Shishapangma

The Central Peak is not the main summit of Shishapangma. Climbers and expedition operators who tackle this eight-thousander in Tibet should know this. The Central Peak is at 8,008 meters. From there, the normal route continues over a ridge to the 19 meter higher main summit at 8,027 meters. Only when this is reached, Shishapangma is officially considered as scaled. Many are not too particular about this rule. And so the news was premature that a Chinese expedition had scaled Shishapangma on 29 September and that Luo Jing was the first woman from the “Middle Kingdom” to complete the 14 eight-thousanders. Just a few days later, a Basque mountaineer, who had ascended the same day, piped up and said that nobody had climbed the ridge to the main summit due to bad weather. “They were clearly only on the Central Peak,” tells me Eberhard Jurgalski, German chronicler of mountaineering in the Himalayas and Karakorum, who had received a video of the Chinese group from their turning point. “Luo Jing has already admitted this publicly.”

“True Explorers Grand Slam” also not complete

Hong-Juan Dong (l.), Luo Jing (2nd from l.), Zhang Liang (3rd from l.), Liu Yongzong (r.)

Thus also the news that Zhang Liang, Hong-Juan Dong and Liu Yongzong, three more Chinese who belonged to Luo’s team, completed the 14 eight-thousanders, is not true. “Dong is not only missing the main summit of Shishapangma, she was demonstrably not on the highest points of some more eight-thousanders she claimed for herself,” says Jurgalski.

Zhang Liang had already let himself be celebrated in 2017 for being the first Chinese to complete the eight-thousander collection. But even then his list “only” included the Central Peak of Shishapangma – which he has now reached for the second time. This summer’s news that the 54-year-old had finished second after the South Korean Park Young-Seok the “True Explorers Grand Slam” (14 eight-thousanders, Seven Summits, North and South Pole) proved to be premature too. “His performance cannot be compared with that of the South Korean Park anyway,” says Eberhard Jurgalski. “Zhang Liang only did a last-degree expedition to the South Pole, while Park Young-Seok walked the entire way from the edge of the continent to the Pole.” Park died in an avalanche on Annapurna in fall 2011.

Luo Jing (in 2016)

Also from the eight-thousander Shishapangma in Tibet, the first summit successes of this fall season were reported today. According to their own announcement, a team of the Russian expedition operator “7 Summits Club” reached the 8,027-meter-high summit , as did a team of the Nepalese operator “Seven Summit Treks”. SST-Board director Dawa Sherpa informed on Facebook, that Chinese Luo Jing was among those who stood on the summit of Shishapangma. It was the last of the 14 eight-thousanders that the 42-year-old still lacked in her collection.

All 14 in almost seven years

Luo (r.) on K2 in 2014

After South Korean Oh Eun-sun, Spaniard Edurne Pasaban, Austrian Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and  Italian Nives Meroi, Luo is now the fifth woman to have scaled all 14 eight-thousanders. Kaltenbrunner and Meroi did all their ascents without bottled oxygen. Luo Jing scaled her first eight-thousander in fall 2011: Manaslu. Since then, hardly a year passed without her successes on eight-thousanders. In less than seven years she completed the 14. In 2012, she stood on top of Makalu, in 2013 on the summits of Kangchenjunga, Gasherbrum I and II. In 2014, the Chinese scaled Dhaulagiri and K2, in 2016 Annapurna, Mount Everest and Cho Oyu. In 2017 Luo summited Lhotse, in summer 2018 Nanga Parbat and Broad Peak and now in fall Shishapangma.

“Mountains accepted me”

“After climbing so many mountains, I realized that I did not conquer the mountains, but the mountains accepted me,” the computer expert from Beijing told the newspaper “China Daily” last summer after her success on Broad Peak. Luo Jing is the first woman from China in the “14 Eight-Thousanders Club”.

Her compatriot Zhang Liang was the first Chinese to complete the 8000ers collection in 2017. This summer, he was the second person after South Korean Park Joung-Seok to succeed in the so-called “True Explorers Grand Slam”: he scaled Denali, the highest mountain of North America, and thus the last mountain of the “Seven Summits” still missing from him. Thus the 54-year-old had climbed all eight-thousanders as well as the highest mountains of all continents – and also reached the North and South Pole.

Update 4 October: According to a Spanish climber, who was also on Shishapangma at that time, Luo Jing reached “only” the 8008-meter-high central summit, not the main summit. Should this be confirmed, she would not have completed the 14 eight-thousanders yet.