The summit, seen form Camp 3

“Only five are left. We don’t give up now“, Tamara Lunger writes on Facebook. The 29-year-old South Tyrolean mountaineer and her Italian team partner Simone Moro hope for better weather on Nanga Pabat. Snowfall is predicted until the weekend, in addition a strong wind is blowing at the 8125-meter-high summit, which currently makes an ascent impossible. The other team still staying in Base Camp, the Spaniard Alex Txikon, the Italian Daniele Nardi and the Pakistani Ali Sadpara, are also waiting for an end of the bad weather.

The trio has secured the Kinshofer route, the normal route, with fixed ropes up to Camp 3 at 6,700 meters. “The hardest job is already done, we’ve got the route and our minds amplely prepared for going for summit push as soon as weather gives us a proper chance“, writes Alex adding that it will not be necessary to fix anything else further up to the summit “if conditions do not change“. But exactly that might be the problem if it should continue snowing heavily over the coming days.

Never again to Nanga Parbat?

The Pole Tomek Mackiewicz and the Frenchwoman Elisabeth Revol have started their journey home. Both had reached an altitude of about 7,500 meters during their summit attempt late last week, before they had been driven back by the freezing cold. Tomek was afterwards so frustrated that he announced he would not return to Nanga Parbat any more and perhaps even give up his Himalayan mountaineering career. Mackiewicz had tried to scale the ninth highest mountain for six consecutive winters but had always failed. Meanwhile there is increasing information that the Polish “Nanga Dream“ team has also abandoned its expedition on the Rupal side of the mountain. Marek Klonowski and Pavel Dunaj had climbed up to 7,500 meters on the Schell route late last week.

Update 1 p.m.: Tamara Lunger and Simone will switch over to the Kinshofer Route and join forces with Alex Txikon and Co. “I think together we can help and motivate better and maybe we are able to do a big thing!“, Tamara writes on Facebook.