The most successful Bulgarian high altitude climber, Boyan Petrov, has been missing for several days on the eight-thousander Shishapangma in Tibet. This was confirmed today by his partner Radoslava Nenova on Facebook. According to her, a search for Petrov is to begin tomorrow. Previously, the team of the Hungarian climber David Klein reported that the 45-year-old Bulgarian had set off on 29 April for a solo attempt without bottled oxygen. On 3 May, last Thursday, Petrov was seen from base camp by telescope at the level of Camp 3. On Saturday, an Ukrainian and three Sherpas reached Camp 3 at about 7,400 meters and found Boyan’s semi-open tent with his sleeping bag, covered in snow. Obviously, Petrov had left for the summit.

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Ralf Dujmovits is close to his big goal. In his eighth attempt, the 55-year-old finally wants to scale Mount Everest without bottled oxygen. Ralf is only about eight hours of ascent away from the highest point on earth at 8,850 meters – if everything goes well. Today Dujmovits, according to his life partner Nancy Hansen, reached Camp 3 on the Tibetan normal route at 8,300 meters, from where he called her by satellite phone. There had been a thunderstorm for the last hour, Ralf told the Canadian. It had taken him five hours to climb the 600 vertical meters from Camp 2. “He feels a little tired, but he sounds very alert and normal,” Nancy wrote on Facebook. “He will drink a lot now, rest a few hours, and leave for the summit at 1am Nepali time (1.15 pm Friday in Canada, 9.15 pm Friday in Germany).”

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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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