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)?

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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.”

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Great success for Luka Lindic and Ales Cesen in the Karakoram: According to the website “Altitude Pakistan”, the two Slovenian climbers reached on Tuesday the North Summit of Gasherbrum IV, which is about 20 meters lower than the 7932-meter-high Main Summit. It took Luka and Ales three days to ascend via the Northwest Ridge. It was only the fourth ascent of the route, which had been opened by the Australians Greg Child and Tim Macartney-Snape and the American Tom Hargis in 1986. “Altitude Pakistan” reports that heavy snowfall made the descent of the two Slovenians even harder. They arrived at Base Camp yesterday. “happy, exhausted and emaciated”.

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The Karakoram remains unpredictable. The climbing season in Pakistan is slowly but surely coming to an end – and the number of summit successes is manageable. On Nanga Parbat the Spaniard Ferran Latorre, the Frenchman Hélias Millerioux and the Bulgarian Bojan Petrov reached the highest point at 8,125 meters. “Seven intense days, but it was worth it,” tweeted Latorre (see also the video below). It was the 13th eight-thousander for him, he climbed all of them without bottled oxygen. Now only Mount Everest is still missing in the collection of the 45-year-old. Ferran wants to tackle it in spring 2017. Bojan Petrov has scaled so far eight of the 14 highest mountains in the world. Nanga Parbat was after Annapurna and Makalu his third eight-thousander this year.

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“That was far below my limit”, says the Slovenian Luka Lindic when I ask him about the first climbing of the North Face of the 6515-meter-high Hagshu in the Indian Himalayas. After all, Luka and his two Slovenian friends Marko Prezelj and Ales Cesen have been awarded for this climb with this year’s Piolet d’Or, the “Oscar for climbers”. “Sometimes you find such a logical line. It’s normal to follow it. We didn’t find any extreme difficult terrain”, Luka remembers. Looking for his personal limits, the 27-year-old climber will travel to the North of Pakistan this summer. In early July, Luka will set off to the Karakoram, together with his compatriots Luka Krajnc, Martin Zumer and Janez Svoljsak. “We will stay on Choktoi glacier for a month. And if the conditions will allow it and if we feel good, we would like to try Latok I.”

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