Russian specialists on their way

Gukov’s position on the North Ridge of Latok I (see arrow)

With the Slovenians Ales Cesen and Luka Strazar as well as the British Tom Livingstone, three other top climbers have arrived at Latok I base camp. The option of taking Gukov off the mountain by using a long line from the helicopter or at least supplying him with food and material still appears to be the most promising. It’d have to clear up for a while, though. Meanwhile, a Russian helicopter crew has set off for Pakistan, that has a great deal of experience with long line rescues. The two Russians are to support the Pakistani rescue forces.

No contact since Saturday

Because the battery of Gukov’s satellite phone has been exhausted since Saturday, there is no longer any contact with the climber. Alexander has been on the mountain for 18 days now. As reported, his 26-year-old rope partner Sergey Glazunov fell to his death on Tuesday last week while abseiling. The two Russians had tried to climb the North Ridge of Latok I up to the 7,145-meter-high summit for the first time. Apparently they turned back at an altitude of almost 7,000 meters. Since the legendary first attempt in 1978 by the Americans Jeff and George Henry Lowe, Michael Kennedy and Jim Donini, who were forced back by a storm about 150 meters below the summit, around 30 attempts to master the route failed.

Kazuya Hiraide (l.) and Kenro Nakajima

Put the eight-thousander glasses aside! At an insignificantly lower mountain in the west of the Karakoram in Pakistan, two Japanese climbers succeeded an extraordinary ascent on 22 August. According to the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (UIAA), Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima climbed for the first time via the Northeast Face of the 7611-meter-high Shispare. In four days, the two Japanese climbed in Alpine style through the 2700-meter-high wall to the summit and descended via the Northeast Ridge, it said.

Dramatic rescue operation

New Japanese route on Shispare

Especially Hiraide is a well-known figure in the scene. For their first ascent of the Southeast Face of the 7756-meter-high Kamet in India in 2008, he and his compatriot Kei Taniguchi were awarded the Piolet d’Or. Taniguchi was the first woman to receive the “Oscar of the climbers”. Aged 43, she fell to death on a Japanese mountain at the end of 2015.

With regard to Hiraide, some will also recall a dramatic rescue operation in fall 2010 on the 6812-meter-high Ama Dablam in the Khumbu area: After having opened a new route through the North Face, the Japanese and the German climber David Göttler had gotten into trouble on the North Ridge and had asked for a helicopter rescue. After Göttler had been safely brought into the valley, the helicopter took off again to take Hiraide on board. It touched the ridge and crashed, the two pilots died. The Japanese was saved a day later by another helicopter crew.

Four times on the top of Everest

On 25 May 2017, exactly on his 38th birthday, Hiraide reached  as a cameraman of a Japanese expedition the summit of Mount Everest. It was for the fourth time in his career.  He had tackled the Northeast Face of Shispare for the first time in 2007, In 2012 and 2013, Hiraide had tried to climb via the Southwest Face of the mountain. Now he was rewarded for his tenacity.

Death after first ascent

Shispare (rear)

The shapely Shispare is located in the Hunza Valley and is a real eye-catcher. The mountain was first climbed on 21 July 1974 by a Polish-German expedition via the Northeast Ridge. Among the seven successful climbers was Leszek Cichy, who – in 1980 – succeeded the first winter ascent of Everest along with Krzysztof Wielicki, and the two Germans Hubert Bleicher and Herbert Oberhofer. The two last mentioned climbers made two years later also the first ascent of the nearby 7795-meter-high Batura Sar. The success on Shispare in 1974 was overshadowed by a death: During the summit attempt of a second group, the German climber Heinz Borchers was caught by an avalanche and buried in a crevasse. He remained missing.

Broad Peak

“Mr. 8000” has done it again. “We all are on Broad peak summit,“  Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, expedition leader and head of the Nepalese operator Dreamers Destination wrote on Facebook today. All means according to Mingmas yesterday’s post: ten climbers. The summit success was confirmed by the data from the GPS tracker of John Snorri Sigurjónsson, one of Mingmas clients. For the 31-year-old Mingma, it was already his fourth success on eight-thousanders this year. Previously, the Sherpa had led clients to the summits of Dhaulagiri and Makalu in Nepal last spring and of K2 last Friday. In addition, he had reached with his team the summit ridge of Nanga Parbat not being sure if he had really found the highest point.

His dream: Everest without bottled oxygen

Mingma Gyalje Sherpa

Having added Broad Peak, Mingma has now eleven of the 14 eight-thousanders on his account. Since he forewent bottled oxygen during his ascent on the 8051-meter-high mountain in the Karakorum, he has climbed ten of the 14 highest mountains without breathing mask. “I want to scale Everest at least once without bottled oxygen,” Mingma told me in an interview earlier this year. He has already been on top of the highest mountain on earth five times with breathing mask, three times (in 2011, 2012, 2016) from the Nepalese south side, twice from the Tibetan north side (in 2007, 2010). This year, Mingma has been in total five times above 8000 meters – what a performance! Only a week ago at K2, he had used bottled oxygen, otherwise, according to Mingma, “it would not have been possible to reach the summit.”

Winning formula works

Mingma Gyalje Sherpa is one of more than 40 Nepalese with a certificate from the International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations (UIAGM). “Our training taught us to focus on safety and security. You can only provide safety and security when you have well tested and technical equipment, well trained staffs, very accurate weather reports”, says Mingma. The winning formula seems to work. Mingma’s track record success story speaks for itself: within a week twelve climbers on the summit of K2 and now again ten on Broad Peak.

P.S.: I’ll leave now for three weeks in order to relax in the mountains – offline. Then I’m back for you. Promised!

Latok I (2nd mountain f.l.)

A footballer would say: The ball wasn’t round. “The expedition has definitely run roughly,” Thomas Huber tells me about his trip to Latok I in Pakistan. As reported, the older of the two Huber brothers, along with German climbers Toni Gutsch and Sebastian Brutscher, had planned to tackle the north side of the 7145-meter-high granite giant in Karakoram this fall –only a few weeks after his 16-meter-fall from a rock face and a subsequent brain surgery. So the unbalance of the expedition began. “We could not get together as a team because I was so busy with my situation after the fall and the head injury,” Thomas concedes. “Nevertheless the motivation was high, and from my point of view the team fit perfectly. We maintained this euphoria, to Skardu, to Askole, to our Base Camp on the Choktoi Glacier. When we got there, everyone agreed: This is the place per se for climbing in highest perfection. But then everything ran differently.”

Only the skies

First, Thomas Huber’s help was needed in a rescue operation on nearby Ogre II (6,950 meters). The US climbers Kyle Dempster and Scott Adamson were missing, after they had started to climb the North Face of the almost 7000er some days ago. “I had met them last year,” says Thomas. “They were really cool guys. They belonged to the best alpinists in the US.”
Huber knows the mountain massif well. In 2001, he succeeded, along with Swiss climbers Iwan Wolf and Urs Stoecker, the second ascent of Ogre I and the first ascent of Ogre III.
Thomas flew by rescue helicopter twice – in his pocket his emergency medication, because he did not know whether he would be able to stand the flight up to an altitude of 7,200 meters with his head injury. The 49-year-old had no problems, but there wasn’t any sign of the two missing climbers: “We searched the planned ascent route through the North Face, the summit region, the Northwest Ridge, via which they wanted to descend, even the crevasses at the foot of the wall. We did not find anything, really nothing.” Except for the skis of the two Americans at the access of the route.

The next rescue

Max Reichel’s rescue

Huber, Gutsch, and Brutscher climbed once more via the Northwest Ridge up to 6,200 meters, but again they didn’t discover any sign of Dempster and Adamson. The trio had to descend when the weather suddenly turned bad. The search was canceled. After all, the three Germans were now well acclimatized to tackle their own project on Latok I. “But the rescue operation had been on my mind all along, so much that I could not think of normal climbing during this first phase of the expedition.” Even in the second phase, that didn’t change. Max Reichel, the cameraman of the team, suffered from high altitude sickness due to a protracted myocarditis. Doctors in Germany said that he had to be brought back to civilization as soon as possible. Thomas accompanied his friend to a point 40 kilometers downhill, 1,000 meters lower. There Max asked Thomas to return to Base Camp to tackle his project. “That freed me completely,“ says Huber. „I just wanted to think of climbing, nothing else.”

Cold shower

He returned to Base Camp full of euphoria. There, however, a new “cold shower” awaited him – the last one. Huber’s team partners Gutsch and Brutscher told him that they were not willing any more to climb the North Face. “They said they had a bad feeling and didn’t see any chance to climb through the wall under these circumstances. They did not even want to try it.” Thomas Huber fell into a deep emotional hole: “Sadness, total disappointment, also rage. I just could not believe that at a moment’s notice they said they wanted to go home. I could not understand it.” From his point of view the conditions were “acceptable”: “Of course they were not optimal. The area was snowy, it was relatively cold. But there were no real avalanches in the wall, only spindrift. In addition, I thought that the situation would change in a positive way during some days of good weather. And the meteorologists predicted good weather.”  It was pointless for him to try to persuade the other two climbers, says Thomas: “I cannot set off to climb the wall with such partners, who have been mentally already at home for a long time.”

When the mountain gets bigger and bigger

Thomas Huber

For the 49-year-old, it was a deja vu. Also in 2015, his teammates – his brother Alexander, Swiss Daniel Arnold and Austrian Mario Walder – had outvoted him to abandon their Latok I expedition. “I cannot blame anyone saying: Thomas, maybe something is wrong with you,” says Huber. “It’s now 5-1 against me. And these five are really five top climbers. That beats me.” Maybe it is a question of mentality, says Thomas: “I am just someone who speaks less but rather goes to the mountain to learn what it offers and how to deal with it. There is often a lot of discussion in Base Camp. And I notice that during these discussions the mountain is mentally getting bigger and bigger and in the end impossible.” The momentum then falls by the wayside, Thomas means: “The big crux at Latok is not the wall, but the man. The secret of these walls is what they make out of people by and by. They have such a great power and charisma. On the one hand they are magnetic, on the other scary. You require considerable strength to remain defiant.”

The critical point

Despite his frustration, Thomas Huber has not yet banned the Latok I North Face out of his mind, but he does not yet want to set a date for another attempt. “I’m not afraid of this wall and this mountain. I know I’ll be back,” says Thomas. “I’m just afraid that I’ll be back with a team that again says: No, we don’t want to go.” In hindsight, it was a mistake to set off without having climbed a lot together before, Thomas believes: “These mountains belong to the most difficult in the world. If you tackle these mountains, you must be a team already before setting off. You must know how the others work. You also have to know the abysmal depths of their mind. Only then can you go to the limit.” Why then doesn’t he choose his brother Alexander as his partner, with whom he has already climbed and experienced so much in the mountains? “My brother does not want to go to the North Face, that’s perhaps the critical point,” says Thomas.

Gasherbrum VI seen from Base Camp

“Really annoying that this happened to me at the very beginning!” Ralf Dujmovits, Germany’s most successful high altitude climber, is upset that he has first suffered from diarrhea and then from a bad cold while trekking on the Baltoro Glacier. “Meanwhile I feel better, but I realize that I still lack power,” Ralf tells me, when I reach him on satellite phone during an exploration trip. The 54-year-old and his girlfriend, the 47-year-old Canadian climber Nancy Hansen, traveled to the Karakoram in order to try first ascents of two still unclimbed mountains: first Gasherbrum VI (the reported altitude varies between 6,973 and 7,004 meters), then, not far away, Praqpa Ri (different elevation data too: 7,134 or 7,152 meters). The two climbers have pitched up their Base Camp at the foot of Gasherbrum VI.

Ralf, how have you experienced Pakistan so far? The country is still said to be a risk area.

Nancy Hansen, in the background the 7000er Masherbrum

We have been warmly welcomed everywehre. When we visited a polo game in Skardu (city in northern Pakistan, starting point of most expeditions in Karakoram), people shouted: “Welcome!” Nancy was the only woman on the pitch. During our trekking all the porters welcomed us too. I feel the situation as very peaceful. There is great euphoria that this year finally once more nearly 30 expeditions have come to Pakistan.

This summer, more than 100 climbers have registered only for K 2. Have you noticed a lot of activity during your trekking on the Baltoro Glacier?

No. We met about 30 porters who carried equipment to K 2 Base Camp. But otherwise we didn’t notice anything of the heavy rush that is expected on K 2.

The last summers in the Karakoram were very warm. How is it now?

Today we have very nice weather again. However, we are slightly worried sitting here at an altitude of 5,000 meters in this scorching heat. We just had one and a half days of bad weather. At night, it snowed only for one hour, the other time it was always raining – early in June, at 5,000 meters! It’s just much too warm.

The Gasherbrum massif

You had a first look at your first destination, Gasherbrum VI. How was your impression?

Up to the col below the South Face, it looks quite good, covered with snow. It appears that we can find a way on the left side of the icefall which leads from the Baltoro Glacier into the little high valley where we want to go up. Then we’ll have to climb a 45 to 50 degrees steep slope to the col at 6,100 meters. But we were pretty flabbergasted when we saw the terrain further up: We’ll have to do a lot of rock climbing. We actually expected more ice climbing. In particular, a rock barrier above the col gives us food for thought. It straddles the entire South Face, in some parts even slightly overhanging. We still do not know how to come across this ledge. However, we have not yet seen the entire rock barrier. Perhaps there is a way through more to the right. Everywhere is much less snow and ice compared to what I remember from my last visits in this area.

Do you want to tackle the mountain in Alpine style?

We had originally intended to acclimatize on Snow Dome (a mountain near the seven-thousander Chogolisa). But in these conditions, we will probably have to work our way up Gasherbrum VI and to use a few meters of fixed ropes above the Col. I feel it’s unlikely that we’ll tackle our first summit in Alpine style. That will probably not be possible due to the quite challenging rocky slopes up there. We actually had planned to climb in a single push from the col to the summit. But it does not appear to be realistic.

Ralf Dujmovits (r., with Ashraf Aman, head of Adventure Tours Pakistan)

How much time will you take for Gasherbrum VI? After all, you want to climb Parqpa Ri, another unclimbed seven-thousander near K 2, afterwards.

Actually, we want to finish our climb on Gasherbrum IV until end of June. However, it will be no problem to stay longer, if health reasons or the difficulties in the upper part of the mountain should make it necessary. We have a sufficient margin, so that we are able to add a few days more on Gasherbrum VI. If you are a team of only two climbers, you can handle it quite flexible.

Are the two unclimbed seven-thousanders equally important goals or do you have a preference for one of them?

When we were planning the expedition, Nancy was rather enthusiastic about Parqpa Ri and I more about Gasherbrum VI. But I think the goals are quite balanced. We feel really motivated to do both. Especially Nancy who is in good shape now wants to make progress. Currently I am still slowing her down a bit. But the euphoria for both summits is there. And we have enough time for both goals.

Laila Peak

The summer season in the Karakorum has not even really kicked off, but the first death is already reported. Italian Leonardo Comelli lost his life on Thursday while making a ski descent from the 6,096-meter-high Laila Peak, said Karrar Haideri, spokesman of the Alpine Club of Pakistan. At his first attempt to ski down Laila Peak, Comelli crossed his skis, lost his balance and fell 400 meters down rugged terrain to his death. According to Haideri’s words, the other three team members were able to retrieve the body. Comelli came from the small town of Muggia located in the province of Trieste. With 16 years he started rock climbing. Later he made his mark as an ice climber, mountain skier and alpine photographer.

Eyecatcher Laila Peak

The British climbers Simon Yates, Sean Smith and Mark Miller had made the first ascent of Laila Peak via the western flank in 1987, doing it without a permit. The six-thousander is one of the most striking mountains in the Karakoram, it rises up like a perfectly shaped pyramid of granite. Every hiker who – like I did in 2004 – is crossing Gondogoro La, a 5614-meter-high pass towards the end of the Baltoro trek, will not forget the view of Laila Peak: a beautiful mountain but extremely steep and challenging too.

Alexander Huber in Innsbruck

The Huber brothers will continue to go on joint expeditions, but probably not to Latok I. Whereas Thomas Huber raved about the still unclimbed North Face of the 7,145-meter-high granite mountain in the Karakoram when I met him three weeks ago, his younger brother Alexander seems to have definitely written off the project due to their experiences last summer. I talked to the 46-year-old climber at the Alpine Trade Fair in Innsbruck last week.

Alexander, on Latok III, during your acclimatization for climbing the North Face of Latok I, you were are almost blown out of the wall by the blast wave of an ice avalanche. Your brother told me that never before it had been so close. Have you felt like he did?

It was definitely close. We had noticed the serac and therefore placed our camp far away from it. We were lucky that we had dug out a small platform to position the tents perfectly. The small snow edge of this platform has saved our lives. Otherwise we would have been blown away. In this respect, our risk management worked. But it was much, much closer than I ever imagined. And that’s shocking.

Did this extreme experience break your morale to tackle your original goal, the North Face of Latok I?

Yes, it broke our morale. But even if the serac had not collapsed, we would have noticed the bad conditions on the mountain the next day. We would have realized that it was impossible to climb further up and that we shouldn’t be there under such conditions and at such high temperatures.

Alex, Mario and Dani (l. to r.) at the summit of Panmah Kangri

What is your feeling when you remember this expedition?

I can accept it very well because it even was as it was. Mario (Walder), Dani (Arnold) and I climbed a small six-thousander at the end. In respect of mountain sports, that was not relevant at all because it was one dimension of difficulty lower than Latok I. But for me, it was a wonderful experience that I will always associate with this trip to Pakistan. To my mind, the expedition has got a name now: first ascent of Panmah Kangri, 6,046 meters, a beautiful free-standing mountain. Even though it is not extreme, we just have to be satisfied that finally everything turned out all right. We couldn’t achieve more than we did. If you have a problem dealing with this, you shouldn’t go to the mountains. We are doing an outdoor sport where the conditions decide whether we can climb or not. If you don’t want this, you have to look for another sport.

(Activate the English subtitles on youtube.com!)

Last year, you had already planned to go to Latok I but then called off your expedition due to the uncertain political situation in Pakistan. How did you experience the country this time?

In Baltistan, it was peaceful. In my view, there was no danger in the mountains. You can’t compare the situation there with this on Nanga Parbat. Whereas Nanga Parbat is easily accessible, the mountains of the Karakoram are remote and in addition located in a Shiite region where the Taliban are usually not as strong. I felt very safe in Baltistan. But if it had been possible, I would have avoided traveling on Karakorum Highway. Terrorism is a cold danger that you don’t sense. It only turns to be hot when it happens. You are traveling there in a state of continuing uncertainty. We didn’t notice any danger on Karakorum Highway, we saw nothing. But that doesn’t mean that it is really safe.

Alexander (r.) and Thomas – in the Karakoram last summer

Are you still fired up for the North Face of Latok I?

It is clear to me: The North Face of Latok I is so incalculably dangerous that I feel no more motivation to tackle it. I’m looking for other difficult goals without this incalculable risk.

Do you speak as a family father?

No, that has nothing to do with the fact that I have a family. I do love my life and want to experience it. Also in the past, I back-pedaled when I thought that the goals were too dangerous.

It’s a sign of strength to be able to do so.

I mean, this is absolutely necessary. Gamblers have never got far in the mountains. It is still possible to become well-known very quickly with relatively little skills but high willingness to take risks. But there are enough examples to prove that it doesn’t go well for a long time.

K 2

I felt as if I was close to K 2 but in fact I was quite far off. After the return from our first ascent of the 7129-m-high Kokodak Dome I found out the real distance between the two mountains: 300 km as the crow flies. Not just around the corner. Because of my expedition I (and thus possibly also you as a reader of my blog) missed what was going at the second highest mountain in the world during this summer.

32 on one day

Anniversary years seem to make summit successes more likely on K 2. But perhaps it is also simply because there are more climbers on the mountain in those years. In 2004, the Golden Jubilee year of the first ascent of K 2 (on this occasion I also visited the base camp), 51 climbers reached the highest point at 8611 meters. This summer, 60 years after the first ascent,  it was only short of the record: 48 summit successes, 32 of them on 26 July, are quite a view, considering that there have been several summer seasons on K 2 like that of 2013 without anyone standing at the top.

All-female?

In K 2 base camp

There were six women among the K 2 summiters in July: the Nepalese Dawa Yangzum Sherpa , Pasang Lhamu Sherpa and Maya Sherpa, the South Tyrolean Tamara Lunger, Chinese Luo Jing and the New Zealander Chris Jensen Burke (who also has an Australian passport). It is a matter of debate whether the success of the three Sherpani counts as an “all-female summit”. The National Geographic magazine reports, that three male Sherpas accompanied the women to the summit.

On the same day, 26 July, the Czech climber Radek Jaroš was on top. The 50-year-old, who climbed without bottled oxygen, completed his eight-thousanders collection, as first Czech ever. Jaroš is only the 15th, who climbed all 14 highest mountains in the world without breathing mask.

Hot feet

K 2 from above

In 2012 at the Annapurna, his 13th eight-thousander, he had lost some toes by frostbite. Now at K 2, almost the opposite happened to him. The heating coils in his expedition shoes ran hot. “When we were on our way to the summit, other climbers were kicking against the ice for better blood circulation in their feet. They felt could at their toes and tried to avoid frostbite”, Jaroš said. He had done the same, “but only to avoid to burn my toes.”

Death in Camp 4

There was one death in this K 2 season. The Spaniard Miguel Angel Perez died in Camp 4 at 8200 meters. Previously, he had reached the summit and then, apparently already suffering from high altitude sickness, bivouacked above the camp. Perez, climbing K 2 as his ninth eight-thousander, was 46 years old when he died. R.I.P.

P. S.: The attempt of the Austrian top climbers David Lama, Hansjoerg Auer and Peter Ortner Hans Jörg Auer to climb firstly via the Northeast Face of the 7821- meter- high Masherbrum (once called K 1 by British surveyors) has failed. The trio returned ​​in the lower part of the wall due to high risk of avalanches. “Climbing the Northeast Face of Masherbrum will be like nothing one of us three has ever experienced”, David Lama writes on his website. “Something completely new and so difficult it’s hard to imagine success.”

Alexander (r.) and Thomas Huber

The Huber brothers have cancelled their planned expedition to Latok I in Pakistan – “because of the political situation in Pakistan”, Alexander and Thomas Huber write on Facebook.  “Of course the dream of this giant wall is still in our mind and we hope next year we will get another chance.” Actually the German climbers and their team comrades Dani Arnold and Mario Walder had their bags packed to start to Pakistan. “But the risk was no more calculable”, says Alexander when I call him. “First the offensive of the Taliban, now the offensive of the Pakistan army in North Waziristan. There will certainly be more terrorist attacks.”

Searching for a new goal

The Huber brothers and their friends wanted to try an ascent via the unclimbed North Face of the 7125-meter-high Latok I in the north of Pakistan. They also heard that there were hardly any flights to avoid driving over the Karakorum Highway, Alexander says. “All in all, it’s simply too dangerous. I have no more fun if I can’t assess the degree of risk.” And what are they going to do now after cancelling their expedition to Pakistan? “Now we have to sort out things and search for a new goal … and very soon we will be on the ‘road of adventure’ again. We let you know”, the Huber brothers write on Facebook.

David Lama

Considering his age of 23 years, David Lama has already faced a lot of criticism. “I have learned from my mistakes”, says the Austrian Climber. In 2010 his team had set dozens of new bolts for filming David’s attempt to free climb the legendary “Compressor Route” on Cerro Torre in Patagonia. Then Lama failed, but two years later he succeeded, together with his Austrian climbing mate Peter Ortner. For the summer of 2014 the two climbers are planning another “blockbuster”.

Impossible to climb?

Masherbrum (in the centre)

Lama and Ortner want to climb the East Face of the 7821-meter-high Masherbrum in the Karakoram for the first time. “Not many have actually tried to climb the wall, because most consider it as impossible”, David tells me at the International Mountain Summit in Brixen. “But meanwhile I can imagine to climb through this wall. This is currently one of the most exciting ideas.” Perhaps his compatriot Hansjoerg Auer would join the team, Lama reveals. When I met him a few days ago Reinhold Messner called these two Austrian climbers “young people who are creative”. They would find their playing fields.

Extremely cool

Chogolisa

Currently the Karakoram is “one of the most exciting playgrounds” for him, David says. “Huge, beautiful, especially difficult mountains with big walls. I’m fascinated by them.” In 2012 Lama and Ortner climbed the 7665-meter-high, shapely Chogolisa, it was David’s first 7000er. “After 26 years we were the first climbers who reached the summit. It was an extremely cool experience to climb up to the summit ridge. Secondly, it was a kind of preparation for higher mountains because it’s my goal to climb big and difficult walls.” Like the East Face of Masherbrum .

Practice makes perfect

David Lama is the son of an Austrian mother and a Sherpa from Khumbu, the region around Mount Everest. At the age of five David proved his extraordinary talent at a climbing camp organized by Peter Habeler. That was the start of a successful career as a sport climber. At the age of ten Lama was climbing extremely difficult routes. Today, he sees himself “more as an alpinist,” says David, adding with a smile: “And also a little bit as a mountaineer.”

Everything under control

He is not a gambler, says Lama. However, he only turns back on a mountain if it is absolutely necessary. “I believe I have the ability to balance and evaluate the risk. But it is also clear that someone who has just taken his driving test will move faster than someone who has the licence for forty years.” Does he think about death? On Masherbrum, David answers, “one would like to have everything settled before climbing into the wall.”

Why didn’t he go home?

The young Frenchman – so far a dark horse in high-altitude mountaineering – announced that he wanted to reach the 8125 meter summit solo and in alpine style, and afterwards would snowboard down. He later described in his blog more often, how bad his health was. „Today, I’m losing blood from my intestines. It’s great…”, Joel wrote on February 3, adding that he knew how to handle it. He ignored the logical consequenz of ending the expedition: „I prefer to stay here, even in storms, till the last moment.” On February 6, he wrote a last short post in his blog. Then he disappeared. Was it hubris, arrogance or loss of reality that did cost him his live? Or was he finally just unlucky?

Why did they separate?

Probably we won’t get answers to these questions regarding Joel. But maybe we get a clearer view in the case of the two missing Polish climbers on Broad Peak. Adam Bielecki and Artur Malek, who summited the mountain on March 5 together with Maciej Berbeka and Tomasz Kowalski, later returned to basecamp safely. After their return from Pakistan Adam and Artur maybe can answer the questions which came into my mind: Why did the four climbers reach the summit between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. local time, so late that they were forced to descend into the dark? Why did they separate? Why did Berbeka and Kowalski need almost eight hours to reach the pass on 7900 meters, three times longer as usual. Why didn’t Berbeka use his walkie-talkie? Why didn’t they have a light tent for bivouacing?

But in the end there will be left room for speculation – as in winter 2012, when the Austrian Gerfried Göschl, the Swiss Cedric Hählen and the Pakistani Nisar Hussein disappeared on Gasherbrum I. Too often climbers in the Himalayas and Karakorum take the secret of their fatal accident to the icy grave.