That’s harsh. It seems that Benedikt Boehm, Sebastian Haag and Andrea Zambaldi had to turn around on Shishapangma once again, this time at about 7,850 meters, just 180 meters below the summit. At this altitude Bene posted: “Fighting, fighting, fighting. Heaps of snow and high risk of avalanche … Frustrating!!” 100 meters below Bene had written: “The deep, windblown snow is killing us.” The conditions in the summit area were apparently too dangerous – just like they were at their first attempt six days ago. The GPS tracking of Bene is also showing that he obviously skied down from a bit below the summit.

At their limits

The climbers were really at their limits. “My lungs are hurting”, Andrea posted during the ski descent at 7,300 m. “My legs are dead”, wrote Bene at 6,800 m and Basti summarized at Camp 1 at 6,300 m: “The way down was really hard – the steep sections we had to climb, because risk of avalanche was too high. Glad we are back safe.” Looking at Bene’s GPS tracking, the team meanwhile should have reached the Base Camp. I called the German home team of the Double8 Expedition. Until then they had no contact to Bene and Basti, but indirectly confirmed my interpretation of what happened: “So it seems.” I have no information yet how far up Swiss top climber Ueli Steck accompanied the team.

P.S. My update story will follow not until tomorrow (There is a life beyond the blog 😉 ). So, if you want to get more information earlier, please check the homepage of the Double8 Expedition.