Manaslu

It is not far from triumph to tragedy on eight-thousanders. That was demonstrated on Manaslu these days. On Friday, the Japanese Yoshimasa Sasaki fell about 25 meters after slipping on blue ice at 7,300 meters. The 59-year-old died. Sasaki had climbed the eight-thousander Cho Oyu in 2003. Last weekend more than 30 climbers reached the summit of Manaslu, the eight highest mountain in the world, including the Polish ski mountaineer Andrzej Bargiel. The 26-year-old said that he needed only 14 hours and five minutes for his speed ascent, just an hour less than the German Benedikt Boehm in fall 2012. After having skied down the most parts of the route, Andrzej reached the Base Camp 21 hours and 14 minutes after his departure. Two years ago, Bene had needed a total of 23.5 hours for ascent and ski descent.

Messner: Accident will always happen

Reinhold Messner criticized chasing records on eight-thousanders. “Mountaineering is adventure and pushing your own limits, but is has nothing to do with records,” said the 70-year-old South Tyrolean to the German radio station “Deutschlandfunk”, asked about the avalanche accident on Shishapangma. As reported, Boehm’s friends Sebastian Haag from Germany and Andrea Zambaldi from Italy had died in the avalanche last Wednesday. Messner called the idea of the trio – to climb and ski down the eight-thousanders Shishapagma and Cho Oyu and to cycle the distance between the two mountains – “reasonable”:  “The only thing that bothers me is that the story was sold as a record.” Chasing records was the problem and not the danger on the mountain, said Messner. “As long as people climb these high mountains, there will be accidents – no matter how tragic it is.”