Small light in the big wall

Gone! Japanese Nobukazu Kuriki has abandoned his summit attempt in the Everest North Face and descended to the bottom of the wall. He would return to the Advanced Base Camp (ABC) on Central Rongbuk Glacier to gather new strength for another attempt, weather permitting, the 34-year-old said by radio. According to his own words, Kuriki decided to return after having reached an altitude of 7,400 meters during the night. “There was the feeling of wanting to continue. But judging the snow conditions and my physical condition, I decided to descend,” Nobukazu said. A picture on his Facebook page, taken from ABC, shows a light point clearly to the right of the planned route towards the Hornbein-Couloir.

Bad weather approaching

Nobukazu Kuriki

As reported, the Japanese had climbed into the snow-covered North Face, solo and without bottled oxygen. On Thursday, he was confident that he would be able to reach the 8850-meter-high summit before the weather change expected for Saturday. At that moment he still had to climb more than 2,000 meters difference in altitude – an ambitious schedule. And afterwards he would have had to descend. For the next days, snowfall and stronger wind is expected on Everest. Against this background Kuriki’s decision sounds reasonable.