See you! After the Spaniard Kilian Jornet had already left Mount Everest in mid-September, the Japanese climber Nobukazu Kuriki also broke down the tents on the Tibetan north side of the highest mountain on earth. Simply too much snow, the 34-year-old said. In his summit attempt two weeks ago he had sunk into the snow up to the hip.  As reported, Kuriki had ascended to an altitude of 7,400 meters, solo and without bottled oxygen, until he had been forced back by the masses of snow.

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“The ability is the measure of what you are allowed to do,” the free climbing pioneer Paul Preuss (1886-1913) wrote – freely translated – more than a hundred years ago. Hansjoerg Auer is able to do a lot and is therefore a well-deserved winner of the “Paul Preuss Award”, which is annually given to an extraordinary climber in the tradition of the legendary Austrian. “Auer belongs undoubtedly to the best climbers in the world,” said Reinhold Messner during the award ceremony at the International Mountain Summit (IMS) in Bressanone last weekend. Meanwhile, Hansjoerg Auer has set off from his native Oetztal for a new adventure. In the far east of Nepal, the Austrian, along with his countryman Alex Bluemel, wants to first climb the North Face of the almost 7,000-meter-high Gimigela Chuli East. The mountain is hidden behind the eight-thousander Kangchenjunga, the third-highest mountain on earth.

Hansjoerg, do you take failure into account?

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The Netherlands are called so for good reason. The highest “summit”, the Vaalserberg near the town of Aachen, is only 323 meters high. Nevertheless you find “Oranje boven” also on the highest mountains on earth. Frits Vrijlandt is not a blank slate in the climbing scene. In 2000, he was the first Dutchman to climb Mount Everest from the Tibetan north side, later he became the second mountaineer from the Netherlands who scaled the Seven Summits, the highest mountains of all continents. At the International Mountain Summit (IMS) in Bressanone in South Tyrol, the General Assembly of the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (UIAA) was held – and Vrijlandt was reelected as President for another four years.

Frits, a man from such a flat country is the head of all climbers worldwide. That sounds a bit strange.

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The numbers fill Ang Tshering Sherpa with confidence. “We hope that mountaineering in Nepal will revive very soon,” says the President of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) when we meet at the International Mountain Summit in Bressanone in South Tyrol. According to his words, expeditions to Nepalese mountains higher than 6,500 meters, which are managed by the government, have already achieved 87 percent compared with the time before the devastating earthquake in April 2015. Climbing on mountains lower than 6,500 meters, managed by the NMA, has even fully recovered. Trekking is between 40 and 50 percent again, depending on the region, the head of the NMA says: “We need to let the world know that the best way to help Nepal is by visiting. Each and every person who spends time in Nepal will help to revive the economy and rebuild the infrastructure.”

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If “The Fast and the Furious” had been a film about climbers, Ueli Steck could have played the leading role. The Swiss is just extremely fast. The Eiger North Face in two hours and 22 minutes, the 82 four-thousanders of the Alps within 61 days, solo via the Annapurna South Face to the 8091-meter-high summit and back in 28 hours, through Shishapangma South Face within ten and a half hours – for good reason Ueli is nicknamed “The Swiss Machine”. As if he had a tuned engine inside like the cars in “The Fast and the Furious”. Just recently, Steck has returned from India. I met him at the International Mountain Summit (IMS) in Bressanone in South Tyrol and talked to him about his tendency to speed, about aging and his next plans.

Ueli, you just turned 40 years old and you were not at home. How did you spend your birthday?

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Shivling is one of the most beautiful mountains in the world. Some people call the 6,543-meter-high mountain in northern India the „Matterhorn“ of the Himalayas. Now a drama has taken place there. Two Polish climbers paid for the attempt to climb Shivling with their lives. Grzegorz Kukurowski and Lukasz Chrzanowski had tried to climb the mountain via the North Face. They stuck at 6,300 meters, about 200 meters below the summit.

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The tireless have done it again. The British Mick Fowler and Paul Ramsden once again set climbing highlights, but, for a change, they were separately under way, with other team partners. Fowler, meanwhile 60 years (!) old, succeeded, along with his countryman Victor Saunders, the first ascent of the North Buttress of the 6100-meter-high Sersank in the North-Indian part of the Himalayas. Paul Ramsden and Nick Bullock climbed the North Face of the 7046-meter-high Nyainqentangla South East in Tibet for the first time. Last April, Fowler and Ramsden had won the Piolet d’Or, the “Oscar of the climbers”, for their first ascent of the 6571-meter-high Gave Ding, a remote mountain in northwestern Nepal. It was already the third “Golden Ice Axe” for the successful British team of two.

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The world tends to gasping. It is caught somewhere between Snapchat, snapshot and a 140-character Twitter message – and it jumps onto every train, the main thing is, it’s running. The moments of leisure fall by the wayside. In the not too distant future, we will probably wonder how an expedition to an eight-thousander could ever last for two months. The American climbers Adrian Ballinger and Emily Harrington have reached their goal: Just two weeks after they set off from their house at Lake Tahoe in California, they opened the door again – in their baggage a successful climb of the eight-thousander Cho Oyu. Nine days after their departure, Adrian and Emily stood on the 8188-meter-high summit in Tibet. Then they skied down. Time to head home.

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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.

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He is hell-bent. “I think the chance is there because the wind is weak”, Nobukazu Kuriki reported via Facebook from his Camp 3 at 6,800 meters in the North Face of Mount Everest. The Japanese wants to reach the summit solo and without bottled oxygen, in the upper part of the wall via the Hornbein Couloir. “The oxygen saturation of my blood is 81 percent and very stable,” the 34-year-old climber said and announced that he would continue to climb up still that Thursday evening (local time). If everything goes smoothly, he believes that he can possibly reach the summit on early Friday evening (local time). For Saturday, according to Kuriki, bad weather is expected.

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That sounds like a dance on a volcano, although Mount Everest isn’t one. According to his team Nobukazu Kuriki has started climbing the snowy Everest North Face. The 34-year-old Japanese wants to climb via the Hornbein Couloir to the 8850-meter-high summit, it said. Probably the “Supercouloir” route is meant, which combines the Japanese Couloir in the lower part with the Hornbein Couloir in the upper part of the wall. The route was opened by the Japanese climbers Tsuneo Shigehiro and Takashi Ozaki in spring 1980. “I am fully focused and start now”, Kuriki said by radio. In recent weeks Nobukazu had repeatedly explored possible ascent routes from the bottom of the wall and referred to high avalanche danger. For this reason, Kilian Jornet – as reported – had abandoned his Everest expedition. The Spaniard, known for his high-speed climbs, to his own words had climbed on the Tibetan normal route up to an altitude of 7,950 meters.

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Sometimes climate change puts a spoke in adventurer’s wheel. Actually, German top climber Alexander Huber and his teammates from East Tyrol, Mario Walder, Bruno Schneider and Christian Zenz, had planned this summer to free climb the South Face of Tupilak in East Greenland, 16 years after the first ascent. “This is an absolutely awesome, steep wall,” says Alexander. “But we have not even got there. It was impossible to walk 40 to 50 km to the mountain without the use of sledges.” The bare glacier ice without snow cover and the small stones on it had wrecked the Pulkas, the plastic sledges, within only one third of the distance. The four climbers had taken their skis in vain.

Alexander Huber had already visited East Greenland last year, but in another season. “You just cannot imagine in arctic winter that everything is completely free of snow in summer. This shows quite clearly the effect of climate change”, tells me the 47-year-old, the younger of the two Huber brothers. “It’s very unusual that the zero-degree line in Greenland is permanently at a height of 2500 to 3000 meters.”

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Anyone who has ever returned from of a summit attempt on a very high mountain – whether successful or not – , knows how German climber Billi Bierling is feeling now. All energy is used up, the adrenaline too – and the exertions of recent days are taking their toll. It takes a while before you revive. Of course, a summit success helps. Not only Billi – as reported – can be pleased about having been on top of Cho Oyu. Her team mate Susanne Mueller Zantop also reached the 8,188-meter-high summit, unlike Billi with bottled oxygen. The 60-year-old thus became the oldest German woman so far who has been on top of Cho Oyu, the sixth highest mountain in the world. For Billi Bierling it was already her fifth summit success on an eight-thousander. Despite of her tiredness, the 49-year-old has answered my questions.

Billi, you have climbed Cho Oyu without bottled oxygen. How did you feel on your ascent?

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Done! „Summited Cho Oyu at 1 p.m. today without supplemented O2”, Billi Bierling tweeted. “It was a long and exhausting day. Thanks to all of you for keeping fingers crossed.” For the 49-year old German journalist and mountaineer it was her fifth successful eight-thousander ascent and after Manaslu in 2011 the second without breathing mask. In her first attempt on Cho Oyu eleven years ago she had not been able to climb further than 7,200 meters. “It was my first eight-thousander”, she wrote to me one and a half weeks ago. “At that time I was convinced that I am not strong enough for such high mountains.”

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That has little to do with a lonely mountain experience. It’s more like a rolling wave. The first summit successes of this fall season are reported from the eight-thousanders Manaslu and Cho Oyu. Citing Mingma Sherpa, head of the expedition operator Seven Summit Treks, the Kathmandu based newspaper “The Himalayan Times” reports, that at least 30 climbers reached the 8163-meter-high summit only until 9 a.m. on Friday morning. At this time more than 50 others were still on the way to the highest point.

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