Alex Txikon on the Abruzzi route

What bad luck! Only with delay Waldemar Kowalewski from Poland – as reported – had joined the team of the Spaniard Alex Txikon. And now the K2 winter expedition has already ended for the 45-year-old. Kowalewski had been hit by a stone or a block of ice on his left collarbone on his descent from Camp 1 at about 6,100 meters to the Advanced Base Camp. “He had to go down at a slow pace but he feels calmer now at Base Camp,” Txikon’s team announced after the incident. Waldemar was flown out to Skardu today. Then the rescue helicopter picked up another Pole from Txikon’s team: Marek Klonowski had heart problems and could therefore no longer stay in the base camp at the foot of the second highest mountain in the world. He hopes to be able to return in about ten days.

Two tracks on one route?

Climber from the Pivtsov team

Alex Txikon has now finally decided to make no attempt via the still unclimbed K2 East Face. The ascent through the wall was “impossible” because it was too dangerous, the 37-year-old said. The team had equipped their route to Camp 2 at 6,700 meters via the Abruzzi Spur, Alex’ team said. It is not clear to me why this was necessary. After all, the team from Kazakhstan, Russia and Kyrgyzstan, led by Vassiliy Pivtsov, had already secured this route before. “Near us, Sherpas are fixing ropes parallel,” Pivtsov’s team informed on Sunday. Is Txikon’s team trying to signal that they are climbing  independently of the other team? On the same route? If the cap fits, wear it. According to Pivtsov and Co., they reached an altitude of 6,800 meters today. Tomorrow they want to climb further up.

Tent disappeared

Camp 2 after snowfall

On Nanga Parbat Italian Daniele Nardi, Briton Tom Ballard and their Pakistani companions Rahmat Ullah Baig and Karim Hayat do not have to worry about a possible competitive situation. They are alone on the mountain. The recent heavy snowfalls – a meter and a half of fresh snow in three days – have set the team back in their efforts to open a new route via the striking Mummery Rib in the Diamir Face. After Nardi and Ballard reached again Camp 3 at 5,700 meters yesterday, they searched in vain for the tent they had left there on their last ascent. Today, Tuesday, they wanted to be back at base camp to discuss how to proceed.

Moro and Pemba Sherpa give up on Manaslu

Shovel for all you’re worth

Meanwhile, Simone Moro and his Nepalese partner Pemba Gyalje Sherpa have abandoned their winter expedition on the eight-thousander Manaslu and let themselves be flown out of the base camp by helicopter. “Over the last few days the aim of reaching my fifth summit in winter was transformed into surviving this situation,” Simone writes today on Facebook. It would take at least two or three weeks of sunshine for the six meters of fresh snow to settle, says the Italian adding that the weather forecast is anything but good. For Moro, it was a deja vu: Also in winter 2015, Moro had fled from the snow masses on Manaslu, at that time in a team with the South Tyrolean Tamara Lunger.

First have a shoeshine

Call me old fashioned. But for me, the special appeal of expeditions is also to leave everyday’s comfort zone and live a simpler life in the mountains, in the ice or anywhere else. This must not mean that you have to mutate into a caveman. But if, as happened recently on Mount Kilimanjaro, I see Korean mountaineers who, just after arriving at the Kibo Hut at 4,720 meters, first let local helpers dust off their shoes, I can only shake my head. Not as embarrassing, but similarly disturbing, I feel it when a tent camp on a mountain hardly differs from your own apartment. Even on Mount Everest!

Real bed and laptop workplace

Luxury tent for Everest BC

This spring, the Russian expedition operator “7 Summits Club” boasts about a so-called “luxury camp” on the Tibetan north side of the highest mountain in the world. Each expedition member is provided his own spacious and heated two-chamber tent. There is a carpet and a real bed with a wooden frame including down bedclothes in the “bedroom” and a laptop workplace with table and chair in the “anteroom”. “The climber should restore his strength as much as possible, should not get sick, should keep his high moral spirit and desire to go to the end,” the operator justifies the luxury in Everest Base Camp.

Not yet the end of the line

Everest ascent support of tomorrow?

However, this could also backfire. What if the pampered climbers suddenly have no more desire to give up their luxury accommodation? Maybe they even want to add a third chamber to their private tent, for shower and toilet, the latter of course with a heated seat. And why must well-being be limited to the base camp? The hitherto poorly equipped high camps could also be pepped up with floor heating and four-poster bed. And while you’re at it, why can the fixed ropes not be replaced by tow ropes, as they are used in children’s ski lifts? Jumars would be superfluous, struggling on the ascent would come to an end. Also moving sidewalks as used on big airports would be an option. So it’s not yet the end of the luxury line. However, the Chinese-Tibetan authorities would have to raise the Everest electricity fee of $ 50 per climber. Otherwise, they will soon be in the red.

K 2 Base Camp

Waiting can wear down. For more than one and a half weeks, the freak weather in the Karakoram prevented major activities on K2, the second highest mountain on earth. A week ago, Mingma Gyalje Sherpa watched from Base Camp a big avalanche, which swept down over the normal route via the Abruzzi spur at about 7,000 meters. The 31-year-old head of the Nepalese expedition operator Dreamers Destination had to give up his plan to check what damage had been caused due to bad weather. Since then, he has been waiting for a summit change at the foot of the mountain, along with his clients and Climbing Sherpas. After all, the first team members left BC today heading for Camp 1. Before, Mingma Gyalje Sherpa answered my questions.

Mingma, how is the mood in K 2 Base Camp while waiting for a good weather window? 

We are already here in BC for more than 10 days without doing anything. This year, the weather is more difficult to predict and changing as per my forecaster says. And these things really keep our mood bad every time. But we are very hopeful that we will make K2 this time, so we are happy waiting for our right time to come. Fingers crossed for July 27 or 28.

Mingma Gyalje Sherpa

What are the conditions like on the mountain compared with your summit success in 2014?

Obviously we had really good weather in 2014 compared to this year. Also in 2014 was K2 Diamond Jubilee, so there were lots of teams trying K2 and it was easier in opening route with more manpower. This year is not like that. This time only few small teams and we are also divided on the Cesen and the Abruzzi route.

More than that, weather on K2 this year is really hard. I found more snow on K2 this year compared to 2014 and 2016 when I led the team here. Because of more snow, we are protected from rock fall but we have the threat of avalanche again. Our weather reports showed wind above 50 Kph everyday above 8000m, so I feel the snow conditions during our summit push will be good. 

Are you still determined to climb via the Abruzzi Route despite last week’s big avalanche?   

Yes, we have to climb via the Abruzzi route. We have deposited everything there. But the thing is that we also have to make a new fix line and need to take extra equipment.

How do you value the chances to reach the highest point this summer?

Our K2 team is one of the strongest teams on K2 ever, so I am very positive in reaching the summit.

Hard work in the Khumbu Icefall

Once more it is served on Mount Everest. For three days, the Basque Alex Txikon, six Sherpas and two “Icefall Doctors” worked to restore the route via the Khumbu Icefall up to Camp 1 at more than 6,000 meters. 60 percent of the route had to be renewed, because the hard weather conditions of the past two weeks had left their mark in the ice labyrinth, the team of the 35-year-old Spaniard said. “It has been hard days refitting the route,” Alex noted on Facebook. After today’s rest day, Txikon and Co. want to ascend tomorrow to Camp 2 at 6,400 meters.

Time to grind the teeth

Alex Txikon

“I know that every time I go up, my strength is decreasing and therefore the chances of summit too,” Alex wrote in his blog. “But I’m a bit stubborn and I like to climb and fight it. It is time to grind my teeth.”

As reported, Txikon had had to interrupt his winter attempt involuntarily because the Nepalese expedition operator Seven Summit Treks had ordered the entire team back to Kathmandu after the failed first summit attempt. On Saturday, Alex had returned to the Everest Base Camp by helicopter.

Alex Txikon in Everest Base Camp

Expeditions can also get out of the rhythm. For example, if a long bad weather period thwarts all plans or if unpredictable things happen such as illnesses or injuries. Alex Txikon‘s Everest winter expedition, however, has stuttered for another reason. After the failed first summit attempt, the Nepalese agency Seven Summits Treks, with whom Txikon cooperated, yesterday ordered surprisingly to break immediately the Base Camp and return. This decision was “unilateral”, the team of the 35-year-old Basque said. Alex was quoted as saying, “I do not want to leave Everest.”

Chhepal Sherpa injured

Already after the return to Everest Base Camp, Txikon had announced that for him the expedition was not yet over. During the summit attempt violent storm had forced the team back at the 7,950-meter-high South Col. On the descent, the climbers had got into an avalanche on the Lhotse flank. Chhepal Sherpa had been hit on his head so badly that for him the expedition was definitely finished. However, it was not planned, that the entire team should fly back to Kathmandu. But this was exactly what the Nepalese agency ordered.

“Back in charge”

Back in Nepal’s capital, all the participants were sitting together today. Txikon expressed his firm intention to continue the expedition at any cost. “I’m back in charge,” Alex said afterwards. After a few days of rest in Kathmandu, he would return to Everest Base Camp along with Norbu Sherpa, Nuri Sherpa, Phurba Sherpa and Pemba Sherpa to climb up again – “with even greater inner drive to reach this summit in winter and, of course, with my initial ideal of not using artificial oxygen.” So far only the Sherpas who accompanied Alex had used breathing masks.

The more or less forced days in the about 1,400-meter-high city of Kathmandu will probably not destroy the acclimatization, but the stay 4,000 meters lower than Base Camp is certainly not ideal. Not to mention the expeditionary arrhythmia.

Alex Txikon

The dream of an Everest summit success in the first run has gone. Alex Txikon has abandoned his summit attempt and returned to the base camp. “I assure you that I have not given up,” the 35-year-old Basque wrote on Twitter. On Monday, Alex had climbed along with Norbu Sherpa and Chhepal Sherpa at temperatures of about minus 40 degrees Celsius to the South Col on 7,950 meters. But there such a strong wind was blowing that it was impossible to pitch a tent. “We have decided it was not the time to challenge nature at these heights and conditions, since we are nothing in dealing with it, and we could have suffered frostbite or even worse,” Txikon wrote later from Camp 3, adding that at times, it had become a tougher battle than the summit attack of last winter on Nanga Parbat.

After two nights at above 7,000 meters Txikon turned around. Winter is far from over. Alex Txikon will get even more chances. So time to recover and to try it once again.

Alex Txikon

Alex Txikon seems to be euphoric. “I do not feel tired,” writes the 35-year-old Basque, after having descended from Everest South Col at 7,950 meters in one go to Base Camp at about 5,300 meters. “My body signals to me that we will go to the summit the next time. Soon you will have news of the attack.” Before, Alex – along with the Sherpas Norbu, Nuri, Chhepal, Phurba and Pemba – had ascended to Camp 4 for the first time during his winter expedition.

Close to the sky

Txikon and Co. set off from Camp 2 towards the South Col at night, the thermometer shows around minus 30 Celsius. “I’m quite nervous,” Alex describes his feeling before heading out into the starry night. “I do not want to go cold and miss the opportunity to attack the summit during the next rotation.“ The climbers are rewarded by the view. “In a night like this you are so close to the sky that it seems you can reach it.”

200 percent concentration

In the Western Cwm

The six-man team fight their way through the Lhotse flank in the cold that is intensified by the wind. “It is not until 11 a.m. that the sun appears and we finally warm up,” writes Alex. A little later, the climbers reach the South Col. Txikon is depositing 15 kilograms of equipment in Camp 4, a tent, gas cartridges, ropes – and turns around immediately: “Concentration to 200 percent for the descent.” After a short break in Camp 2, Alex decides to descend to Base Camp, without his Sherpa friends who feel too exhausted and want to follow the next day. “Over the years, you learn to measure your strength,” says Alex. “So I knew I could make it unless the Icefall collapsed again.” That was exactly what had happened on the previous ascent, the team had been struggling to find a new way through the ice labyrinth.

Cracked fingertips

This time everything is going well. 18 hours after the start at night, Alex reaches Everest Base Camp. “My feet ache, the fingertips have cracked by the intense cold and the work we have done. The eyes, the lips … I am a mess. But happy.” And ready to climb up to the summit at 8,850 meters the next time. Now, however, it is first of all necessary to sit out the announced storm and to recover.

Everest Base Camp

Alex Txikon and his Sherpa team have reached the Base camp at the foot of Mount Everest in sufficient time before the beginning of the expected bad weather period. This is shown by his GPS tracker. The 35-year-old Basque was “exhausted but satisfied and very confident to reach the summit,” the Spanish sports newspaper “Marca” reported on Saturday evening. It has not yet been confirmed how high exactly Txikon and Co. have ascended this time.

Really up to the South Col?

“Marca” claims that the team has already equipped Camp 4 at 7,950 meters. However, this does not coincide with the information given by Txikon’s GPS tracker. The device displays a turn-around altitute of about 7,650 meters, 300 meters below the South Col. However, according to Alex’ press team, the GPS tracker had not shown the correct height in the days before. Today it seemed to work again.

Stormy days

I therefore recommend to wait until Alex himself tells us how far up they have climbed. After the hardships of the ascent without bottled oxygen, he should sleep a bit longer. Txikon will also have time to recover during the next days. The weather forecast predicts heavy storms at least until Thursday. A first summit attempt is out of question until then.

Update 5. Feb., 1 a.m.: “I’m back at the BC! We went up to C4 to equip it, and after we came back to C2, they stayed there and I decided to go down to the Base Camp,” Alex wrote on Twitter.

The Lhotse flank

Strange. Since yesterday, Alex Txikon‘s GPS tracker, which is to document his ascent on Mount Everest, has not shown any movement. Lastly, an altitude of more than 6200 meters was displayed. Afterwards nothing. I’ve asked. “Yesterday they [Alex and the Sherpas who accompany him] went up to Camp 2 (6,400 meters), where they have slept,” Gontzal Saenz from the press team of the Basque climber writes to me. According to him, the GPS tracker has not been working correctly and is showing the wrong altitude. “I think they were going to keep climbing up today.” The goal was to prepare the route from Camp 3 at 7,400 meters to Camp 4 on the South Col at 7,950 meters by tomorrow. “The weather forecasts are very bad, with very strong winds, for the next few days,” writes Gontzal. “The plan is to return to the base camp tomorrow [Saturday] and wait there for the weather to improve again.”

Up to 190 kilometers per hour

Alex in the tent

That sounds reasonable. On Saturday morning, according to the weather forecast, the wind in the summit area is supposed to calm down to 25 km/h, but from Sunday onwards the weather will most probably turn really bad. Storms reaching hurricane strength with speeds of up to 190 m/h are expected during the next week. Alex and Co. should really sit out this weather in Base Camp. Due to the fact, that Txikon does not use bottled oxygen, he must be double-cautious. The lack of oxygen leads to increased breathing. This causes dehydration, the metabolism hardly works, the extremities are supplied only insufficiently. This increases the risk of frostbite on fingers and toes. If in addition strong wind cools your body, it can be quickly over with your extremities.

Alex Txikon along with the Sherpas Nurbu, Nuri and Chepal

Taking a breath – this is what Alex Txikon wants to do not only figuratively but also literally. After six days on the mountain, the 35-year-old Basque has descended to the Base Camp at the foot of Mount Everest. “We climbed to 7,800 meters,” Alex tweeted after his return to BC, which is located at about 5,350 meters and where the air is much thicker than in the height just below the South Col. “It’s time to rest,” says Txikon. And, perhaps, to re-plan the tactics too, after his companion Carlos Rubio – as reported – had to abandon the expedition because of a lung inflammation.

Strength management

View down from the Lhotse Face

Alex is an experienced winter mountain climber and knows that he has to manage his strength. After all, he has a very ambitious goal. Never before a climber has reached the summit of Everest in the middle of winter without the use of bottled oxygen. Ang Rita Sherpa – the only climber who has so far reached the highest point without breathing mask in the cold season – had ascended on 22 December 1987, the first day of the calendrical winter. The weather was exceptionally good then. Extreme winter cold usually makes the already low air pressure in the summit area fall even further.

Everest will be measured again

South side of Mount Everest

The exact height of Mount Everest is to be newly surveyed next spring. This was announced by Swarna Subba Rao, head of “Survey of India”. The expedition will begin in one month, said Rao according to the Indian newspaper “The Hindu”. The measurements will reportedly take one month, two more weeks will be needed to evaluate the data. The newspaper “The Times of India” reported that the expedition would set off only in two months. That would coincide with the beginning of the spring season on Everest. Anyway, latest in late May a new height will be published, which also could be the old one.

Shrunk or shifted?

In Nepal and India, the highest mountain on earth is still noted with an altitude of 8,848 meters, in China, since 2005, of 8,844 meters. The GPS measurement of an US expedition in 1999 resulted in an altitude of 8,850 meters. After the devastating earthquake in Nepal in spring 2015 it was assumed that Everest had shrunk by a few centimeters. Chinese surveyors, on the other hand, said that Everest had merely shifted laterally, by three centimeters to the southwest.

Alex Txikon in Everest Base Camp

Ready to go. “We are already at the Base Camp,” Alex Txikon writes on Twitter from the Nepalese south side of Mount Everest.  The Basque climber and his companions have pitched their tents in the 5360-meter-high Base Camp at the foot of the Khumbu Icefall. For one week, the team had trekked from Lukla via the Khumbu region to BC. Txikon reported on dry but cold winter weather.

Without breathing mask

New Year’s Eve party in Kunde

This should only be a small foretaste on what awaits him and his Spanish comrade Carlos Rubio in the next weeks on Everest. As reported, the two climbers want to scale the highest mountain on earth in winter, without bottled oxygen. Ang Rita Sherpa was the only climber so far to have achieved this success on 22 December 1987, under exceptionally good weather conditions. For the past 24 years, no one has reached the 8850-meter-high summit in winter. The first winter ascent of Everest – it was the first of an eight-thousander at all – had been made by the two Poles Krzysztof Wielicki and Leszek Cichy in 1980, with supplementary oxygen.

Txikon is a proven winter expert. At the end of February 2016 he succeeded, along with the Italian Simone Moro and the Pakistani Muhammad Ali Sadpara, the first winter ascent of Nanga Parbat, a milestone of the high-altitude climbing.

Mount Everest

The Everest spring season is gaining momentum. The Base Camp on the Nepalese side of Mount Everest is filling. According to the government in Kathmandu, 279 climbers from 38 countries have registered for the highest mountain on earth. The Icefall Doctors have meanwhile prepared the route all the way up to Camp 2 at 6,400 meters. The teams who want to climb Everest from the Tibetan north side, have also received now their permits from the Chinese authorities and are heading to Tibet. It’s going to kick off there too. Before the media Everest season begins, I would like to correct some reoccurring errors.

1) Everest is a safe mountain.

Dangerous Khumbu Icefall

Granted, the technical climbing difficulties on the two normal routes may be limited because the way via the Southeast Ridge as well as the route via the Northeast Ridge are secured with fixed ropes up to the summit. But that alone doesn’t make Everest a safe mountain. Finally, it is 8,850 meters high, where oxygen is pressed into the lungs with only one-third of the pressure compared to sea level. Also an ascent with breathing mask is not chicken feed. Even if it is really true that Everest in case of using bottled oxygen is downgraded to a six-thousander, you have to manage to get to the top. In addition, climate change has increased the objective dangers. Parts of the route that were previously almost always snowy, are now frequently free from snow and ice. Rockfall is threatening in the Lhotse flank. And the danger of avalanches has increased, not only in the Khumbu Icefall.

2) Everest is a killer mountain.

The opposite to 1) is wrong as well. Although there were no summit successes from the south side in the last two years, but two avalanche incidents with a total of 35 dead, Mount Everest is still far from being one the most dangerous eight-thousanders. On the one hand about 280 people have died so far on the highest mountain on earth, but there have been more than 7,000 ascents on the other hand. This ratio makes Everest belong even more to the category of the secure than of the extremely dangerous eight-thousanders. Most deaths per ascents have been recorded on Annapurna, on the second place of this “fatality ranking” follows K 2.

3) Everest is no longer a mountain for top climbers.

Everest North Face

20 routes have been climbed on Everest, plus several variations of these ways. This does not mean that there is a lack of other options. So far only two routes have been climbed in the Kangchung Face, in recent years the Everest East Face was almost always deserted. Furthermore there should still be possible new ascent routes via the North and the Southwest Face. Not to mention the ultimate challenge, the “Horseshoe Route”: up Nuptse West Ridge, traversing the summits of Lhotse and Everest and descending via Everest West Ridge to the starting point.

4) Everest is a garbage dump.

Garbage at the South Col

There have been garbage regulations for Everest expeditions for decades. The mountaineers are obliged to dig or burn their organic waste. Recyclable material such as plastic or glass must be returned to Kathmandu as well as empty oxygen bottles or batteries. Anyone who breaches the rules risks not getting back his garbage deposit of US $ 4,000. In addition, several eco-expeditions have collected tons of garbage from Everest, from the period when mountaineers made little thoughts about environmental protection. Many mountains in the European Alps are even more garbage dumps than Mount Everest.

5) Everest is littered with corpses.

It is true that Everest summit aspirants should mentally be prepared to pass some bodies of dead climbers. But it is not that the route is “paved with corpses”, as reports suggest repeatedly. Many of the climbers who died of exhaustion were “buried” in crevasses or their corpses were pushed down the Everest walls by other climbers. Sometimes a storm does this job too.

6) The moral of Everest Sherpas has been lost.

Much traffic on Everest

It’s like anywhere: If many people are on the way, you will find some black sheep. In spring 2013, Sherpas attacked Simone Moro, Ueli Steck and Jonathan Griffith in Everest high camp and a year later there were threats of violence against climbers who disagreed with the premature end of the season after the deadly avalanche in the Khumbu Icefall. But it is dishonest to conclude that now all Sherpas tend to violence or no longer do their job properly. More and more Sherpas acquire international certificates as mountain guides. The Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) is offering regularly training courses for local climbers. Undoubtedly, the young, well-trained Sherpa climbers act more self-confident. They are aware of their skills and want to be treated as fully-fledged climbers – and not as lackeys.

7) Everest should be closed.

Who would benefit? Perhaps the advocates of a mainly Western climbing philosophy, but certainly not the people of Khumbu, who strongly depend on the income of Everest tourism: local mountain guides, Climbing Sherpas, cooks and kitchen helpers in Base Camp, porters, owners of lodges and shops on the way to Everest, farmers and the families of these all. The Western critics should ask themselves whether mountains like Mont Blanc in the Alps or Denali in Alaska should have to be closed with the same arguments they use only for Everest.

8) The government will do the job.

If there is anything to be learnt from what happened on Everest in the past years, it is this: The government of Nepal is talking more than acting. Again and again politicians of the competent Ministry of Tourism present proposals for new Everest rules, but only to make headlines. As good as nothing is implemented. Even for a simple decision as to extend the permits after the disasters of the last two years, the authorities in Kathmandu needed almost a year each. Virtually all reforms fail, likely because the government itself makes big profit on Everest. It remains in the dark, where exactly the money from the sale of the permits goes – $ 11,000 per climber at all.

9) The climbers are capable of “managing” Everest on their own.

Everest Base Camp

Also at that point, the main counterargument is the business that is made on and with Everest. At the end of the day, every entrepreneur wants to be in the black. The more clients reach the summit, the better is his reputation, and therefore he will likely increase his profit in the following year. As a result one or the other expedition leader will show selfishness on the mountain, according to the motto: Why should I take care of the other groups? What is really needed is to “manage” the mountain to prevent that all ascend on the same day therefore causing traffic jams at the key points of the route. It might work, but also among the expedition leaders, there are black sheep.

10) One should not report about Everest.

Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world. Therefore, there will always be mountaineers who want to climb it. And most probably people will always be interested in Everest. That’s the main reason why we have to report about what is happening there – without glossing over, but also without demonizing. Just like anywhere else in the world, it applies on Everest too: You will not solve a problem by keeping quiet about it.

Dorje Sherpa in front of his lodge in Phakding

Dorje Sherpa is familiar with Everest disasters. In 1996, 20 years ago, he reached the summit of the highest mountain on earth for the first time. Then he belonged to the IMAX film team of the American David Breashears, when a storm in the summit area killed eight climbers within 24 hours. “We were then in Camp 2 at 6,400 meters”, the 50-year-old tells me in his “Buddha Lodge” in the village of Phakding, which lies on the popular trekking route to Everest Base Camp.

Rescue in Khumbu Icefall

Numerous certificate are hanging on the walls of the guest room, including a thank-you note by the Nepal Mountaineering NMA for Dorje’s participaton in the rescue operation on Everest in spring 2014. Two years ago, 16 Nepalese climbers died in an ice avalanche in the Khumbu Icefall. Then Dorje was Sirdar of the “Altitude Junkies” team, meaning the boss of their climbing Sherpas. From the base camp, he ascended to the scene of the accident and helped to recover the dead and injured.

Family says: No!

The avalanche from Pumori

And also in 2015, the Sherpa was at the foot of Mount Everest, when the earthquake on April 25 triggered an avalanche from Pumori that hit the base camp and killed 19 people. “We were sitting in the mess tent and were eating. It was a huge avalanche. One team member tried to run away, stumbled, fell and lost two teeth.” 2014 and 2015 were really bad years on the highest mountain, says Dorje: “Therefore, I won’t climb Everest this year. My family does not let me go.“ The experienced climber has reached the 8850-meter-high summit already six times. He wants to hang up, not stop, says the Sherpa: “Maybe it works again in 2017.”

Ready for guests – if they come

Construction work in the Khumbu area

His wife and son are living in the capital Kathmandu. Dorje has monitored the reconstruction of his lodge in Phakding, which was destroyed in the earthquake almost eleven months ago. Everywhere it is still smelling of fresh processed wood. The outer stone walls were built very solid. “Now we are ready for new guests,” says Dorje Sherpa, when he proudly shows us the completed rooms of htis lodge. “Hopefully, they’ll come.”

P.S.: The art of brewing beer done in my home town Cologne seems to have reached the Everest region. Here – as the picture testifies – you can buy „Khumbu-Kölsch“.

Tomek Mackiewicz

Will his “Never again Nanga Parbat” turn into a “Now more than ever”? The Pole Tomek Mackiewicz announced that he would return to the Base Camp on the Diamir side. After their summit attempt two weeks ago, that had failed at an altitude of about 7,300 m, Tomek and his French team partner Elisabeth Revol had departed. Mackiewicz had said in an interview that after his seventh faild attempt he would definitely not try again to climb the ninth highest mountain in the world for the first time in winter and that he would perhaps even say finally good-bye to the Himalayas and the Karakoram.

A Tumbler

Some recovery days later that sounds quite different: “There is still a chance and I’m super acclimatized” Tomek wrote from the town of Chilas, located on the river Indus, nearly 50 kilometers from Nanga Parbat. Mackiewicz doesn’t clarify what exactly he is planning: “Secretly “ The Polish “ice warrior” (thus Polish winter climbers on the highest mountains in the world have been called for decades) apparently has regained his motivation. However, he has not enough Money. Tomek launched a crowdfunding campaign with the aim of collecting the equivalent of around 25,000 euros.

“Good communication”

Meanwhile in Base Camp on the Diamir side, Italian Daniele Nardi has denied that there are unbridgeable differences between him and the Spaniard Alex Txikon. “We have a good communication”, Daniele wrote on Facebook. He recalled that he had been on expedition with Alex already four times and that they together had reached an altitude of 7,830 meters on Nanga Parbat in 2015: “This year, I have considered him to be more than just a partner”, said Nardi. “We will find the best solution.”

Today a big avalanche swept down the Diamir slopes of Nanga Parbat. Watch the video that Simone Moro made:

Jost, what did you think this week when you heard about the new earthquake in Nepal?

I was sitting in front of my computer and received on Facebook a message from a friend who wrote: We survived. Till then I had not heard anything about it. I immediately wrote to all my Nepalese friends whether they were doing well. A friend, who normally replies promptly, did not answer, neither in the evening nor the next morning. I started to get worried. Fortunately, she replied after all. She wrote that they were now living in a tent, because it was safer. That made me a little bit nervous. I’ll soon go to Nepal. I worry about my own safety.

The avalanche from Pumori

Almost three weeks ago, you survived the avalanche that hit the Base Camp at the foot of Mount Everest. 19 people were killed. How narrow was it for you?

If you look at it from the outside, it may look as though it was not narrow. But in the moment, when I was right inside the avalanche, I thought for a minute that I would die.

The avalanche came out of nowhere. Were you able to think anything or did you react instinctively?

Absolutely instinctively. You don’t think in this situation. It is a mixture of experience and instinct.

How did it look like at the Base Camp after the avalanche?

I had fled behind a tent. When I came back, I found a completely different world. Everything was covered with ice, tents were crushed, prayer flags were lying on the ground.

What did happen afterwards? Was there pure chaos?

We mountaineers are accepting the risk. Therefore, most of us are mentally better prepared for such things and react with certain professionalism. It was not pure chaos. People just tried to organize the rescue operation. All wondered what just happened. And all knew it was something big. The next step was a certain depression. Everyone realized that his dream was gone, at least for this year. Silence covered the Base Camp.

Rescue in Everest Base Camp

Were there still climbers who said we don’t care, we want to continue climbing despite the earthquake and the avalanche?

Yes, I was one of them. And there were quite many others. However, we quickly realized that we were too optimistic. The main problem was the aftershocks. We had information that they should continue for two weeks. For two weeks we would not be able to do anything, for two weeks there would be the risk of collapsing seracs in Khumbu Icefall. I quickly realized that due to the lack of time I would not have any chance to reach the summit, Camp 4 would be the maximum.

Durbar Square after the quake

How did you experience Nepal on your way back?

First the tragedy was still far away. But when I walked out and reached Lobuche [a settlement about eight kilometers from Base Camp], I saw the first collapsed walls. Later we also passed houses that were completely destroyed.  Back in Kathmandu, I visited the places I knew from before, e.g. the Durbar Square, where only bricks are left. It made me realize how comparatively insignificant was what we had experienced at Everest Base Camp and that other people need much more attention and help.

Why do you want to return to Nepal at the end of May?

I want to help making progress. I will support various fundraising campaigns by visiting their projects, taking pictures for them and being their local contact. And I want to lend a hand where it is possible.

Do you have special manual skills?

My father has been running a carpentry. Thus I grew up with the craft practicing it every once in a while. I prefer to work directly with Nepalese people. I don’t want to be the white man who has money in his pocket and distribute it. I want to build up something in a team with local people.

Your video of the Everest avalanche was the first one that was published. Suddenly there was a huge global media interest. How did you experience this?

First I had not heard anything about it. It took me eight hours to upload the video at the Base Camp. A few hours later, it had two million hits, then five, seven, twelve, 14, 16 million [Meanwhile, more than 22 million]! When we saw that our video was shared so often we felt almost euphoric. That was a strange feeling. For us, this video was actually only a testimony that we had survived the avalanche.

Last year, you scaled Ama Dablam, climbing solo. This year you initially had planned to attempt Lhotse, again solo and without bottled oxygen. Do you still want to do it?

Actually, I’ve noticed this year that it’s too crowded on Everest. I had to wait for three hours in a traffic jam in the Icefall. And I was in Camp 1 only once in four weeks. Despite the frustrations I still find the project very exciting. But my feeling right now is rather that I’ll do something else.

Will that be your climbing style for the future: solo, without breathing mask?

It is somehow my niche. I really like these solo climbs. To do it alone and unsupported, is unusual and the most challenging way.