Alex Txikon

I was probably too hasty. One and a half weeks ago I had prophesied a quiet winter time on the highest mountains in the world. Now there will be a spectacular expedition. The Basque Alex Txikon wants to climb Mount Everest in winter, without the use of bottled oxygen. This is consistently reported by Spanish media. The 35-year-old will be accompanied by the internationally still relatively unknown 28-year-old Spanish climber Carlos Rubio, who has hitherto made more headlines as an extreme skier. In addition, the two mountaineers Aitor Barez and Pablo Magister will belong to the team as cameramen.

After Nanga Parbat, the Everest coup?

Txikon wants to leave for Kathmandu on 25 December and arrive in the first week of January in the Base Camp on the Nepali south side of Mount Everest. Five Sherpas are to prepare the route through the Khumbu Icefall for the Spanish team. At the end of last February, Alex Txikon, along with the Italian Simone Moro and the Pakistani Muhammad Ali Sadpara, had succeeded the first winter ascent of Nanga Parbat. Now the Basque wants to climb even higher.

Five-star risk

Mount Everest

So far 15 climbers have scaled Mount Everest in the meteorological winter. For weather researchers, the cold season begins on 1 December, while the calendar winter begins with the winter solstice on 21 or 22 December. The Poles Krzysztof Wielicki and Leszek Cichy reached the summit of Everest on 17 February 1980, succeeding the first winter ascent of an eight-thousander at all. Since the end of 1993 no more climbers have stood on the 8,850-meter-high summit. The only one who climbed the highest mountain on earth so far in winter without breathing mask was Ang Rita Sherpa on 22 December 1987. The weather on that day was unusually good. The great cold in winter normally causes the air pressure in the summit area to fall even further. An ascent without bottled oxygen is then in the absolute limit of the possible. Five-star risk.