K 2, seen from Base Camp

Another sad message from the Karakoram: The Canadian climber Serge Dessureault fell to his death at K2, the second highest mountain on earth, from an altitude of 6,700 metres. This was announced by the Alpine Club of Pakistan. The 53-year-old’s body was taken to the Advance Base Camp. Dessureault had led an expedition from Quebec. The four members wanted to be the first climbers from this Canadian province to reach the 8,611-metre-high summit of K2. They wanted to ascend via the so-called Abruzzi route (the Southeast ridge).

2007 on the Everest

R.I.P.

Dawa Sherpa from the Nepalese expedition operator Seven Summit Treks wrote on Facebook that Serge fell “from below a chimney while climbing at Camp 2”. Actually, this can only be House’s Chimney, a climbing passage through a crack in the rock, which had been first mastered by the American Bill House in 1938.

Dessureault had worked as a fireman in Montreal. In 2007 he had scaled Mount Everest from the Tibetan north side. – Last weekend, an Austrian climber had died in an avalanche on the 7,338-metre-high Ultar Sar in the Karakoram.

Jerzy Kukuczka (1948 – 1989)

One of the all-time best high altitude climbers would have celebrated his 70th birthday this Saturday. But he missed this day of honor by more than 28 years: In fall 1989 Jerzy Kukuczka died at the age of 41 in an accident on Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain on earth. The Pole had previously scaled as the second climber after Reinhold Messner all 14 eight-thousanders. At times it looked as if Kukuczka could even snatch away the crown from Messner, but then the South Tyrolean closed the eight-thousander match with his ascents of Makalu and Lhotse in fall 1986. Just one year later, in September 1987, when the rather publicity-shy Kukuzczka completed his collection, Messner honored him with the words: “You are not the second, you’re great.”

Milestones

Memorial plaque at the foot of Lhotse South Face

In less than eight years – Messner took twice as long – Kukuczka climbed all 14 eight-thousanders and wrote alpine history: four winter first ascents, two of them in 1985 within three weeks (on Dhaulagiri and Cho Oyu), the first ascent of the South Pillar of Everest and of the South Face of K2, the first solo ascent of Makalu – to name only a few milestones. Only on Mount Everest, he used bottled oxygen. In 1988, the International Olympic Committee declared Messner and Kukuczka honorary Olympic champions. Messner refused the medal, Kukuczka accepted it.

Fall to death on Lhotse

Even after Jerzy had completed his eight-thousander collection, the highest mountains in the world did not get out of his mind. For fall 1989, Kukuczka actually planned to traverse all peaks of the Kangchenjunga massif, but then he changed his mind. With his countryman Ryszard Pawłowski, the 41-year-old tackled the legendary, at that time still unclimbed Lhotse South Face. On 24 October 1989, Jerzy Kukuczka fell from about 8,200 meters to his death.

Tengboche Monastery

He would have liked that. At Tengboche Monastery in the Khumbu area, at almost 4,000 meters, with a view to Mount Everest, Lhotse and Ama Dablam, Ueli Steck’s ​​family bid farewell to the Swiss top climber during a Buddhist ceremony. The 40-year-old had fallen to death on Sunday on the 7861- meter-high Nuptse. “According to the Nepali tradition, the deceased was cremated in an impressive three-hour ceremony,” Steck’s family informed via Facebook. Uelis wife Nicole, his parents and parents-in-law took part. “The family perceived the ceremony as very solemn and impressive, sad and at the same time liberating.” The family will take a part of the ashes back to Switzerland, where a public memorial is planned for friends, acquaintances and companions. Place and time are not yet fixed. On Ueli Steck’ homepage ​​an online book of condolence was established.

Acclimatization plan changed at short notice

Ueli Steck above Camp 2 on Everest

The family also commented on the accident. Last Saturday, Steck had ascended to Camp 2 at 6,400 meters. “His original plan was to climb the next day via the Everest normal route up to the almost 8,000-meter-high South Col for further acclimatization. From Camp 2, Ueli found that the conditions in the Nuptse face were ideal. Therefore he decided in the evening to climb up on Nuptse and not to the South Col the following day.”

Steck set off from Camp 2 on Sunday at 4:30 a.m. local time along with the Frenchman Yannick Graziani. While Graziani continued on the Everest normal route, Ueli turned towards Nuptse. “Ueli’s accident happened at around 7,600 meters at about 9.00 a.m. (local time),” said Steck’s family. “His body was finally recovered by the Italian helicopter pilot Maurizio Folini at an altitude of about 6,600 meters and flown to a hospital in Kathmandu. The cause of the fall is still unknown.”

Where exactly did Steck ascend?

North flank of Nuptse (seen from the Geneva Spur on Everest)

The fatal accident is also being discussed among the mountaineers on the north side of Everest. Ralf Dujmovits, who – as reported – will try this spring for the eighth and, as he says, last time to scale the highest mountain in the world without bottled oxygen, was staying on the North Col at 7,000 meters for acclimatization, when he heard that Steck had died on Nuptse: “His death has touched me very much – I am profoundly saddened.” In September 1996, the now 55-year old German had succeeded, along with Axel Schlönvogt, the second ascent of the route via the Nuptse North Ridge, opened by an British expedition led by Doug Scott in 1979, which meanwhile, in Dujmovits’ words, “has unfortunately degenerated to a kind of normal route”: “I don’t know if Ueli wanted to take this route, which is now often secured with fixed ropes during the pre-monsoon period. It seems a little Ueli-unlike,” Ralf writes to me. “In 2003, the Benegas brothers from Argentina first climbed a very beautiful route (named ‘The Crystal Snake) on the right side (i.e. west) of the pillar. That would conform more to Ueli’s style. Or was he exploring a new route even further to the west?” In the end, says Dujmovits, he can only speculate. Steck had announced that he would try to traverse Everest and Lhotse, but he had a permit for Nuptse too.

Dujmovits: “One of the strongest allrounders”

Ralf Dujmovits (on Cholatse in April)

“I have experienced Ueli always very down-to-earth, lively, honest and friendly,” Ralf writes about Steck. “He was one of the strongest all-round climbers of our time, who has raised both mountain sports-specific training and professionalism to a new level. I was disappointed about his dealing with the avalanche accident in 2014 on Shishapangma. Admitting mistakes to the public as well as to a companion would certainly have given him even more splendor.”

Ueli Steck a few days before his fall to death

Why did Ueli Steck choose Nuptse to acclimatize himself? This is a question I ask myself, since on Sunday the news of the death of the Swiss spread like a run-fire. A few days earlier, the 40-year-old had climbed towards the West Shoulder of Everest. That made sense. After all, he planned to climb on his Everest-Lhotse traverse via the West Ridge and the Hornbein Couloir to the highest. But Nuptse? Not exactly the classic tour to get acclimatized. What was the added value besides making additional height meters?

Reinhold Messner speculated in several interviews that Ueli might have planned to try the “great horseshoe”, the never-attempted round trip form Nuptse to Lhotse and Everest across the ridges between the mountains. I see no evidence for this after all I have heard and read. The Frenchman Yannick Graziani wrote in his blog that Ueli had asked him three days before his death, if he wanted to accompany him on Nuptse. The 43-year-old, who wants to climb Everest without bottled oxygen this spring, declined. It was really just an acclimatization trip, Yannick’s team told me on request: “Ueli never said or wrote about Nuptse or horseshoe. He was waiting for his Sherpa friend Tenji to recover from frostbite and reach together the West Shoulder.”

On Monday, I had written to some top climbers asking how they had experienced Ueli. Two other answers reached me.

Auer: “Steck inspired and encouraged us”

Hansjoerg Auer

The 33-year-old Austrian Hansjoerg Auer was shocked by the news of Steck’s death during a trip in the USA:

“Ueli was someone who did his climbing with full passion and personal commitment. He did not only inspire many alpinists, but also encouraged us with his ideas to continue going the next step to redefine our culture of mountaineering. I was able to discuss this topic with him a few times. And I will never forget his very personal, respectful and encouraging email after my loss of Gerry [Fiegl] on Nilgiri South [In fall 2015, the Austrian Fiegl fell to death on the descent from the 6839-meter-high mountain in the West of Nepal]. Good-bye, Ueli!”

Papert: “To the limits of the humanly possible”

Ines Papert

The 43-year-old German top-climber Ines Papert sent me these thoughtful words:

“I shed tears over Ueli’s loss. He has moved unbelievable things in alpinism and set new standards.

But no man is immortal, neither is Ueli. Nevertheless the news has hit me very hard, even if it did not come completely unexpected. Over the years, I’ve always been a bit worried and I wondered how far you can push the limits without running the risk of losing your life. I’m sure he knew how close he was to the edge. Criticizing this is absolutely presumptuous, because it was HIS life, a life in the mountains. He LIVED this life and was certainly happy.

But I always hoped that he would not find too many imitators with his access to alpinism. Light and fast can considerably reduce the risk on high mountains, to a certain extent. But the further you play the game, the closer you are to death. Ueli was aware of this, because he was not only incredibly motivated and strong but also an intelligent man.

It is many years back that we climbed together the route “Blaue Lagune” on the Wendenstöcke  [mountain massive in the Uri Alps in Switzerland] and that we were sitting in a Pizzeria in the Val di Cogne [side valley of the Aosta Valley in Italy] discussing ethical issues in mixed climbing. At the time, he was at the beginning of his career, but his enthusiasm, almost obsession for climbing and his ambition of exceeding limits was clearly noticeable. Later I could follow his successes only from the media, he had developed into a completely different direction than myself.

I always admired how far he was able to push his body and mind to the limits of the humanly possible. At the same time, I always feared that one day it would go wrong. It is a little comforting that he stayed where his home was: in the mountains of the world.”

Norbert Joos (1960 – 2016)

Again one of the really great high altitude climbers was torn out of his life: The 55-year-old Swiss Norbert Joos fell to death on Piz Bernina in the canton Grisons. According to Swiss media reports, Joos had guided a group to the 4049-meter-high summit. On the descent the roped party of three, to which Joos belonged, fell 160 meters deep. Joos was found dead, the other two climbers, a woman and a man from Italy, survived seriously injured.

Stroke on Kangchenjunga

Joos had climbed 13 of the 14 eight-thousanders, all without bottled oxygen. Only Mount Everest was missing in his list. In 2006, after his fifth failed attempt on Everest, the Swiss said finally goodbye to the eight-thousanders. Two years earlier he had suffered a stroke during the descent from Kangchenjunga. Nevertheless, he tried Everest once more. “I just had to go there again and feel what was possible. Otherwise I would have kept Everest always in mind. Now it’s okay for me,” Joos later said in an interview. He criticized commercial climbing on the highest mountain on earth: “As a real climber you should stay well clear of Everest.”

“Only for young and crazy guys”

As the “most important thing I have achieved as a climber” Joos described the first ascent of Annapurna East Ridge with the first traverse of this eight-thousander from south to north in fall 1984, along with his Swiss compatriot Erhard Loretan (who fell to death in 2011). “Of course, we were very good climbers then, but we were also lucky,” Joos later recalled. “On the basis of my experience to date, I wouldn’t do it anymore. Only young and crazy guys can do things like this.”

Albert Precht (1947-2015)

Austria is mourning another of its great climbers. On Friday – the day when in Linz Edi Koblmueller was buried, who had frozen to death on a ski tour in Georgia – Albert Precht died in a climbing accident in Crete. The 67-year-old and his 68-year-old longtime climbing partner Robert Joelli fell to death, when they were climbing the Kapsa Wall in the Pervolakia Gorge. The cause of the accident is still unclear. Precht had traveled with his wife and friends from his hometown Bischofshofen to the Greek island where he regularly spent climbing holidays for years.

Adventure without safety net

Precht was a mountain guide and a carpenter by trade, but he made his money as a train driver for the Austrian Federal Railways. He started to climb lately but then the more passionate. With 21 years he succeeded in climbing his first new route in the Alps. The information on how many first ascents he did until his death, vary between 800 and 1,000, not only in the Alps, but also in Norway, Corsica, Jordan or Oman. Albert was an advocate of strict climbing ethics, his credo: No first ascent with bolts. Also his free solo climbs were sensational. “The ultimate challenge is to climb a new route, solo without any tool. Climbing solo means adventure without safety net”, Precht said once in an interview with the magazine of the Austrian Alpine Club.

Deep feeling of live

He was not able to climb the highest mountains: “I had problems with high altitude as I experienced three times. Thus my way did not lead to the eight-thousanders, alas!”As an extreme climber Albert Precht was aware of the risk to lose his life: “When I remember some of these situations, I have to confess that there was a will to let it go, to get rid of the obsession to survive. But this confrontation with death was always a deep feeling of life too.”