Nanga Parbat falls back into hibernation. After the 8125-meter-high mountain in Pakistan was bustling over the past years with expeditions who tried to climb it for the first time in winter, it now looks as if the “naked mountain” remains a lonely one in the coming months. This winter even the Polish climber Tomasz Mackiewicz will not change his living room – as he did in the last six years – with a cold tent on Nanga Parbat.

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“Only five are left. We don’t give up now“, Tamara Lunger writes on Facebook. The 29-year-old South Tyrolean mountaineer and her Italian team partner Simone Moro hope for better weather on Nanga Pabat. Snowfall is predicted until the weekend, in addition a strong wind is blowing at the 8125-meter-high summit, which currently makes an ascent impossible. The other team still staying in Base Camp, the Spaniard Alex Txikon, the Italian Daniele Nardi and the Pakistani Ali Sadpara, are also waiting for an end of the bad weather.

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The first winter ascent of Nanga Parbat is in the air – say my gut instincts. Sunny days and clear nights are expected on the eighth highest mountain on earth until the weekend. The wind is to calm down, to a speed of just ten kilometers per hour on Friday. That sounds like ideal conditions for a summit attempt – if we can still speak of it in winter at all. After all, the temperature at the 8,125-meter-high summit is about minus 40 degrees Celsius. Maybe the reason for my optimistic gut feeling is simply that the teams on Nanga Parbat are currently rather stingy with information. Almost as if they are fully focused on climbing and don’t want to be distracted by „public relations“.

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“He who says patience, says courage, endurance, strength”, Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach once wrote. Of course the Austrian writer, who lived from 1830 to 1913, meant it generally. But with her words she described almost exactly the characteristics that are needed to climb an eight-thousander such as Nanga Parbat in winter. After more than two dozen unsuccessful winter expeditions, courageous, persistant and strong climbers try again to scale the ninth highest mountain on earth this winter. Currently, the attempt of the Russians Nickolay Totmjanin, Valery Shamalo, Serguey Kondrashkin and Victor Koval on the Rupal side, the south side of Nanga Parbat, seems to be the most promising try.

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Does Nanga Parbat show its teeth again? More than 20 winter expeditions already failed on the 8125-meter-high mountain in Pakistan. Beside K 2, Nanga Parbat is the only eight-thousander which has still not been scaled in winter. That’s why the “Naked Mountain” has been an attractive destination for professional mountaineers over the past years. The Polish climber Tomasz called Tomek Mackiewicz is trying to climb the  ninth highest mountain on earth for the fifth consecutive year. After having reached an altitude of about 7200 meters with the German mountaineer David Goettler on the south side of the mountain (Rupal side) last year, Tomek is now climbing on the northwest side (Diamir side). Today he and the Frenchwoman Elisabeth Revol returned safely from a summit attempt to base camp.

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“Time to go home!” Jacek Teler gets to the point. The Polish winter expedition to Nanga Parbat has been unsuccessful too. After the avalanche accident a week ago the last chance for another summit attempt was gone. Spring will start next Thursday. In Skardu the cherry trees are already blooming, Jacek writes in his blog. He has accompanied his team mates Pavel Dunaj and Michal Obrycki to the military hospital in the town where the injuries of the two climbers were treated. Both are doing well, under the circumstances. Pavel has suffered the more serious injuries by the avalanche: four broken ribs, his lung collapsed. However, all in all it could have been worse. Dunaj and Obrycki are still alive.

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If there were an “Oscar” for persistence, the Polish climbers on Nanga Parbat would deserve it. For more than 80 days now Tomasz, called “Tomek” Mackiewicz and his friends are already staying on the eight-thousander in Pakistan, still focussed on their great goal: the first winter ascent of the 8125-meter-high mountain. This weekend, they are climbing up again. On this Saturday Pawel Dunaj and Michal Obrycki should start – “to make a new track and to dig out the camp for Tomek, who will start with Jacek on Sunday,” we read on the Facebook page of the expedition “Justice for all”. So, obviously, Tomek Mackiewicz and Jacek Teler are to form the summit team at the fourth attempt.

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David Goettler is not only a fast climber, but also a speed responder. After I had written the report about the failed summit attempt on Nanga Parbat, I sent an email with some questions to the 35-year-old climber in Pakistan. I really didn’t expect a rapid response, because David had just arrived back at base camp and should actually need time to recover. However, an hour later I got the acoustic signal for a new message. His answers are rather brief, writes Goettler, “I’m still half on the mountain ;-).” Read it for yourself!

David, once again it was not to be. What a pity! A lack of your determination was not the reason.

No, I felt fit. But we also knew or noticed that the terrain up there was really challenging. This means that you must have still a lot of strength and concentration for the descent. In combination with only one reserve day  concerning the weather we decided that it was too close.

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Do the winter climbers find Nanga Parbat a hard nut to crack? A Polish expedition is on the 8000er in Pakistan for eight weeks now, an Italian-German Team for over six weeks. In the past week the second summit attempts of both teams failed. Simone Moro and David Goettler reached Camp 3, but returned because of the bad weather. I sent some questions to David in basecamp. The 35-year-old climber from the town of Munich replied promptly:

David, the second summit attempt was also unsuccessful, you stopped at 6800 meters. How difficult was it for you to turn back again?

This time it was a little harder. Because the weather was not so bad when we decided to turn around. But we knew that it wouldn’t work, and thus it was definitely the right decision. Also because it was really very cold! When we were still descending, clouds came in and it began to snow. Up on the mountain we would have had problems to orient ourselves. And on the following day the strong wind would have thwarted any summit attempt. All in all we have saved valuable power and avoided frostbite.

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The first winter ascent of Broad Peak, but a total of three missing climbers who have been declared dead. That is the result of the five winter expeditions in Pakistan. As always, it’s worth having a look to the details. All the four groups on Nanga Parbat were small teams with a maximum of three climbers. Tomasz Mackiewicz from Poland made the greatest progress, reaching 7400 meters, finally climbing alone. The others got stuck in the deep snow, in icy cold conditions. For me the solo project of Joel Wischnewski remains mystifying.

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