Ang Rita Sherpa with certificates of the Guinness Book of Records

Ang Rita Sherpa‘s Everest record could be one for eternity. The legendary climber from Nepal, who the locals reverently call “Snow Leopard”, is now 70 years old. No other climber has scaled the highest mountain on earth as often without bottled oxygen as Ang Rita did in the 1980s and 90s. “His record of nine will probably stand for a long time since current climbing Sherpas are required to use O2 by their companies,” Richard Salisbury from the “Himalayan Database” writes to me.

Not ten times

Tents on Everest South Col

Recently I had reported about the remarkable feat of the Pakistani climber Fazal Ali, who last summer had been the first to stand on the summit of K2, the second highest mountain in the world, without bottled oxygen for the third time. I remembered Ang Rita, the Everest record holder. I had in mind that he had climbed to the summit ten times without breathing mask. So it is written in newspaper and internet articles and in books, e.g. the Guinness Book of Records. He himself has always mentioned this number too. Strictly speaking, however, it is not correct, as I discovered during my research in the “Himalayan Database” and as Richard Salisbury confirmed to me.

Bottled oxygen while sleeping on the South Col

Ang Rita has indeed ascended ten times without bottled oxygen to the highest point on earth at 8,850 meters, but during his first successful ascent in May 1983 he used a breathing mask to sleep in Camp 4 both before and after the summit push. The US climber David Breashears pointed this out at the time. According to Breashears, he had been in the same tent with Ang Rita on the South Col in spring 1983 and they had shared a Y-connection from the same oxygen bottle.

Huge respect for Ang Rita

On the summit

Breashears, who scaled Everest five times with bottled oxygen during his career, stressed to the legendary Himalayan chronicler Elizabeth Hawley (1923-2018) that he did not want to diminish Ang Rita’s outstanding performance. After all, the Sherpa had climbed to the highest point without bottled oxygen on the summit day of 1983. “I can’t think of a stronger climbing companion or a Sherpa for whom I have more respect than Ang Rita,” Breashears wrote. On his following nine successful Everest climbs, the legendary Sherpa forewent bottled oxygen – also when sleeping at great heights.

19 summit successes on eight-thousanders

Ang Rita was born in 1948 in Yilajung, a small village in Khumbu in eastern Nepal. As a child he tended Yaks. At the age of 15, the Sherpa first worked as a porter on an expedition. Ang Rita scaled his first eight-thousander in 1979: Dhaulagiri. In total, he achieved 19 summit successes on eight-thousanders by the end of his climbing career in 1999: ten times on Everest, four times on Cho Oyu, three times on Dhaulagiri, once on Kangchenjunga and Makalu. He always did it completely without bottled – with one exception: during the aforementioned expedition in 1983.

Aerobic exercises at night at 8,600 meters

Admired and often honored

The “Snow Leopard” set Everest milestones. In 1984, he opened a new route variant via the South Buttress with the Slovaks Zoltan Demjan and Jozef Psotka. During the descent, Psotka fell to his death. On 22 December 1987, Ang Rita succeeded the first and so far only winter ascent of Everest without breathing mask. Along with the Korean Heo Young-ho, who used bottled oxygen, the Sherpa reached the highest point. In bad weather the two climbers were forced to bivouac at 8,600 meters. “We spent the whole night just below the summit,” Ang Rita recalled later, “doing aerobic exercises to keep our body active which is the only way to survive there.”

P.S.: Ang Rita’s two sons also scaled Everest several times – with bottled oxygen: Karsang Namgyal Sherpa (born in 1971) nine times, Chewang Dorje Sherpa (born in 1975) five times. Karsang died in 2012 at Everest Base Camp, apparently as a result of alcohol poisoning.

Jerzy Kukuczka (1948 – 1989)

One of the all-time best high altitude climbers would have celebrated his 70th birthday this Saturday. But he missed this day of honor by more than 28 years: In fall 1989 Jerzy Kukuczka died at the age of 41 in an accident on Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain on earth. The Pole had previously scaled as the second climber after Reinhold Messner all 14 eight-thousanders. At times it looked as if Kukuczka could even snatch away the crown from Messner, but then the South Tyrolean closed the eight-thousander match with his ascents of Makalu and Lhotse in fall 1986. Just one year later, in September 1987, when the rather publicity-shy Kukuzczka completed his collection, Messner honored him with the words: “You are not the second, you’re great.”

Milestones

Memorial plaque at the foot of Lhotse South Face

In less than eight years – Messner took twice as long – Kukuczka climbed all 14 eight-thousanders and wrote alpine history: four winter first ascents, two of them in 1985 within three weeks (on Dhaulagiri and Cho Oyu), the first ascent of the South Pillar of Everest and of the South Face of K2, the first solo ascent of Makalu – to name only a few milestones. Only on Mount Everest, he used bottled oxygen. In 1988, the International Olympic Committee declared Messner and Kukuczka honorary Olympic champions. Messner refused the medal, Kukuczka accepted it.

Fall to death on Lhotse

Even after Jerzy had completed his eight-thousander collection, the highest mountains in the world did not get out of his mind. For fall 1989, Kukuczka actually planned to traverse all peaks of the Kangchenjunga massif, but then he changed his mind. With his countryman Ryszard Pawłowski, the 41-year-old tackled the legendary, at that time still unclimbed Lhotse South Face. On 24 October 1989, Jerzy Kukuczka fell from about 8,200 meters to his death.

Maya Sherpa

Second attempt. This spring, Maya Sherpa, one of Nepal’s most famous and best female climbers, will tackle Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world. “I am happy to go there again,“ the 40-year-old told me as we met in Kathmandu last week. “I have found sponsors who support me. However, my goal is not only to climb Kangchenjunga, I like to climb more 8,000-meter-peaks as the first Nepali woman.” In May 2017, Maya and her Nepalese friends and teammates Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita and Dawa Yangzum Sherpa had had to turn around on the 8,586-meter-high Kangchenjunga, about 300 meters below the highest point. The entire group of summit candidates had run out of ropes. “One of our Climbing Sherpas told us then that they had made the same mistake in spring 2013,” said Maya. “At that time, they went up to the summit. On descent, two Sherpas and three foreign climbers died because there was no rope, they were tired and it was extremely slippery in the upper part of the mountain, especially on the rock.”

More ropes, more manpower

Maya Sherpa, Dawa Yangzum Sherpa and Pasang Lhamu Sherpa (from the right) on Kangchenjunga in 2017

It is not an option to move the last high camp on Kangchenjunga at 7,400 meters further up, says Maya: “I saw no safe place for tents there. We need enough ropes and manpower, that’s the solution.” The three Sherpani, who became the first Nepalese women to climb K2 in Pakistan, the second highest mountain in the world, in 2014, will not be complete up this time. Pasang Lhamu gave birth to a son last November and is missing this time. It’s still open whether Dawa Yangzum will come along. “There are still two weeks to go. Let’s see what happens,” says Maya. “Otherwise, I go alone, with other people.”

Three times on Everest

Maya on Everest

Maya Sherpa has stood her ground as a woman in the men’s world of mountain climbing. She is a professional climber since 2003. With her husband, the expedition operator Arnold Coster, she leads expeditions and works as a mountain guide. The mother of a seven-year-old daughter has scaled Mount Everest from both sides, to date a total of three times. She was also the first female Nepali woman on Cho Oyu (8,188 m) in Tibet, Pumori (7,161 m), Baruntse (7,129 m) and Ama Dablam (6,814 m) in Nepal and on Khan Tengri (7,010 meters) in Kyrgyzstan.

Mental strength counts

In addition, Maya is president of the “Everest Summiteers Association” – and, since last August, also Vice President of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA).”I feel very proud. I never thought that I was going to be elected.” She says, she wants to take care of all climbers, not just for women. “Ever since I’ve been climbing, I’ve been giving other women an example of what’s possible. I love to share my experiences and give advice to them. I think that helps.” In the meantime, she is not only accepted by her male Sherpa colleagues, but also by the clients. “Physically, women may be a bit weaker,“ says Maya. „But if you‘re mentally strong, this doesn‘t matter.”

Mick Fowler

First I had to swallow. He has cancer? That cannot be for real. “For us in the ‘Club of 50+’, people like Mick Fowler are acting like an antidepressant,” I once wrote about the British extreme climber. In my view, the now 61-year-old proves that true adventure knows no age limits.  Year after year, Mick sets out to remote Himalayan regions to enter unexplored climbing terrain. And with great success: Mick has been awarded the Piolet d’Or, the “Oscar of the Climbers”, already three times. Again this year, he had planned another first ascent in the Indian Himalayas, as in 2016 with his compatriot Victor Saunders, another “oldie”, aged 67. But then, a few months ago, Fowler received the devastating diagnosis: “‘You have cancer’ was both a shock and a relief,” Mick writes looking back. “The uncertainty was over. No more dithering. The trip would have to be cancelled. But what would lie ahead?”

Very odd

Mick during the chemotherapy

It began when Mick noticed one or two unusual coloured faeces and a little weight loss. However, the climber actually felt fitter and healthier than for some time. In addition, he had to organize the expedition. “I had slipped comfortably into a ‘monitor the situation’ mindset,” Mick writes. It was his wife Nicki who urged him not to treat these things lightly and to go to the doctor. A colonoscopy and a biopsy were made. The result: Fowler suffered from colon cancer. “I felt well but the doctors told me I was very ill,” Mick recalls. “But they also told me that if all went according to plan then in six weeks time they would class me as well (all cancer cells wiped out) but I would feel ill (after radiotherapy and chemotherapy). It all felt very odd.”

Positive prognosis

Fowler (r.) and Saunders on the summit of the 6000er Sersank (in 2016)

The treatment in a hospital in Sheffield is now behind Fowler. “I would like to reassure those that ask if I am about to die that I am not,” Mick writes. “The prognosis is positive and Victor and I are getting on with re-arranging our Himalayan trip for 2018.” Fowler has started out to gently running and climbing. Mick recommends everyone to take care of their own body: “And get straight down to the doctor if you sense anything odd going on. Nothing (even a Himalayan trip) is more important.” In addition, there is the offer of regular cancer screening that everyone can and should use. After all, climbers do not have an anti-cancer gene, this can happen to any of us. All the best, Mick! I keep my fingers crossed.

P.S. I would like to point out once again the initiative “Outdoor against Cancer” (OAC) founded by the German journalist and mountaineer Petra Thaller. It offers outdoor activities for cancer patients. “I just realized that my psyche benefitted from my sporting activities,” Petra told me at the trade fair ISPO in Munich last February. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer at the end of 2014 after an expedition to the Carstensz Pyramid in Papua New Guinea.

Nasim Eshqi

Donald Trump stands between her and El Capitan. Nasim Eshqi would also like to climb the legendary granite walls in the Yosemite National Park, but the US president has imposed, as is known, an entry ban for Iranians. The 35-year-old from Tehran takes it with humor. “I mean, he is unlucky if I am not there,“ Nasim says, laughing. The female climber does not correspond to the Western cliché of an Iranian woman at all: off-the-shoulder shirt, sunglasses, no headscarf. And she says what she thinks. “The traditional culture in Iran doesn’t accept me or other girls who are the same style like me as real women they want to marry or stay with,” says Nasim. “But it was okay for me from the beginning. I have friends from all over the world who are supporting me mentally.”

Simply continued

The female climber is used to deal with rejection. Even her open-minded parents, a university professor and a teacher, had a hard time to come to terms with the ambitions of her daughter, who first achieved successes as a kickboxer and then, 14 years ago, discovered her passion for mountaineering and climbing. “You go out of the city and come back late, so your parents say: ‘Where have you been?’ They were afraid of dangers happening, or police or bad people. But I just kept doing this. They still don’t like what I do, but I cannot change it.”

Nasim Eshqi: I have an open family but they don’t like what I do

Equality on the rock

Nasim Eshqi in action on the crag Polekhab near Tehran (Route “Iran-Swiss”, 8a+)

Eshqi consistently cuts her own way, and it leads across rock. “The most important thing I feel when I climb anywhere in the world is feeling equal,” Nasim describes her motivation. “In climbing, we all have the same rules. It’s gravity. It doesn’t care from where we are, which gender or how much money we have. It’s just a way, and it’s only us and what we can do.”

Nasim Eshqi: Climbing makes me feeling equal

Nasim climbs routes up to the tenth degree. She spends about half of the year in her home country, where she works as a climbing trainer. But she can not make her living on it. The other months, Nasim is staying abroad, where she keeps her head above water by giving lectures. “Whatever I earn I spend. Sometimes I borrow money to pay my flight tickets.”

With luck and will

Traveling to countries like Georgia, Armenia or Turkey is no problem for her, says Eshqi. But for European states, USA or the largest part of Africa, she needs invitations from there. However, these invitations are not a guarantee that she is later really allowed to enter the countries. With a bit of pride, Nasim points out that she has already climbed in more countries than many others from states without travel restrictions: “If I am lucky and I really want it, I think it will really happen.” Thus the Iranian already climbed on rocks in the Elbsandstone Mountains in eastern Germany, the Italian Dolomites, the Swiss Rätikon or the mountains around Chamonix.

More than 70 new routes

Climbing in Iran (here on Alamkooh mountain )

In these countries, there are no strict clothing regulations like in Iran. In her home country, Nasim is obliged to wear a headscarf under the climbing helmet and to keep her arms covered. “I can live with it. It’s not as hard as for example getting no visas. I am focused on climbing and want to share my passion with many other people.” Eshqi has already opened more than 70 new routes in several countries. Just now the climbing community in her home country is very small. “The most climbers in Iran are more like picnic climbers. They simply want to be outside and use the good weather. There a not more than ten climbers in the whole country who are really pushing their limits,” says  Nasim.

Too impatient for expeditions

High altitude mountaineering is in Iran much more popular than climbing. But the 35-year-old does not see herself in this tradition. “I would love to climb K 2, everyone likes to, but I don’t have enough patience to do enough training for such a long expedition. So I found out, it’s not my way, “ says Eshqi. “I would do all this effort for walking in the Himalayas if there is a wall at the end which I want to climb. This is more in my path than only an expedition up to 8000 or 7000 meters.”

Nasim Eshqi: Not patient enough for expeditions

From enemies to fans

Convincing with performance (Route “Man o to”, 7c+, on Baraghan)

Nasim Eshqi sees signs that the Iranian society is opening up more and more – thanks to Internet use and increased traveling. The hostility, which she was often confronted with in the beginning, has decreased, says the climber, adding that reports of western media about her have played their part in this development: “When people in Iran see that the Europeans have this kind of respect for a girl who does a lot of effort on her way, they start to think: ‘Oh, she’s good. If the Europeans respect her, then we respect her too.’ So at the end all my enemies are my fans now, which I think is a success for me.” Maybe one day, Donald Trump will ask Nasim Eshqi for an autograph – after he has seen her climbing El Capitan.

Nasim Eshqi: Enemies turning into fans

Petra Thaller

After the expedition to Papua New Guinea, another one followed: the most dangerous expedition in Petra Thaller’s life. In December 2014, the German journalist had climbed the Carstensz Pyramid, with an altitude of 4,884 meters the highest mountain of Oceania, making it one of the “Seven Summits”, the highest peaks on all continents. Shortly after her return Petra realized that her breast was changing. The doctor’s diagnosis: cancer. Six tumors in her right breast. Later, even a seventh developed. Thaller was committed to fight against the disease, the full program: surgery, chemotherapy, antibody therapy. And she continued to do sports. “I was really fit back then,” the 55-year-old from the German town of Munich tells me. “I started super-trained into chemotherapy, and I’ve always been doing sports during all twelve therapy cycles. I continued to run. And I was fine.” Petra wanted to share this experience with other cancer patients. Therefore she founded the initiative “Outdoor against Cancer” (OaC).

Good for the psyche

Snowshoeing with “Outdoor against Cancer”

“At that time there were simply no outdoor activities for cancer patients,” says Thaller. She ran along with her daughter and her son. “I told them, ‘If I feel bad, you can kick me in the ass and send me out.’ And that’s what they did.” Thanks to OaC, the situation for cancer patients who want to do outdoor sports despite their disease has changed. Groups meet regularly, whether for jogging, circuit training, snowshoeing, mountain biking or sailing. And the project is expanding: from Munich to all of Germany. OaC programs are soon to be available in other European countries too. “I just realized that my psyche benefitted from my sporting activities,” Petra describes her experiences during chemotherapy. “I just had no depression. I never thought about the reason why I got cancer, even though I always had eaten healthy and done a lot of sports. And I also didn’t think about the possibility to die of cancer. It was just not my scene.”

Here and now

Petra at the Carstensz Pyramid in 2014

Thaller exudes an immense joy of life that is contagious. “I don’t want to miss enjoying life,” says Petra. She tells of a 44-year-old man who is suffering from a brain tumor. He did not leave his house for five months after the diagnosis of cancer. Today he is one of the regular members of her training group: “He once said, ‘Petra makes me fit again’. That was actually the biggest gift.” I ask her whether doing sports is more training for her body or for her soul.  “It’s training for life,” answers Thaller. Survival Training? She shakes her head. “Training for life. It has nothing to do with survival. Enjoy life, here and now!” This is the message she wants to give to other cancer patients: “Get out! Do something, go on a trip! Life is taking place now and not in maybe five years, when someone says, you are out of the woods now.”

Next destination: Aconcagua

Her last chemotherapy is long behind Petra Thaller, half a year ago she underwent her last antibody therapy. Is she over the hump? “When in your live you are ever over the hump?” Petra says, laughing. “I never thought that it could go wrong. Therefore maybe I am a good example that it can go well.” The expedition to the Carstensz Pyramid is soon to be followed by a new one: “I already have a goal for next year,” says Petra. “I’ll go to Aconcagua.” The highest mountain of South America (6,962 m) also belongs to the “Seven Summits”. The highest of all mountains is not an issue for her, says Thaller: “Everest has never interested me.” She has already climbed her personal Mount Everest anyway.

Maya Sherpa (in the background Mount Everest)

Nepal needs strong women like Maya Sherpa. “With our women expedition project we want to inspire women doing what we really are capable of even after being married and having children”, the 36-year-old climber writes to me. In July 2014, she scaled the 8611-meter-high K 2 with Dawa Yangzum Sherpa and Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita. They were the first female climbers from Nepal on top of the second highest mountain in the world. A week and a half ago, I introduced the trio’s new project in my blog: the planned ascent of Kangchenjunga next spring. I got Maya’s answers to my questions concerning their plans a few days after the article had gone online.

Still on debt

Climber, wife and mother

As Dawa Yangzum did previously, Maya confirmed that they are still sitting on debt with a volume of about 13,800 US $ (converted) after their expedition to K2. “People think, we have just earned a lot and lost nothing. Reality is just behind the wall”, says Maya adding that they want to do things differently now. “This time we have just tried to raise fund from many of those reputed mountaineering organizations like NMA [Nepal Mountaineering Association] or TAAN [Trekking Agencies’ Association of Nepal] who understand what we are doing and why.” She is alluding to the Government of Nepal that has still not paid the promised money for the K 2 expedition (equivalent to 4,950 $) till this day.

Twice on Everest

Maya (l.) on top of K 2

Maya grew up in a small village in Okhaldhunga district, not far from Mount Everest. She fought hard to find a place in the still male-dominated world of mountaineering in Nepal. “Being a professional climber since 2003, I have always tried my best to launch myself in the eyes of all those guys who think women are pathetic in this field”, says Maya who was a successful weightlifter (featherweight) before she started climbing. The Sherpani scaled Mount Everest from both sides, from Nepal in 2006, from Tibet in 2007. In addition, she was the first woman from Nepal on top of Cho Oyu (8,188 m) in Tibet, Pumori (7,161 m), Baruntse (7,129 m) and Ama Dablam (,6814 m) in Nepal and Khan Tengri (7,010 m) in Kyrgyzstan. She is married to the Dutch mountaineer Arnold Coster. They live with their four-year-old daughter Roos Dawa in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu.

Fight against gender discrimination in Nepal

In 2010, Maya was elected as an executive member of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA): “I learned a lot there, the need of women expedition guide and climber in reality. Female climbers and guides could be counted on two hands.” It was a “huge challenge” for her, Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita and Dawa Sherpa Yangzum “to fight against gender discrimination in Nepal”, Maya Sherpa says. “We would also like to give a shot awareness message to every single man who thinks girls are born with a curse: This is not the truth if we just avoid gender discrimination in the society.”

Maxut Zhumayev

“When I was approaching the highest point I saw Vassiliy sitting in the snow, ten meters away from the summit. I was very happy because my friend had waited for me”, said Maxut remembering his summit day on K 2 on 23 August 2011. “This was very special.” That day Maxut Zhumayev and Vassiliy Pivtsov completed their 8000er collection, ten years and ten days after they had climbed Gasherbrum I, their first 8000-meter-peak. The two Kazakh climbed 13 of the 14 eight-thousanders as a rope team, only on Manaslu they joined different expeditions. That is unique, says Maxut: “In the history of climbing we don’t have the same story that two climbers have reached so many 8000-meter-summits together.”

Hard job on K 2

Maxut and Vassiliy on the very last meters

I met the 37-year-old climber at the trade fair ISPO in Munich where there was a little reunion of the 2011 K 2 team: Maxut was talking to Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, who had also summited the second highest mountain of the world, her last 8000er that was missing, and to her husband Ralf Dujmovits, who belonged to the team, but had not joined the final summit push. “K 2 was really hard”, said Maxut. “It was my sixth and Vassiliy’s seventh attempt.” Zhumayev had climbed the other 8000ers on his first try. He never used bottled oxygen.

From below to the top

Maxut, born in the steppe in the west of Kazakhstan, became a climber fairly late: “I started climbing when I was 20 years old. I was working like a Sherpa, as a porter. I carried some luggage for a trekking group from France.” In this group he met some guys who did climbing as a sport. “I am happy that I touched this philosophy, this way of life. That’s the reason why I am still in the mountains and why I have been climbing until now.” Like his friend Vassiliy Pivtsov, Zhumayev earns his living as a lieutenant of the Kazakh army.

Founder of Kazakh Alpine Club

Zhumayev on Mount Everest in 2007

After having finished the 8000ers, Maxut had to cross a mental valley. “It took me about a year to find my new dreams and new goals.” At the beginning of 2013 Zhumayev founded the Kazakh Alpine Club. He wants to change the attitude of his compatriots to the mountains: “It’s a philosophy how to live inside nature. For me nature is not a toy, but my home.” Maxut knows that it will not be possible overnight to establish structures like those of Western Alpine clubs in Kazakhstan and to spread his mountain philosophy: “That is my new Everest. Its altitude is more than 8848 meters, because my life is not long enough for developing this project.”

No more dangerous climbs

Taking responsibility for his wife, his four-year-old daughter and five-year-old son, Maxut is staying well clear of dangerous climbs. Zhumayev wants to complete the Seven Summits, the highest peaks of all continents. Having already climbed Mount Everest (Asia) and Kilimanjaro (Africa) he plans to add the ascent of Denali (North America) in May, Aconcagua (South America) in autumn and then – if he is able to find sponsors – Mount Vincent (Antarctica).

Hansjoerg Auer during the IMS in Brixen

Hansjoerg Auer likes to use the word “brutal”. But only when he is telling of something that inspires him. “It’s just a brutal beautiful mountain and a brutal cool goal,” says the top climber from Austria about Kunyang Chhish East. The 7400-meter-high mountain is located in the Karakoram in Pakistan. Hansjoerg has climbed the side peak of Kunyang Chhish (7852 meters) last summer together with his brother Matthias and Swiss Simon Anthamatten. “You rarely find this combination: a 7000er, unclimbed, with a cool wall such as the nearly 3000-meter-high South Face”, says the 29-year-old climber. “I am thrilled by exactly these expeditions with as many question marks as possible. They are interesting and remain exciting.”

Brothers on the summit

The trio reached the previously unclimbed summit over an extremely challenging route through the South Face. In 2006 the US top climbers Steve House and Vince Anderson (who had climbed the Rupal Face on Nanga Parbat firstly in Alpine style in 2005) had to return on Kunyang Chhish East some 300 meters below the summit. Auer is particularly pleased that he was able to celebrate the success together with his brother. Matthias is living “more in the midst of life, with family and home. That’s why it was certainly one of his last major mountain projects”, says Hansjoerg. “I really liked that we reached the top together.”

Repressing bad news

Just below the summit of Kunyang Chhish East

The Auer brothers and Anthamatten dedicated their summit success to the eleven victims of the terrorist attack on Nanga Parbat, about 120 kilometers away. The news had reached them in basecamp during their period of acclimatization. “You cannot imagine something like that. If you’re just staying in basecamp yourself, thinking that these guys come and shoot you, that’s really incredible!”, Hansjoerg recalls. “But we started climbing and repressed the bad news as well as possible.” It’s out of the question for Auer to stay away from Pakistan. “You cannot say we will travel no longer to Pakistan. I hope that was a one-time incident.” Mountaineers were not giving the reasons for the attack, says Hansjoerg. “There must be a more hidden problem that has to be solved now.”
Auer will most likely return to the Karakoram in 2014. His destination: another 7000er, an unclimbed, technically difficult wall. Hansjoerg doesn’t reveal more details. Maybe he is talking about the Masherbrum East Face. Recently David Lama had indicated to me that his compatriot would possibly join his team for Masherbrum.

In a league of their own

The big walls on 8000ers are no issues for Auer. Not yet. These walls, says Hansjoerg, are “in a league of their own. You have to gain a lot of experience on 7000ers before you can climb cool routes on 8000ers. In very high altitude especially the mental challenge is extreme”, says Auer. “What Ueli Steck has just done on Annapurna, climbing solo through the South Face, was extremely good. The biggest backup you have as a climber is usually your teammate. But there is no companion if you do a solo climb. You’re so exposed up there, without any help. You have to work through this and to deliver full performance.” And once again Hansjoerg uses his favorite word: “That means brutal commitment. You have to do your very best.”

David Lama

Considering his age of 23 years, David Lama has already faced a lot of criticism. “I have learned from my mistakes”, says the Austrian Climber. In 2010 his team had set dozens of new bolts for filming David’s attempt to free climb the legendary “Compressor Route” on Cerro Torre in Patagonia. Then Lama failed, but two years later he succeeded, together with his Austrian climbing mate Peter Ortner. For the summer of 2014 the two climbers are planning another “blockbuster”.

Impossible to climb?

Masherbrum (in the centre)

Lama and Ortner want to climb the East Face of the 7821-meter-high Masherbrum in the Karakoram for the first time. “Not many have actually tried to climb the wall, because most consider it as impossible”, David tells me at the International Mountain Summit in Brixen. “But meanwhile I can imagine to climb through this wall. This is currently one of the most exciting ideas.” Perhaps his compatriot Hansjoerg Auer would join the team, Lama reveals. When I met him a few days ago Reinhold Messner called these two Austrian climbers “young people who are creative”. They would find their playing fields.

Extremely cool

Chogolisa

Currently the Karakoram is “one of the most exciting playgrounds” for him, David says. “Huge, beautiful, especially difficult mountains with big walls. I’m fascinated by them.” In 2012 Lama and Ortner climbed the 7665-meter-high, shapely Chogolisa, it was David’s first 7000er. “After 26 years we were the first climbers who reached the summit. It was an extremely cool experience to climb up to the summit ridge. Secondly, it was a kind of preparation for higher mountains because it’s my goal to climb big and difficult walls.” Like the East Face of Masherbrum .

Practice makes perfect

David Lama is the son of an Austrian mother and a Sherpa from Khumbu, the region around Mount Everest. At the age of five David proved his extraordinary talent at a climbing camp organized by Peter Habeler. That was the start of a successful career as a sport climber. At the age of ten Lama was climbing extremely difficult routes. Today, he sees himself “more as an alpinist,” says David, adding with a smile: “And also a little bit as a mountaineer.”

Everything under control

He is not a gambler, says Lama. However, he only turns back on a mountain if it is absolutely necessary. “I believe I have the ability to balance and evaluate the risk. But it is also clear that someone who has just taken his driving test will move faster than someone who has the licence for forty years.” Does he think about death? On Masherbrum, David answers, “one would like to have everything settled before climbing into the wall.”

Catherine Destivelle

She looks younger than she really is (53 years) and her eyes twinkle when she is talking about climbing. 20 years ago Catherine Destivelle of France was a star of the climbing scene: Inter alia she soloed the classical north faces of Eiger, Matterhorn and Grand Jorasses, all of them in winter. She free-climbed the more than 6000-meter-high Nameless Tower in the Karakoram. (If you want to get an impression of her style of climbing, watch the amazing video below!) After the birth of her son Victor in 1997 she scaled down her climbing activities. I talked to Catherine on a hike during the International Mountain Summit (IMS) in Brixen in South Tyrol.

Catherine, are you still climbing?

Yes, less, but I’m still climbing. I like it. When I have time or holiday, I do it several times a week.

When you did your great climbs, in the 1980s and beginning of the 90s, you were a pioneer of women climbing. What has changed since then?

I think it’s a normal evolution. Women climbers of today are better than in our times, because they are training since their youth. Climbing has become a real sport. In my day it just had started to be a sport, but wasn’t really.

Do you think nowadays it’s easier for young women to be professional climbers?

I’m not sure. There are a lot of women climbers, so maybe it’s more difficult. At my time we were only a few, about one in each country. So it was probably easier to live from climbing.

Catherine Destivelle: Probably more difficult

Do you still follow what’s going on in the Himalayas?

I still know what’s going on, but I’m not dreaming about that. I’m quite jealous because I am not able to go away for a long time. But one day I will decide to take my time to come back to do some little climbs in the Himalayas.

You did it in the 1990s, when you were on Makalu, Shishapangma  – and on the Annapurna South Face too. Just two weeks ago Ueli Steck did a solo climb through this wall in only 28 hours for up and down, climbing during the night. What do you think about his climb?

I think it’s the safest way to act in the Himalayas to be fast. So you don’t lose much energy and you keep your mind straight. (laughs) Erhard Loretan did the same. He was climbing very fast in high altitude.

When you were on expedition in the Himalays in the 90s, there were not so many climbers in the mountains. Things have changed, especially on Everest.

Everest was not one of my goals because I liked technical routes. Those were my favourite climbs. But climbing technical routes in high altitude is very dangerous. I was scared,  I didn’t want to take any risk. So I decided not to go on very high peaks. Climbing Everest on the normal route was not attractive for me at that time. Now there are too much people. So I’m not sure that I will go there one day (laughs). I think it’s crazy. Just because it’s Everest, everybody goes there. They don’t know how to climb and how to deal with any problem.  They need fixed ropes, they don’t know how to move without a rope. If there is an avalanche or a serac fall like on Manaslu in 2012, a huge catastrophe happens. On K 2 it was the same a few years ago: Climbers lost their lives because they were not real alpinists. I think it’s quite dangerous if there are too much people on a high peak. 

Catherine Destivelle: Too much people on Everest

What was the reason that you stopped extreme climbing in the mid of 1990s? Was it your accident during a climb in Antarctica when you had a compound fracture of your leg?

No, it was not the accident. I wanted to have a kid (laughs). Victor. I preferred to care of him. I’m like a chicken, I don’t want to leave my son alone. I like to share my days with him. I still climb but I want to make sure that my son is happy. That’s the most important thing for me. I travel with him, but he is not focused on climbing, so I’m going to the seaside with him (laughs), kitesurfing, stuff like that.

If you should give an advice to young climbers, especially female climbers, what would you say?

You have to like it and to follow your instinct. Be happy, then you have a chance to be good at it. If you want to be very good, train a lot! Meet very experienced people to get inspired, take their advice!

Catherine Destivelle: Like it and follow your instinct!

What about courage?

You don’t need to have courage if you like it (laughs). You have your passion. You have to train and to be focused on this, if you want to succeed. But that’s all. Courage is something else. For me courage means for example risking your life for an idea.

Venables at South Georgia

This May Stephen Venables can celebrate a double Everest jubilee: the 60th birthday of the first ascent – and his more personal anniversary: On 12th May 25 years ago Venables was the first Briton to climb Everest without supplementary oxygen. A milestone. „I was lucky enough in 1988 to help write a new chapter in the mountain’s history, when I climbed a new route up the Kangshung Face with Robert Anderson, Paul Teare and Ed Webster”, Stephen wrote to me after I had asked him for his thoughts on Everest on occasion of the 60th anniversary of the first ascent. “Thanks to those fine American/Canadian climbers and a magnificent base camp support team, I enjoyed some of the greatest days of my life of Everest, living for over two months in the beautiful Kama valley.” But his life was hanging by a thread then. 

Mostly deserted 

Kangshung face

It’s for good reason that the Tibetan east face of Mount Everest is mostly deserted. It towers up steeply 3000 metres into the sky, glaciated with deep crevasses and the permanent risk of avalanches. When in 1921 the legendary British climber George Mallory was looking for a route to scale Everest and saw Kangshung face, he said it would be impossible to climb it. But in 1983 the Americans Carlos Buhler, Kim Momb and Louis Reichardt proved that it was possible. They matched the challenge using bottled oxygen. The expedition was successful very much thanks to the brilliant leading by George Lowe from Utah.

At his limit and beyond 

Paul Teare (below) in the Kangshung face

Five years later Stephen Venables, Paul Teare from Canada and the Americans Robert Anderson and Ed Webster opened a new route via the face and did it without oxygen masks. The route led to the South Col. Teare decided to descend from there, because he had symptoms of a high cerebral edema. Webster returned just below, Anderson from the 8690-meter-high South Summit. Only Venables reached the highest point on 8850 metres. On his descent he lost more and more of his power, he hallucinated. „I was at my absolute physiological limit”, Stephen later said in an interview. „All that day was a crossing barriers.” Below South Summit he bivouaced in open – and survived. But the odyssey continued. It took the three climbers three more days to descend via the Kangshung face, through waist-deep snow, in a white out and with no food. „Our ascent of the Kangshung was, for the four of us, the adventure of a lifetime”, Ed Webster wrote subsequently.

Two broken legs

Stephen lost three toes which were frozen and later had to be amputated. He was 34 years old, the expediton to the Kangshung face was his tenth in the Himalayas. In 1991 Venables climbed together with two Britons a new route on the 6000-metre-peak Kusum Kanguru near Everest. One year later he belonged to the British climbers who did the first ascent of  the 6437-metre-high Panch Chuli V in the Indian part of Himalaya. During the descent Stephen broke both his legs in a 80-metre-fall. Venables knew that it could have ended even worse. He finished to take part in extreme Himalayan expeditions. But the 58-year-old Briton is still climbing. In the past years he has often visited Antarctica, in particular the island of South Georgia.

Adventurous uncertainty

Stephen Venables

It’s not fair to reduce a man’s lifetime to an Everest expedition of two months. But Venables’ survival story on Mount Everest will always remain unforgotten. „It would be wonderful if Everest became again a place where climbers push the limits of human endeavour in an atmosphere of quiet contemplation: just three or four expeditions per year, climbing without supplementary oxygen, enjoying a sense of adventurous uncertainty”, Stephen answered my question, what he wishes Mount Everest for the future. He knows that this „will never happen, because it is not compatible with commercial imperatives.”

P.S.: You find Stephen’s full statements on the two Everest-60-pinboards on the right side of the blog.

At the summit of Everest in 1999

In fact she was the second but in a way the first too. Helga Hengge summited Mount Everest on 27th May 1999. As second German woman after Hannelore Schmatz. But Hengge also survived the descent – in contrast to Schmatz who died from exhaustion on 8300 meters on the south side of the mountain on 2nd October 1979. For years climbers passed the corpse called „The German woman” which was sitting in the snow. Later the storm blew it into the depth. Almost twenty years after Schmatz Helga Hengge reached the highest point on 8850 metres after she had climbed up from the Tibetan north side. „I felt like a goddess”, Helga later said, „as if I could float.” Hengge was 32 years old when she stood on top of the world. Today Mount Everest sometimes gives her a nightmare, Helga, aged 46 now, wrote to me after I had asked her for her thoughts on occasion of the 60th anniversary of the first ascent.

Elevator to the ridge

„I dream that there is an entrance at the bottom of the glacier, a kind of cave where you can use an elevator from its depth up to the ridge.” The crowds push upwards using steep iron ladders via the Second Step, Helga continues. „At the summit there is a restaurant with a large terrace. Tea and cake are served. Suddenly the wind is getting stronger, clouds are gathering, a storm is coming up. The people with their colourful sneakers continue to climb up on the ridge. They are laughing, joking. I have to stop them, to tell them that it’s too dangerous, that they will die – but then they enter a long slide and rush down happily. And I wake up drenched in sweat.” In reality we’re not there yet, but Helga’s nightmare is initiated by what’s currently happening on Everest. „If everybody in addition would get a bravery medal and candy floss at basecamp only the mountaineers would be left to complain. This make me sad”, Helga writes.

From sport climbing to high-altitude mountaineering

Helga Hengge spent her life alternately in Germany and USA. She was born in Chicago and grew up in Bavaria. From the village of Deining, located between the cities of Nürnberg and Regensburg, on clear days she could see the Alps in the distance. Aged 25 Helga moved to New York, studied and worked as a fashion journalist. In her leisure time she did freeclimbing and later turned to high-altitude mountaineering. In 1997 she reached the summit of Aconcagua (6962 metres), the highest mountain of South America. Afterwards she climbed several other 6000-metre-peaks. In autumn 1998 Hengge reached 7500 metres on Cho Oyu. The following spring she succeeded on Everest, as the only woman in the commercial expedition team of the New Zealander Russell Brice.

On occasion of the 60th anniversary of the first ascent Helga wishes Mount Everest, that „year by year it shall grow a little bit higher in the sky with the objective to give a good life to the local people. And to inspire the climbers to push their limits, for the benefit of all.” (You find Helga Hengge’s  full statements on the two Everest-60-pinboards on the right side of the blog.) 

Eureka moment in a library 

Helga Hengge

Meanwhile she is a mother of two children and is living in Bavaria again, in Grünwald near Munich. After she had climbed Everest she continued going on expeditions. Among other things she reached the central summit of Shishapangma (8008 metres). At that time Helga already had her next major goal in mind: She wanted to climb the Seven Summits, the highest mountains of all continents, as first German woman. She had found a book of Dick Bass in a New York library. The American had firstly completed the collection of the Seven Summits in 1985 – however with Mount Kosciuszko in Australia and not as mostly common today with the Carstensz Pyramid in Ozeania. „What a great idea! At that time I regarded it as being a fantastic dream far away from realization. But that didn’t minimize my enthusiasm to dream that dream”, Helga writes. „Today I’m happy that this treasure has become a part of my life.” On 23th May 2011 she reached the top of Mount McKinley, the highest mountain of North America. Helga Hengge had managed to climb the Seven Summits. As first German woman. 

P.S. Sometimes Maria Gisela Hoffmann is called the first German woman on the Seven Summits. She completed her climbs on 21th May 2011, two days ahead of Hengge. But Hoffman was born as a boy and climbed the first of her Seven Summits as a man.

Dawa Steven Sherpa

Mount Sherpa. That would be a better suited name for the highest mountain of the world, which instead was named after Sir George Everest, a Surveyor-General of India in the 19th century. The history of Mount Everest is also a history of the Sherpas. The „eastern people” who had fled from Tibet to Nepal in earlier times were engaged for the early British expeditions in the 1920s. One of the two climbers who scaled Everest first in 1953 was a Sherpa: Tenzing Norgay. At the latest since commercial climbing was established on Everest sherpas have become indispensable. Without their support most of the clients wouldn’t have any chance to reach the summit. Due to this important role sherpas have an excellent reputation all over the world, many have achieved modest prosperity. Sherpas are also working as successful entrepreneurs, doctors or pilots. They know that these achievements are due to Everest. „As a Nepali, Mount Everest is my identity to the world. As a Sherpa, Mount Everest is the reason we have education, health care and prosperity”, Dawa Steven Sherpa wrote to me. „As a mountaineer, Mount Everest is the playground where I learned to explore myself, my limitations and my abilities as a person.” 

Twice on the summit of Everest 

Dawa Steven (r.) cleaning garbage on Everest

The 29-year-old Nepali belongs to a generation of Sherpas that has benefited from Everest from an early age. Together with this father Ang Tshering Sherpa Dawa Steven is managing „Asian Trekking“, a leading agency for expeditions and trekking in Nepal. His mother comes from Belgium, he studied in Edinburgh in Scotland. In 2006 Dawa Steven summited Cho Oyu, in 2007 for the first time Mount Everest. The following year the young Sherpa scaled Lhotse and five days later Everest again. For the last five years he has been leading „Eco Everest Expeditions“, which combine business and ecology: The clients are led to the summit on 8850 meters. In addition all members collect garbage from the slopes and bring it down to the valley. 

Basecamp bakery 

Dawa Steven is creative in raising money for ecology. In 2007 he founded the „world’s highest bakery” at 5350 meters in the basecamp on the Nepalese south side of Everest. Chocolate cake, apple pie, doughnuts and croissants went fast. The climbers were willing to pay higher prices because it was to a good cause. The money was used for projects to prepare local villages in Nepal for the effects of climate change. To raise awareness to the dangers of global warming Dawa Steven in 2012 walked together with Everest record climber Apa Sherpa on the „Great Himalaya Trail” 1555 km from the east to the west of Nepal. Later he was awarded with a first ever WWF award for outstanding achievements of people under the age of 30 for nature conservation around the world.   

Love for mountains and ecology 

On Island Peak (Ama Dablam r.)

On the 60th anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest Dawa Steven wishes a „next generation of adventurers, who will love the mountains and protect them from harm”. (You really should read his full statements on the two Everest-60-pinboards on the right side of the blog.) For Sherpas Dawa Steven hopes that the mountain will provide opportunities furthermore. „For the Nepali, I wish that Mount Everest will continue to make them proud to be a Nepali”, he writes. „For all the people in the world, I wish that Everest will continue to remind them that it is the highest mountain in the world.  Therefore, as citizens of this world Mount Everest belongs to all of us.”

Bernd Kullmann

Bernd Kullmann has a unique place in the annals of Mount Everest. When he stood on the summit on 8850 meters on October 17,1978, he wore an original Levi’s blue jeans. „I wasn’t only the first, but probably the only one, who ever did it”. Kullmann, now aged 58 years, said, at that time it was common to wear knickerbockers in the Alps. „We as young people wanted to provoke. We climbed the north face of Eiger in Jeans. So I found it logical to use Jeans on Everest too.” Above Camp 3 at about 7000 meters Kullmann covered his jeans with padded overtrousers. „We had not enough money for down garments. I didn’t even have long johns beneath.” Kullmann wore his jeans for all seven weeks they spent on Everest – with consequences: „In Kathmandu I could put it literally in the corner of my hotel room.” Kullmann didn’t dispose his durable trousers even then. „Later it was washed and I used it again. Jeans were simply my favourite garments.” 

Three pillars 

Ten years later Kullmann returned to the 8000-meter-peaks for a double expedition in Tibet. In spring 1988 he climbed Shishapangma in Tibet. A little later on Cho Oyu he had to turn back below the summit due to a storm. „Afterwards the issue 8000-meter-peaks was settled for me,” Kullmann said. He was not only focused on mountains. „My life is based on three pillars: family, job and climbing. None of these may suffer, because in this case my whole life would suffer.” Kullmann can combine job and sports. He is managing director of the outdoor company Deuter in the city of Augsburg. „I myself can test all the products we are selling.” On average he is still spending about 80 days per year on climbing or hiking in the mountains.

Ten guardian angels 

Kullmann said, that he had become more careful. Not without reason. At the beginning of the 1980s he fell seriously when he did a solo climb, „in a period, when we thought nothing could happen to us. We were slightly arrogant.” He spent one and a half year in hospital and in a wheelchair. Afterwards he started climbing again. „Often there was plenty of luck involved”, Kullmann said. „ And sometimes I needed not only one, but ten guardian angels.” 

Commerce kills good style 

The „jeans-climber” is still watching what’s happening on Everest. „Today I wouldn’t like to climb there.” Kullmann said, adventure had got lost. “In 1978 I stood on the summit alone and in a storm, with fear of climbing down. It was an incredible situation. Tears were rolling down my cheeks.” A picture of him on the summit of Everest doesn’t exist.

Kullmann said, that day Everest was tied up with ropes. Everywhere guides and sherpas were leading up their clients. „Today they must queue to reach the summit.” Due to improvements of gear, sports medicine and training methods in his opinion all climbers should try to climb without supplementary oxygen. „Exactly the opposite happens. Commerce has killed the good style. But where a demand exists, a market develops. Unfortunately this happened on Everest too.” 

P.S. Bernd Kullmann has also given his statements concerning the 60-years-jubilee of the first ascent of Mount Everest. You can read and hear his words on the Everest-60-pinboards on the right side of the blog.