“I’ve got some more gray hair,” said Karl, called “Charly” Gabl. “It was terrible.” The world-famous meteorologist from Austria was talking about the freak weather on Mount Everest during this spring season, which had made predictions as difficult as rarely before. Once again, Charly had pulled numerous all-nighters to advise top climbers from all over the world who trust him almost unconditionally. “The one computer model showed two and a half meters of fresh snow during a week, another one no precipitation. Which one should I take?”

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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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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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Ralf Dujmovits’ concerns were not deceptive. The day after he and his Polish companion Darek Zaluski had decided to cancel their winter expedition on the Diamir side of Nanga Parbat, they narrowly escaped an ice avalanche. The two climbers had just build down their Camp 1 at 4900 meters below the Kinshofer route and were on their descent when the avalanche went down. “We were very lucky!”, Ralf writes to me. The 52-year-old and Darek arrived in basecamp safe and sound. As reported Dujmovits had abandoned his plan to climb Nanga Parbat via the Messner route because of the high risk of ice avalanches.

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When Everest was climbed first in 1953 Chris Bonington was a young English mountaineer of 17 years. Later he did historic climbs like the first ascents of Annapurna II in 1960, of the Central Pillar of Freney on the south side of Mont Blanc  in 1961 and of the 7285-meter-high Ogre in the Karakoram together with Doug Scott in 1977 (the second ascent followed only in 2001). But Bonington also proved to be a great expedition leader. In 1970 he led the successful expedition to the South Face of Annapurna, in 1975 the expedition to Mount Everest, during which Doug Scott and Dougal Haston climbed the Southwest Face first. Bonington himself reached the summit of Everest in 1985 as a member of a Norwegian expedition. He was knighted by the Queen in 1996 for his services to the sport. I met the 78-year-old climber last week at the diamond jubilee celebration of the first ascent of Mount Everest in the Royal Geographical Society in London and asked him – of course – about his thoughts on Everest.

Sir Chris Bonington, 60 years after the first ascent of Mount Everest, how do you feel about these pioneers? 

I’m a great believer in the heritage of our sport, looking back, enjoying and learning from what our predecessors have done. In a way that first ascent of the highest point on earth is one of the very, very great occasions. I think it’s story. How they succeeded and worked together, it was a superb team effort. It’s something very special.

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End of February. It’s still quiet at the foot of Mount Everest. The calm before the storm. Or should I say before the rush? There will be again hundreds of climbers who turn the basecamp on the Nepalese south side into a small town, with helicopter base, mini-hospital and wireless internet connection. It’s time to call my friend Chomolungma on his mobile phone – before she is stressed out.

Namasté, Chomo! Stefan speaking.

Oh no, you again.

Take it easy!I haven’t woken you up from your hibernation, have I?

Look at your calendar! Pre-season. I’m still on vacation.

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