Sung Taek Hong on ascent to Camp 4

Shaken but prepared for the summit attempt – this is how the state of the team of Sung Taek Hong can be described. The 50-year-old South Korean, his 49-year-old Spanish climbing partner Jorge Egocheaga and their Sherpa team are currently recovering in the base camp at the foot of Lhotse from their last ascent into the South Face of the fourth highest mountain on earth. As reported previously, they had pitched Camp 3 at 7,800 meters and Camp 4 at 8250 meters. During the ascent, Furba Wangyal Sherpa and Phurba Sherpa had been slightly injured by rockfall near Camp 2. They left the base camp to be treated. “Thankfully they said it isn’t too serious,” the team informed on their website.

Hit by an avalanche in the sleep

Sung’s tent after the avalanche

Last Thursday an avalanche hit the tent in Camp 3 where Sung Taek Hong was sleeping, it said: “He feels small pain on body but (is) OK.” Due to the difficult weather conditions, the mountaineers climbed only during the night and in the morning hours “to avoid the risks of snow showers and falling rocks”. The summit push was  planned for the end of the month, the team said.

Success in the fifth run?

In the Lhotse South Face

Sung is tackling the 3,300-meter-high, extremely steep and dangerous wall already for the fifth time. The first ascent of the Lhotse South Face was made in 1990. It is still doubted whether the Slovenian Tomo Cesen at that time really accomplished this masterpiece climbing solo, as he himself claimed. Undoubtedly, the Ukrainian Sergej Bershov and the Russian Vladimir Karatayev climbed in the same year on a different route through the South Face to the 8,516 meter high summit of Lhotse.