Even before Ralf speaks his first words into the satellite phone, I know what the weather on the mountain is like. The wind is shaking the small tent and tugging at it. A background noise that no one will forget who has experienced it before. Ralf Dujmovits and Darek Zaluski have pitched their tent at an altitude of about 4900 meters, below the usual place for Camp 1 on the Kinshofer route, exactly where the way branches off to the Messner route. “It was not so easy to pitch the tent in this storm,” says Ralf . “We have benefitted from our great experience of many expeditions.”

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It is in the nature of plans that they sometimes have to be knocked on the head. Actually Ralf Dujmovits and Darek Zaluski wanted to climb up the Diamir face of Nanga Parbat today to bivouac at an altitude of 4850 meters and to look from there for a first camp on the Messner route. But this did not happen. When the two climbers met in the morning at the appointed hour, Darek told Ralf that it would be better if he stayed in basecamp. The climber from Poland has been infected by a gastrointestinal virus, a diet with rice and tea was necessary. “Meanwhile he’s already much better”, says Ralf in the (Pakistan) evening via satellite phone. “If the weather is fine, we could move up tomorrow.”

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A winter expedition is not for wimps. Minus 18 degrees Celsius showed the thermometer of Ralf Dujmovits at the basecamp on the Diamir side of Nanga Parbat. Not outside, but inside the tent. “We have just only two and a half hours of sun per day here at the basecamp”, says Ralf Dujmovits. There was hardly time to warm up the computer and the satellite modem to operating temperature. Ralf and Darek Zaluski have returned from their first trip exploring the lower glacier areas. “That was a hard tracking job”, says Ralf. “On top we had powder snow, below a hard crust of old snow, which often broke when I stepped on it.”

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Should there still be any trace of the assassination, you can not see them. There are no more old tents in the basecamp on the Diamir side of Nanga Parbat, where terrorists had killed eleven climbers last summer. And the site is covered by snow. “Today we had to fight our way through half a meter of fresh snow”, says Ralf Dujmovits via satellite telephone, an hour after he has arrived in the basecamp, together with his companion Darek Zaluski from Poland, their cook Essan, kitchen helper Karim and the first of 30 porters. “Because of the freezing cold the porters only want to take their tip and return as quickly as possible.” A little ceremony for the victims of the murder attack that was originally planned directly after the arrival had to be postponed due to the adverse weather conditions.

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Safety first on Nanga Parbat. “All the time we were driving on Karakoram Highway, we had a police escort,” says Ralf Dujmovits. “In front and behind of us there was a pickup each with two policemen sitting on a bench on the loading area. They held their Kalashnikovs in firing position.” Ralf calls me from Chilas, a small town on the Indus, about 50 km as the crow flies from 8000er Nanga Parbat. Because the baggage of his Polish companion Darek Zaluski did not arrive in time they had to stay in Islamabad one day longer than initially planned. On Saturday Ralf and Darek want to distribute the loads to their porters, who then shall set out to Diamir basecamp. “I think I will stay in Chilas tomorrow, because I still have to complete some formalities”, says Ralf. “If everything goes as scheduled, we will arrive at basecamp in three days.”

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Fast and alone. That is Ralf Dujmovits’ tactics ​​for his winter ascent of Nanga Parbat. The first German, who climbed all fourteen 8000ers, has chosen an unusual way of acclimatizing: The 52-year-old climbed Aconcagua, the highest mountain of South America, and spent two nights at the 6962-meter-high summit. Ralf’s wife Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner will be missing from the expedition to Nanga Parbat. The 43-year-old female climber from Austria must cure her joints which are overstressed by training. Today Ralf travelled to Pakistan. During his brief stopover at home in the German town of Buehl I spoke to him:

Ralf, why did you choose Nanga Parbat?

Nanga Parbat is for me – and has been also for Gerlinde for a long time – the most beautiful 8000er. Whenever we were asked after having finished the fourteen 8000ers, which of them we might try again, we independently answered: Nanga Parbat .

And why in winter?

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“For me, this is completely new ground.” David Goettler is looking forward to his upcoming winter expedition that, after Christmas, will take him and the Italian climbers Simone Moro and Emilio Previtali to the 8000er Nanga Parbat in Pakistan. “Until now I have gained experience in winter climbing only in the Alps, never in the Himalayas or in Karakoram”, says the 35-year-old climber from Munich when I meet him in my hometown Cologne this week. David has intensified the endurance training since Simone’s invitation at the end of September to accompany him to Nanga Parbat. You cannot train coldness, says David. “It makes no sense sitting in the refrigerator for three days.”

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Ines Papert could have done without this kind of souvenir from the Himalayas. “The healing of fingers and toes will take some time”, says the 39-year-old after her return from Nepal. As reported in my blog the German top female climber made a first ascent of 6719-meter-high Likhu Chuli I, also known as Pig Pherado Shar, on 13 November after opening a new route through the North Face of the 6000er together with Thomas Senf. “I never thought that frostbite could emerge so creepingly”, Ines is surprised. “During our climb we were as cold as never before but we have taken the first symptoms very seriously.” For this reason, Thomas abandoned the final climb to the summit within his reach at the last camp on 6580 meters.

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And it was a first ascent at all! On 13 November Ines Papert was the first person who set foot on the 6718-meter-high Pig Pherado Shar in Nepal, also known as Likhu Chuli I. Billi Bierling, staff member of the legendary Himalayan chronicler Elizabeth Hawley, writes me that the Frenchwoman Cecile Barbezat and Nawang Dorje Sherpa on 21 October 1960 were at the top of Likhu Chuli II, “which conversely means that Ines made the first ascent of Likhu Chuli I.” This was the result of a research that her French colleague Rodolphe Popier made in the library of the French Alpine Club (Club Alpin Français).

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It’s getting even more exciting: Maybe German climber Ines Papert has climbed the 6718-meter-high Pig Pherado Shar in Nepal firstly after all. Billi Bierling, staff member of Himalayan chronicler Elizabeth Hawley, has drawn my attention to this option. The mountain is also known as Likhu Chuli I. I had referred to a note in Hawley’s database that a French team led by Robert Sandoz had already climbed the 6000er near Namche Bazaar on 21 October 1960. Billi writes that the French climbers maybe instead reached the summit of the 6659-meter-high Likhu Chuli II (Pig Pherago Nup). So the question is: Likhu Chuli I or II? “The database says ‘I’, but we believe that it is a mistake!”, writes Billi. The research is going on. If there is any news from Kathmandu, I will of course inform you. By the way: first ascent or not, the performance of Ines Papert deserves our applause anyway.

Great success for Ines Papert: The German top climber tells on Facebook that she and Thomas Senf have opened a new route through the north face of 6718-meter-high Pig Pherado Shar in Nepal. The mountain is located near Namche Bazaar, the main village of the Khumbu region close to Mount Everest. The 39-year-old woman climber reached the summit alone. “Unfortunately Thomas couldn’t climb to the highest point because of incipient frostbite on his toes”, Ines writes on the Facebook page of one of her sponsors. “It was the coldest adventure of my lifetime.”

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Ueli did it. Just what exactly? The Swiss climber Ueli Steck is keeping us in suspense after his adventure on Annapurna. “Successful mission!”, is said on his homepage. “Don (Bowie) and Ueli are on the way to Pokhara. Updates will follow in the coming days.” Quite honestly, if I could I would run to meet them on their trekking. I’m bursting with curiosity. Has Ueli really climbed  solo via a direct route through the South Face to the 8091-meter-high summit of Annapurna? Is the rumor true that the Swiss, who celebrated his 37th birthday a week ago, needed only 28 hours to climb up and down?

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My gut feeling was right: Ueli Steck has actually returned to the Himalayas in order to climb again an 8000er – four and a half months after the unfortunate Sherpa attack against him, Simone Moro and Jonathan Griffith in Camp 2 on Mount Everest. The 36-year-old top climber from Switzerland travelled to Kathmandu yesterday. His destination: the South Wall of the 8091-metre-high Annapurna. “To walk through life in a comfortable way is still not my goal”, Ueli writes on his website. “This is why I want to try to climb Annapurna a third time. I would like to implement my dreams and visions into reality. Annapurna is one of them.” In 2007, he had narrowly escaped death on this mountain.

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Many are familiar with the view of Makalu, without being aware of it. On pictures taken from the summit of Mount Everest in direction of the Southeast Ridge you see in the background the shapely fifth highest mountain on earth. Just a few kilometres linear distance are lying between the two 8000ers, but actually they are worlds apart. This spring the headlines concerning Everest were overturning: first the brawl in Camp 2, then the 60-year-anniversary of the first ascent. Because of this I lost sight of an expedition of four German and a Swiss climber to Makalu.

Siegrist left expedition

David Göttler, Michael Waerthl, Hans Mitterer, Daniel Bartsch and Stephan Siegrist wanted to climb the mountain in Alpine style via the challenging west pillar. Siegrist had to cancel the expedition because he got severe headaches and vision disorders,  possibly due to a skull fracture that he had a few years earlier. The other four abandoned their original plan and ascended via the normal route. Waerthl returned because of icy fingers about 200 metres below the summit. The other three climbers reached the highest point at 8485 metres.

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It has gotten dark. For hours we have been racing with our minibus down the Karakoram Highway to the north. Time to stretch our legs. Near the town of Chilas we stop at a tea room. Some long-bearded men are sitting in front. We start talking. Smalltalk: “How are you?” “Where are you from, where are you going?” Suddenly my mountain guide is gesticulating wildly. I shall get back into our bus quickly. Inside I ask him why he was so excited. “Bad men, dangerous!”, answers my Pakistani companion. Until now I think that he overreacted then, in the summer of 2004. But I remembered this episode again when I was informed about the murder attack on eleven climbers on Nanga Parbat last weekend.

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