Not a chance

Once again his dream to climb Lhotse South Face was gone with the wind. As in 2014, Sung Taek Hong returns empty-handed from the mighty wall of the fourth highest mountain on earth to South Korea. After two months on the mountain, Sung and his team packed up. They aborted their last summit attempt at Camp 1. Sung tried to climb further up but it was impossible due to storm gusts of up to 150 kilometers per hour. Some gear was blown out of the wall. One of the Sherpa climbers was hit und hurt by a falling rock.

Another attempt next spring?

During their most successful summit attempt, the team had made it up to an altitude of 8,200 meters on a partly new route, just about 300 meters were left to the 8,516-meter-high summit. For Sung, it was the third fall season in a row without summit success on Lhotse. In 2013 his solo attempt on the normal route had failed, in 2014 and this year too he remained luckless climbing the South Face. But the 48-year-old has proved again his endurance and his ability not to give up. Thus we’ll see him very likely on Lhotse again. He hoped that he could return next spring, Sung said.