Kobusch on top of Nangpai Gosum II

A blank spot less on the map of the highest mountains: According to his own words, the 24-year-old German climber Jost Kobusch made the first ascent of the 7,296-meter-high Nangpai Gosum II. The mountain, till then the fourth highest unclimbed peak of the world, is located in the border area between Nepal and China, not far from the eight-thousander Cho Oyu. The slightly higher Nangpai Gosum I (7,351 meters) is also known as Jasemba, in Nepal it is officially called Pasang Lhamu Chuli, named after the first Nepali woman on Mount Everest. “I’ve been climbing very fast. Shortly below the summit it got once again exhausting because there was a lot of deep snow,” Jost said in a podcast published on his website. “Standing up there was liberating. All these pains, the efforts before, suddenly subsided. I think I had not really believed that it would work.”

Almost fallen down

Jost in Kathmandu

Kobusch had had to abandon a first attempt on his originally planned route. “It was too dangerous,” said Jost. “In sunshine I reached a place where the ice had become so thin and fragile that it just wasn’t safe anymore. I almost fell there. At that moment I thought the whole expedition had failed.” He then decided to climb on a different route where “it worked relatively well”, Kobusch reported, adding that he hadn’t spent much time on the summit of Nangpai Gosum II: “When I was up there, my focus went down immediately. I thought: Get me down of here!”

On Annapurna in 2016

In Annapurna Base Camp in 2016

In spring 2016, Jost had scaled his first eight-thousander, Annapurna. Shortly below the summit, he had been playing blitz chess with another climber. A year before, Kobusch had become well known all over the world. The young German had shot a video of the giant avalanche – triggered by the devastating earthquake on 25 April 2015 – which had destroyed the base camp on the Nepali side of Mount Everest and had killed 19 people.