Nanga Parbat

It did not let him rest. “This time I have no doubt,” says Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, when he rings me out of bed after midnight our time. “We were at the summit of Nanga Parbat.” The 31-year-old calls me by satellite telephone from Camp 4. The connection is bad, I have to ask several times. Eight climbers were at the highest point, the Nepalese reports. “The weather was very good and the view too.”

For three weeks in Pakistan

Mingma Gyalje Sherpa

Mingma had not wanted to shout the expedition from the rooftops. Since mid-September, he has already been with his team in Pakistan. Already on 11 June, the busy Sherpa had reached with clients the summit ridge of the ninth highest mountain on earth. Afterwards he had admitted that he could not say with one hundred percent certainty whether he and his customers had been really at the highest point. They had been en route for 43 hours. Mingma had paid the ascent with frostbite at his toe. He had announced that he wanted to return to the “Naked Mountain”, to make absolutely sure that he was really on the summit.

Success on K 2

Mingma Gyalje Sherpa on the summit of K2

Later he succeeded with a team the only ascent of K 2 this summer. He also reported a summit success from Broad Peak, but also there, like in June on Nanga Parbat, there were indications that his team had missed the highest point in driving snow. Mingma thought that he was on the summit but announced that he would come back also to this mountain in 2018 to end all discussions.

Six times over 8000 meters

No other climber was so often above 8000 meters this year. Mingma mastered the magical height six times:  In spring, he scaled with clients Dhaulagiri and Makalu in Nepal, followed by the three climbs on Nanga Parbat, K 2 and Broad Peak in summer, and now the second ascent on Nanga Parbat this fall. This man can hardly be stopped.

Update 5. October: “We eight climbers made Nanga Parbat,  8,125 m summit, on 02-10-2017 at 12:40pm”, Mingma Gyalje Sherpa wrote on Facebook. “We had really good weather during our climb and we are all safely back from mountain. By this climb, I understood that Pakistan’s tourism agencies need to focus on autumn climbing and trekking around Nanga Parbat area as the weather remains very fine and clear all the days.”