As if nothing had happened. The Chinese climber Wang Jing has received her Everest certificate from the hands of Nepalese government officials in Kathmandu. Thus it is certified that the 41-year-old has scaled the highest mountain in the world on 23 May – officially and above all with no ifs and buts. Strange.

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The Huber brothers have cancelled their planned expedition to Latok I in Pakistan – “because of the political situation in Pakistan”, Alexander and Thomas Huber write on Facebook.  “Of course the dream of this giant wall is still in our mind and we hope next year we will get another chance.” Actually the German climbers and their team comrades Dani Arnold and Mario Walder had their bags packed to start to Pakistan. “But the risk was no more calculable”, says Alexander when I call him. “First the offensive of the Taliban, now the offensive of the Pakistan army in North Waziristan. There will certainly be more terrorist attacks.”

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Nothing can go wrong anymore for Jogi and his boys. Yesterday, just before the start of the FIFA World Cup in Brasil, the German national football team got a motivational training by an extreme athlete at the team base Campo Bahia. Mike Horn reported to national coach Loew and Co. on his adventures at sea, in the ice and on the highest mountains. Then Mike took the footballers along to his 35-meter-long expedition yacht “Pangaea”, showed them some basics of sailing and headed out to the Atlantic Ocean for a short trip.

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The spring season on Mount Everest is over, but not the discussion about what happened at the highest mountain in the world. The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has set up a committee to clarify whether, when and how often helicopters were used to airlift team members of the Chinese female climber Wang Jing and the Brazilian-American Cleo Weidlich to Camp 2 at 6400 meters. On 23 May, Wang was the first person who reached the summit of Mount Everest this spring, just before the first successes from the north side were reported. Weidlich originally planned to climb Lhotse, but in her own words she made no real attempt to reach the summit.

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He kept silent for weeks, but now he has found very clear words. “This is my 20th year of operations for Himalayan Experience but never before have I experienced such a variety of emotions as I did this year” writes Russell Brice at the beginning of a five-part series of reports about what happened on and around Mount Everest this spring. At this point I can only sum up the content but you should really take time to read Russell’s first hand reports in its full length. The owner and expedition operator from New Zealand was at Everest Base Camp when the devastating avalanche went down over the Khumbu Icefall and killed 16 Nepalese climbers on 18 April. “It appears that there was already a traffic jam in this area at the time of the avalanche, so it is not surprising that there were so many killed and injured.”

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The most important thing first: Alix von Melle is doing well under the circumstances. The 42-year-old, who has scaled six eight-thousanders and is therefore the most successful German female high altitude climber, started with her husband Luis Stitzinger for their second summit attempt on Makalu at the end of last week. Both reached their last high camp at 7600 meters, as planned. The following night Alix and Luis began to climb to the summit. They wanted to reach the highest point at 8485 meters without bottled oxygen. It was cold and windy, Luis writes. “Like in the past days Alix was plagued by a strong cough, in the extremely cold and dry air at an altitude of more than 7500 meters. After a strong coughing fit Alix suddenly said: Something’s not right, I can hardly breathe!”

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Super Sunday on Makalu. Two German female climbers reached the 8485-meter-high summit of the fifth highest mountain in the world on 25 May: Heidi Sand and Billi Bierling. Both were members of the team of Himalayan Experience. Therefore I am tempted to say that both are the first German women on Makalu.Heidi Sand was motivated to do high altitude mountaineering by a serious illness. When she was 43 years old, the sculptor from the town of Stuttgart she got the devastating diagnosis: colon cancer. She swore: If I survive, I will scale Mount Everest. Both happened. Heidi fought the cancer and reached the top of the world in 2012. In 2013, she scaled Cho Oyu – and now at the age of 47 years her third eight-thousander Makalu.

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Failure is hard, even for a climber who is up to every trick in the mountains. „I’m not satisfied“, Ralf Dujmovits admits. On Monday he arrived safely back in Advanced Base Camp ABC) at 6400 meters. But what happened to him on Saturday in Camp 3 will probably captivate him for a long time. „I really felt fine all the way up to 8300 meters. But then within half an hour everything changed“, Ralf told me on Monday. The uneven ground, the white frost on the inside of the single-walled tent which melted, dripped down and made everything wet, including his lighter. „It just threw me off course that I could no longer melt snow.“

I ask the 52-year-old whether everything would have been different if he had chosen another tent for Camp 3. „It’s possible. But I chose the lightweight tent because I wanted to reduce the weight as much as possible“, Ralf answers. „If you can carry more, you surely take a different tent.“ And if he had found a better place for his tent? „Then perhaps it would have been different.“ If and would and when, pure speculation. „I ‘m not the kind of man who blames everything on the external circumstances. I am also self-critical“, says Dujmovits. „It was just the way it was.“

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Ralf Dujmovits is annoyed. More about himself than about the fact that his dream to climb Mount Everest without bottled oxygen has disappeared. At 8300 meters, Germany’s most successful high-altitude climber decided not to start to the 8850-meter-high summit but to turn around. “I have performed badly”, says Ralf when he calls me by satellite phone from Camp 2 at 7700 meters. “I made a double fault.”

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Ralf Dujmovits has abandoned his summit attempt without bottled oxygen on the Tibetan side of Mount Everest. He called me from Camp 2 on 7700 meters and said he wanted to descend further down to the Advanced Base Camp at 6400 meters. More details later.

The first climbers came from the south. On Friday evening local time, the Chinese Wang Jing and five Sherpas reached the summit of Mount Everest via the Nepalese normal route. However, I hesitate to call it a complete ascent. The team had been flown by helicopter to Camp 2 at 6400 meters after the “Ice doctors” had stopped to maintain the route through the Khumbu Icefall. After the avalanche disaster on 18 April – as reported – all commercial expeditions on the Nepalese side of the mountain had been cancelled.

Today the first summit successes were also reported from the Tibetan north side. A team of 15 climbers of the Russian expedition organizer “7SummitsClub” reached the highest point at 8850 meters during snowfall and wind. The German climber Ralf Dujmovits had to struggle with these difficult weather conditions  too when he ascended from Camp 2 at 7700 meters to Camp 3 at 8300 meters.

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The time has come. Ralf Dujmovits, Germany’s most successful high-altitude climber, has started his summit attempt on the Tibetan north side of Mount Everest. On Thursday, he climbed up to the North Col at 7000 meters, today to Camp 2 at 7700 meters. There – as reported previously – he had deposited a material bag. “The wind has blown strongly, I had trouble to pitch my tent”, says Ralf when he calls me by satellite phone from Camp 2. “But now the tent is ready, I have cooked and eaten.” The 52-year-old is targeting Sunday as summit day, the weather forecast so far promises for 25 May good conditions with relatively little wind.

On Saturday, Ralf wants to climb up to an altitude of about 8300 meters. He will leave his tent at Camp 2 and pitch at Camp 3 a mini tent that he had already used on Aconcagua at the end of 2013. The traffic on the normal route keeps within limits, reports Dujmovits. “Some climbers want to reach the highest point on 24 May. Thus the whole thing is equalized. On Sunday, 40 to 45 climbers might start to the summit. If you consider that the entire season is focusing on this weekend, these are quite a few. So far, I have not seen anyone who is climbing without oxygen, apart from me.” Everything is served. And Ralf seems to be optimistic: “I’m in good shape and make good progress.”

Update: A Hungarian blog user told me that his compatriot David Klein is also climbing without bottled oxygen and has already reached Camp 3.

Update II: According to a press release of the Nepalese tourism ministry the Chinese female climber Wang Jing and five Sherpas have summited Mount Everest from the south side of the mountain. As reported, the team had been flown by helicopter to Camp 2 and had started the ascent from there.

The ridge between triumph and tragedy is narrow. On Sunday, Chhanda Gayen had scaled as first Indian woman Kangchenjunga, with 8586 meters the third highest mountain in the world. Four days later, she was confirmed dead because there is no more hope to recover her alive. When she was trying to climb also to the 8505-meter-high summit of Yalung Kang, also known as Kangchenjunga West, she and the Sherpas Dawa Wangchu (28.) and Migma Temba (24) were stuck by an avalanche, reports the “Himalayan Times” in Kathmandu. Due to bad weather, the search for the missing climbers has been abandoned .

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Never let it be said that climbing was not for romantics. The Italian couple Nives Meroi and Romano Benet prove the contrary. For them, it is out of the question to climb an eight-thousander without the partner. Last Saturday, Nives and Romano reached the 8586-meter-high summit of Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world. As always together, as always without using bottled oxygen, as always in a clean style. “Our achievements are defined by a smooth alpine style: simple and genuine, we remain true to ourselves at all the times and in harmony with the mountains”, Nives once said. Kangchenjunga is the eight-thousander number twelve for Meroi and Benet. Now only Annapurna and Makalu are still missing in their collection.

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“It would have been a dream to take this beautiful route, but I do not dare to climb in this crumbly zone.” Ralf Dujmovits sounds a little bit disappointed when he calls me via satellite phone from the Advanced Base Camp (ABC) on the Tibetan north side of Mount Everest. Actually, the 52-year-old wanted to scale Everest via the route that Reinhold Messner had opened during his solo ascent in 1980: beneath the North Ridge, then through the upper part of the Norton Couloir, onto the summit plateau. The wind was the reason that he abandoned his plan, explains Ralf: “It is blowing for 14 days now. There is a rocky interruption in the upper section of the Norton Couloir, where it is the steepest. There is no snow, probably it is rather sandy.” Even the point where Messner had left the couloir is free of snow now. This challenge at an altitude of more than 8000 meters is too big for him, because he will be climbing alone and without bottled oxygen, says Ralf. “This is too difficult, too exciting. I’m getting older, I have not enough power for that.” Now he will try to climb to the summit on the normal route, “though it pains me”.

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