David Goettler(© The North Face)

That was a short home leave. Just one month after his return from Nanga Parbat David Goettler has packed his bags again. His goal this spring: Mount Everest. “To climb Everest via the normal route without supplemental oxygen is challenging enough. That would be interesting”, David had told me last August when I had asked him whether the highest mountain in the world was an attractive goal for him. Now the 35-year-old climber is putting this project into action. He wants to climb Everest via the normal route on the Nepalese south side of the mountain, David writes me while trekking from Lukla to Namche Bazaar. “Without bottled oxygen and high porters.” I want to know whether he is a member of a team. “I and 600 others … ;-)”, replies Goettler. “As a team, I have only myself !”

At 7200 meters on Nanga Parbat

David at the summit of Nuptse in 2012

The mountaineer from the town of Munich has already climbed five eight-thousanders, lastly Makalu in May 2013. Previously he was often in a team with Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and Ralf Dujmovits. In 2012 with Gerlinde, he succeeded in climbing the 7861-meter-high Nuptse within sight of Mount Everest. Early March this year – as reported – David’s attempt failed to make the first winter ascent of the 8125-meter-high Nanga Parbat in Pakistan along with the Italian Simone Moro. But after all, the German reached the Mazeno ridge at 7200 meters with the Polish climber Tomek Mackiewicz. No one went up higher on Nanga Parbat this winter. Even though he has been in thin air for two months then, David has to acclimatize again. The effect disappears within seven to twelve days in the lowlands. In this respect, David’s home leave has actually taken too long.