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.”

Ines Papert

If a good mood could be converted into electricity, Ines Papert right now wouldn’t need any socket at home. I can literally hear the beaming face of the 42-year-old German top climber on the phone when we talk about her success at the 5842-meter-high Kyzyl Asker in the border area between Kyrgyzstan and China. Along with her 28-year-old Slovenian rope partner Luka Lindic, she has opened – as reported – a spectacular route through the Southeast Face of the mountain. A line where many top climbers had previously failed, she herself twice.

Ines, how does it feel to have fulfilled  a dream in the third run (after 2010 and 2011)?

Really good would be an understatement. (She laughs) There are actually no words for it. I still wake up sometimes in the morning and think: Was this just a dream? The moment up there was very emotional, though brief. We knew the weather turned and we quickly had to climb down again. There was not much time to enjoy it. But it’s still an unforgettable experience.

Ines and Luka Lindic on the summit of Kyzyl Asker

You have been for the first time en route with Slovenian Luka Lindic and returned with such a big success. Did it just fit?

Kyzyl Asker was still hard to digest after I had failed in 2011 for the second time. It was clear to me that I should have a better team if I try it again. I did not want to leave it to chance, I just had to listen to my inner voice. When I showed Luka a picture of the wall at an event of our joint sponsor, I immediately felt his enthusiasm. In the meantime, I can recognize whether such emotions rise from deep conviction or from cool calculation that it might be good for his vita. I immediately realized that Luka was serious. Of course, I have followed his expeditions during the past years. You couldn’t wish for a better climbing partner for such a project. There were actually no causes of friction between us. We didn’t have to communicate a lot on the mountain. It was just clear how to tackle it.

Did you have to motivate each other?

This wasn’t necessary at all. We were highly motivated from the beginning when we saw how good the conditions were compared with my two previous attempts. We arrived, made our acclimatization tour, waited in a blizzard for two days and then immediately used the first good weather window. There weren’t any long waiting periods, problems with high altitude or any other ones.

Ines climbing in perfect ice

You finished a line that had been a too hard nut to crack for many expeditions before. You yourself had also failed twice. What was the secret of success this time?

I had considered that it was more favorable to travel from China to the mountain. That was what Nicolas Favresse and Sean Villanueva had done for the first time in 2013 when they had first climbed the South Pillar to the right of our route. Until then, we thought we had to travel via Kyrgyzstan. From the Chinese side, you don’t have to carry your baggage over 16 kilometers across a 5,200-meter-high pass to Advanced Base Camp, as you have to do in Kyrgyzstan. In addition, you set off in China at an altitude of 2,900 meters and can acclimatize much better than in Kyrgyzstan, where you first have to go by car up to 4,000 meters. So we had a shorter access and more elevation to acclimatize.
The second secret of success was our team. Luka is just incredibly fast. We perfectly complemented each other and were able to speed up. For us it was clear that we had to climb almost the entire 1,200 meters difference in altitude to the summit ridge on the first day.
And then the good conditions! During my first attempts the conditions had been really difficult. Then we had at least M 8 pitches. Such a difficult mixed climbing takes much more time than now in a closed ice line, which is only interrupted a few times by rock sections.
Another success factor was that we had only one backpack. We have done it in a light style. We had only a two-person sleeping bag, no reserve of gas and food, only the absolutely necessary clothing.

Uncomfortable bivouac

Did you have to go to your limit when climbing?

Actually, I was only at my limit high up in the wall. It’s really tough if you have only one backpack. I don’t know whether I would do it again. Perhaps it would be better to divide the equipment, between a light backpack for the leading climber and a heavier one for the second. We took turns at leading every few pitches. The passages in which I was the second and had to carry the heavy backpack were the most exhausting ones. Finally Luca once more accelerated. I might have bivouacked already one, two pitches below. But we were looking for a place to sit on reasonably. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen.

The success proved you right, even if you have spent a very cold night.

But this only worked because we didn’t have to climb a lot afterwards. After this night neither of us would have been able to climb once more in the same difficulty as before.

The new route via the Southeast Face

Where do you rank this success in your career?

Actually, very, very high up. (She laughs) I simply like the Alpine style best. You are flexible and fast, you can also use small time windows. This style was simply suggested for our line. I am certainly quite proud.
I have been also very happy about various comments on Facebook, by climbers who had previously tried in vain to climb the route. This is the greatest reward at all. Someone could have also been pissed and could have written: This was actually my line, it was reserved for me. You can see that, by and large, the climbing community works well, that we don’t grudge each other a success. This was a nice experience.

And now you feel empty and don’t know what to do next?

No way! I always have a lot of ideas. I don’t even know when to realize it all. My life is not enough for that. We had a little time left in China at the end of our expedition to create a list of possible goals for the next time.

In other words, you’re going to climb with Luka again?

For sure, we already have very concrete plans.

Papert (l.) and Lindic on top of Kyzyl Asker

Some mountains act to certain people like magnets. They exert an almost magical pull, even if they are as difficult to reach as the Kyzyl Asker in the border region between China and Kyrgyzstan. For the third time, the German top climber Ines Papert traveled to the 5842-meter-high mountain to try to climb a new route via the difficult Southeast Face, which she just couldn’t get out of her mind. In 2010 and 2011 Ines had failed, now she returned with a success. “I am the happiest person on the planet. It keeps me smiling for a bit longer,” Papert writes on Facebook. Three weeks ago, the 42-year old climbed along with the 28-year-old Slovenian Luka Lindic through the wall to the summit of Kyzyl Asker. In the past years the 1200-meter-high couloir had been a too hard nut to crack for several expeditions. Papert and Lindic baptized their new route “Lost in China”. For the first time Ines had traveled to the mountain not from Kyrgyzstan but from China. This made the expedition so distinctive, she writes: “The language, the culture, the time spent and the vastness of the country often gave us the impression of being lost.”

Almost easy

The new route via the Southeast Face

On 30 September at 5 a.m., Ines and Luka climbed into the Southeast Face. “We knew we had to make progress quickly to reach the summit ridge that same day. Otherwise, the predicted good weather window would close and we would have to retreat or be caught in a snowstorm.” In 2010, Ines had to turn around 300 meters below the summit because of heavy snowfall and avalanches. This time, she found quite different conditions: “Neither Luka nor me had climbed such a perfect ice and mixed route at an altitude this high before. The same route had cost us incredibly much time in 2010 because of the difficult conditions. This time it seemed almost easy.”

Tough bivouac

Ines climbing the wall

They climbed until 10 p.m. and bivouacked two pitches below the summit ridge. In painstaking work, they prepared with their ice axes a small seat. “We were protected from the wind but still exposed and far from comfortable.” The two climbers spent a frosty night on the ledge. “Luka said it was one of the toughest bivys. I had already experienced nights like these twice here on Kyzyl Asker,” writes Ines. At noon the next day, Papert and Lindic reached the cornice-covered summit. The Slovenian let the German climber go ahead. She had invested so much energy into this mountain, now Ines fulfilled her dream: “I was speechless and simply happy to experience this moment. Luka arrived and I could see joy in his face as he stood next to me.”

One of the best lines

Luka in action

Lindic belongs to the young generation of strong Slovenian climbers. In 2015, Luka was awarded the Piolet d’Or, the “Oscar of the mountaineers”, along with his countrymen Marko Prezelj and Ales Cesen. Last summer, Luka and Ales had succeeded the only fourth climb of the difficult Northwest Ridge of the almost-eight-thousander Gasherbrum IV (7,932 meters) in Pakistan. Lindic has enjoyed the expedition with Ines Papert. “One of the best lines I climbed so far,“ the 28-year-old writes on Facebook. “Thank you Ines for the idea and great times.”

Papert and Smith-Gobat at the summit of Torre Central

A sport climbing shoe on one foot, an ice shoe with crampons on the other – Ines Papert should patent this idiosyncratic technique. The German top climber recently created it in a difficult passage in the East Face of the 2800-meter-high Torre Central in Patagonia. “The pitch left me with no other choice”, says Ines. She really used all means to fight up the extremely difficult route “Riders on the Storm”: “I took my ice axes not only for climbing but for protection too.” Along with the 36-year-old New Zealander Mayan Smith-Gobat, the 41-year-old Papert succeeded the only fifth climb of the route on the granite tower which had been opened by the German climbing legends Wolfgang Guellich, Kurt Albert, Bernd Arnold, Norbert Baetz and Peter Dittrich in 1991.

Extreme challenge

Mayan: “A new experience”

Ines and Mayan were accompanied by the photographer and mountain guide Thomas Senf. The German, born in the town of Leipzig, lives and works in Switzerland for 15 years. The team had set out to free climb the extremely difficult route through the 1300-meter-high for the first time. Guellich and Co. had failed doing it in this style as well as the climbers who had followed them. Also for Ines and Mayan, in the end this challenge proved a too hard nut to crack. After all, they “freed” two more pitches and found a very difficult five pitch variation, the two female climbers report. The notorious “Patagonian weather” with snow, rain and storm prevented them from completing their project. An extreme challenge on an extreme route, says Mayan: “Quite often my fingers, my hand or even my whole body cramped in an icy crack, which was a new experience for me”, says Mayan.

Scary moment at night

Women’s power: Ines (l.) and Mayan

At the beginning of their expedition Papert, Smith-Gobat and Senf used one of the rare good weather windows in the region to climb through the route to the summit. Ines speaks of a “magical” moment at the highest point: “We embrace each other, we are speechless. There is no wind, no cloud in the sky. For a moment, we are the happiest people on earth.” But there were also other moments – so in the night after the summit success, when a boulder, the size of a refrigerator, fell from the wall into the valley. A stone hit the portaledge of the climbers and tore the tent into two halves. Ines and Mayam escaped with a fright.

Papert technique without Papert?

“I had plenty of luck in this wall. Although it appears attractive to come back to complete the project, I decided against it”, says Ines. However Mayan has not yet given up the first free ascent of the extremely difficult route. She wants to return to Torre Central – even if she has to use the newly launched “Papert technique” of climbing.

A traverse, a north face and a “shy girl”

One of the chosen climbs is the so-called “Fitz-Traverse”, which was made by Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell in February 2014. The two Americans succeeded in crossing the complete range of Fitz Roy in Patagonia. They needed five days for the more than five kilometers long climbing route over seven summits and some razor sharp ridges.

Th routes on Hagshu: of the Slovenes (r.) and the Britons (l.)

The three Slovenian mountaineers Ales Cesen, Luka Lindic and Marko Prezelj are among the top three, too. In the end of September 2014, they climbed for the first time via the 1,350-meter-high north face of the shapely, 6515-meter-high Hagshu in the Indian part of Kashmir. The two Britons Mick Fowler and Paul Ramsden, who had originally planned to climb the same route, but switched to the Northeast Face of the mountain because the Slovenes were already climbing in the North Face, were „only“ nominated for the preliminary list.

The third on the podium are the two Russians Alexander Gukov and Alexey Lonchinsky. In May 2014, they climbed firstly through the 1900-meter-high Southwest Face of Thamserku (6618 meters) in the Khumbu region in Nepal, near Mount Everest. It took them eight days to climb the new route in Alpine style. Alexander and Alexey named it „Shy Girl“. They will surely tell us why, at the Piolet d’Or celebrations in April.

Piolet d’Or Career for Chris Bonington

During the event, the living mountaineering legend Sir Chris Bonington will receive the Piolet d’Or Career. As reported previously, the 80-year-old Briton will be awarded for hits lifetime achievements.

Last year, the Swiss Ueli Steck (for his solo ascent through the Annapurna South Face in Nepal) and the Canadians Raphael Slawinsky and Ian Welsted (for the first ascent of the 7040-meter-high K 6 West in Pakistan) had won the “Oscar for climbers”.

Ines Papert

And it was a first ascent at all! On 13 November Ines Papert was the first person who set foot on the 6718-meter-high Pig Pherado Shar in Nepal, also known as Likhu Chuli I. Billi Bierling, staff member of the legendary Himalayan chronicler Elizabeth Hawley, writes me that the Frenchwoman Cecile Barbezat and Nawang Dorje Sherpa on 21 October 1960 were at the top of Likhu Chuli II, “which conversely means that Ines made the first ascent of Likhu Chuli I.” This was the result of a research that her French colleague Rodolphe Popier made in the library of the French Alpine Club (Club Alpin Français).

Text-image-gap

Likhu Chuli is on a 12-rupee-stamp

“It’s very clear they went to Likhu II by the west ridge and not to Likhu I”, says Rodolphe, who has reviewed the report of Barbezat, written more than half a century ago: “The text mentions a difficult climb up and no traverse at all between two summits. There are clear pictures taken under their claimed summit showing the Trakarding NW glacier straight down with the Tsho Rolpa lake (Gauri Shankar and Melungtse in the background) and from their summit showing South west ridge of Likhu 2 (still virgin and wrongly mentioned as south ridge). Even the picture of the summit taken from their Basecamp mentions their west ridge route on the right with no clear distinction of the both summits.” In other words: The informations in the text do not match the images. Barbezat and Nawang Dorje have claimed another summit than the one they really climbed. According to Billi Bierling the error in the database of Miss Hawley will be corrected immediately. And Ines Papert will be listed as the climber who made the first ascent of Likhu Chuli I. Congratulations, Ines!

P.S. While I’m at it: All the best, Miss Hawley! Sorry, I missed your 90th anniversary on 9 November.

Ines Papert

It’s getting even more exciting: Maybe German climber Ines Papert has climbed the 6718-meter-high Pig Pherado Shar in Nepal firstly after all. Billi Bierling, staff member of Himalayan chronicler Elizabeth Hawley, has drawn my attention to this option. The mountain is also known as Likhu Chuli I. I had referred to a note in Hawley’s database that a French team led by Robert Sandoz had already climbed the 6000er near Namche Bazaar on 21 October 1960. Billi writes that the French climbers maybe instead reached the summit of the 6659-meter-high Likhu Chuli II (Pig Pherago Nup). So the question is: Likhu Chuli I or II? “The database says ‘I’, but we believe that it is a mistake!”, writes Billi. The research is going on. If there is any news from Kathmandu, I will of course inform you. By the way: first ascent or not, the performance of Ines Papert deserves our applause anyway.

Ines Papert on the summit of Pig Pherado Shar

Great success for Ines Papert: The German top climber tells on Facebook that she and Thomas Senf have opened a new route through the north face of 6718-meter-high Pig Pherado Shar in Nepal. The mountain is located near Namche Bazaar, the main village of the Khumbu region close to Mount Everest. The 39-year-old woman climber reached the summit alone. “Unfortunately Thomas couldn’t climb to the highest point because of incipient frostbite on his toes”, Ines writes on the Facebook page of one of her sponsors. “It was the coldest adventure of my lifetime.”

Firstly climbed in 1960

With her spontanous meanwhile removed statement on Facebook  that she has been the first who ever climbed Pig Pherado Shar, Ines was probably wrong. According to a report of the Himalayan chroniclers Elizabeth Hawley and Richard Salisbury in a publication of the American Alpine Club Pig Pherado Shar was firstly climbed 53 years ago. Hawley and Salisbary write that a French team headed by Robert Sandoz reached the summit of the mountain, which is also known as Likhu Chuli I, on 21 October 1960 “via the steep, difficult west ridge“.

Plan was changed

Originally, Ines Papert and Thomas Senf wanted to open a new route through the north face of 6487-meter-high Tengkangpoche. Why they changed their plan, we will certainly find out in the next few days. The Swiss Ueli Steck and Simon Anthamatten had firstly climbed via the Tengkangpoche North Face in 2008. For this performance they were awarded in 2009 with the Piolet d’Or, the “Oscar” for climbers.