had climbed from Camp 2 (at about 6,700 meters) to the highest point in 13 hours.
P.S. The German magazine „Alpin“ asked me for a statement what I think about Harila’s project. You can read it here (in German).
