Top of Everest (from the Northeast Ridge)

The first climbers came from the south. On Friday evening local time, the Chinese Wang Jing and five Sherpas reached the summit of Mount Everest via the Nepalese normal route. However, I hesitate to call it a complete ascent. The team had been flown by helicopter to Camp 2 at 6400 meters after the “Ice doctors” had stopped to maintain the route through the Khumbu Icefall. After the avalanche disaster on 18 April – as reported – all commercial expeditions on the Nepalese side of the mountain had been cancelled.

Today the first summit successes were also reported from the Tibetan north side. A team of 15 climbers of the Russian expedition organizer “7SummitsClub” reached the highest point at 8850 meters during snowfall and wind. The German climber Ralf Dujmovits had to struggle with these difficult weather conditions  too when he ascended from Camp 2 at 7700 meters to Camp 3 at 8300 meters.

Really exhausted

“In the morning it was very windy, then it began to snow”, Ralf tells me by satellite phone from his small tent. He is speaking slowly, the thin air takes its toll. He was fine all the way up to Camp 3, says Ralf: “I was hoping to find a platform for my tent up here at 8300 meters, but unfortunately it wasn’t like that. I had to prepare a platform before I could pitch my tent. Thus I have lost much energy and right now I am really exhausted.” Dujmovits, who is climbing without bottled oxygen, does not want to leave for the summit with the first  mountaineers late on Saturday night. “This is too tricky, because it is still too cold. Probably I will start at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m., but it depends on the wind.” So keep your fingers crossed!

Hungarian Klein turned around

Another climber who had tried to scale Mount Everest without oxygen mask  has aborted his summit attempt. The Hungarian David Klein turned around on the northeast ridge, at an altitude of about 8600 meters, near the First Step. He was too late. The Romanian Horia Colibaseanu and the Slovak Peter Hámor, also without bottled oxygen, had previously stopped their ascent at 7600 meters.