Igloos in K2 Base Camp

Bad weather forces the climbers of the winter expeditions on the eight-thousanders K2 and Nanga Parbat in Pakistan and on Manaslu in Nepal to inactivity. The team from Kazakhstan, Russia and Kyrgyzstan led by Vassiliy Pivtsov returned to K2 Base Camp yesterday after the seven climbers, according to their own words, had fixed ropes on the classical Abruzzi route up to an altitude of 6,300 meters. The Spaniard Alex Txikon’s team has not yet ascended, but built in the base camp three igloos, in which a total of ten to 14 people can sleep. Alex was thrilled after his first igloo night.

“Best night of my eight winter expeditions”

Alex Txikon in front of his sleeping place

“In the dining tent we had temperatures of minus 13 degrees Celsius, in the normal tent minus 26 degrees, but in the igloo we slept at minus five degrees,” reported the 37-year-old. “I must say it was the best night of my eight winter expeditions. When you go from the dining tent to the igloo, all your muscles freeze, your hands get stiff and the wind blows in your face. But when you enter the igloo, silence returns, the sound of the wind disappears.” The team is considering building igloos in the Advanced Base Camp (ABC) too.

Even longer snowfall at Nanga Parbat

Daniele Nardi during the ascent

On K2, the second highest mountain on earth, snowfall is predicted at least until Wednesday morning local time, at Nanga Parbat possibly even until the weekend. There the Italian Daniele Nardi and the British Tom Ballard had reached an altitude of 6,200 meters last week in their attempt to completely climb through the so-called “Mummery Rib”, a striking rock spur in the Diamir Face, for the first time. “Well, what did you expect? It is winter on the ninth highest peak in the world. No picnic,“ Tom wrote on Facebook.

Crevasse stops Moro and Pemba

We can’t go on here

Also on the eight-thousander Manaslu in Nepal no other picture: “Snow, snow, snow …,” writes Simone Moro today from the base camp. “Hopefully it will stop soon, but as per the weather forecast by Karl Gabl (a well-known meteorologist from Austria) it will snow till 29th.” On Sunday, the 51-year-old Italian had let us known that he and his Nepalese climbing partner Pemba Gyalje Sherpa were forced to rest and think about a new plan because of the bad weather: “There’s maybe one way to avoid the problems we faced today.” The two had climbed up to 6,400 meters, but had then been stopped by a crevasse that, according to Simone, “can be overcome only with ladders (that we don’t have and in any case we would not use).”

Daniele Nardi in Camp 3

While the winter expedition teams at the eight-thousanders K2 and Manaslu have only just moved into their base camps, the Italian Daniele Nardi and his three companions on Nanga Parbat are in a more advanced phase. Today Daniele, the Brit Tom Ballard and the two Pakistani mountaineers Rahmat Ullah Baig and Karim Hayat ascended again to Camp 3 at 5,700 meters, directly below the Mummery Rib. Five days ago, the four climbers had deposited a tent there and then returned to base camp.

Second attempt

Position of Camp 3 below the distinctive Mummery Rib

Tom and Karim broke the trail, Daniele and Rahmat followed carrying heavy equipment, Nardi’s team wrote today on Facebook. “Today it was really hard to get from Camp 1 to Camp 3 with a 30kg backpack on our shoulders and the wind that was not helping us”, Daniele told by radio. “When we reached the tent, we found it submerged under snow. We worked hard to put things straight again.”

Nardi and Co. want to climb the complete Mummery Rib for the first time. In 1895, the British pioneer Albert Frederick Mummery had dared the first serious attempt on an eight-thousander via the distinctive rock spur in the Diamir Face. With the Gurkha Ragobir he had reached an altitude of 6,100 meters. Nardi tries this route for the second time: In winter 2013, he had climbed with the Frenchwoman Elisabeth Revol up to about 6,400 meters.

K2 Base Camp reached

K2 team from Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Meanwhile, the seven climbers of the K2 winter expedition from Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have set up their base camp at an altitude of around 5,200 meters at the foot of the world’s second highest mountain. After arriving there yesterday, four team members turned towards Advanced Base Camp today, but were unable to reach the spot due to bad weather.

Today the two Poles Marek Klonowski and Pawel Dunaj reached K2 Base Camp too, as the first climbers from the team of the Spaniard Alex Txikon. The majority of the members, including Txikon, are expected there on Wednesday. Waldemar Kowalewski,, the third Polish climber, will join the team in a few days. The 45-year-old has scaled three eight-thousanders so far: Mount Everest in 2014, Lhotse and Broad Peak in 2017. According to the chronicle “Himalayan Database”, he reached the 8,125-meter-high Subpeak of Manaslu in 2016.

Moro and Pemba Sherpa at Manaslu Base Camp

Base camp at the foot of Manaslu

The Italian Simone Moro and the Nepalese Pemba Gyalje Sherpa have moved to their base camp at the eight-thousander Manaslu in western Nepal. After having previously climbed the six-thousander Mera Peak in the Khumbu region to acclimatize, they yesterday were flown by helicopter from Kathmandu directly to the base camp at 4,800 meters. “Due to the snow porters cannot walk till here,“ Simone wrote on Facebook on Monday. “Weather conditions are good, definitely better than 2015. Of course, it’s a bit cold. Today it’s minus 25 degrees Celsius. Let this adventure begin!” In 2015, the 51-year-old and the South Tyrolean Tamara Lunger had failed on Manaslu due to the enormous snow masses of that winter.

Update 16 January: Daniele Nardi and Tom Ballard climbed on the Mummery Rib up to 6,200 m and deposited equipment there. Alex Txikon and Co. have reached K2 Base Camp.

Alex Txikon (l.) and Simone Moro in Lhukla

Several winter expeditions in the Himalayas and Karakoram started in the first days of the year. Two of the three climbers who had succeeded the first winter ascent of Nanga Parbat in 2016 met in Lhukla in Nepal, however now with different goals: The Spaniard Alex Txikon wants to tackle K2 in Pakistan, the last remaining eight-thousander to be climbed for the first time in the cold season, the Italian Simone Moro is drawn to Manaslu again. The 51-year-old and the South Tyrolean Tamara Lunger had failed on the 8167-meter-high mountain in western Nepal in 2015 because of the enormous snow masses of that winter. This year, according to the Kathmandu-based newspaper “The Himalayan Times”, Moro plans to climb with the Nepalese Pemba Gyalje Sherpa on the normal route without bottled oxygen. In order to acclimatize, they wanted to climb the 6,476-meter-high Mera Peak in the Khumbu region.

Also two Poles in Txikon’s K2 team

Alex Txikon meanwhile travelled with his Sherpa team to Islamabad. There he meets his Spanish climbing partner Felix Criado and other compatriots from the K2 expedition team – as well as the Poles Marek Klonowski and Pawel Dunaj. Both have participated several times in winter expeditions to Nanga Parbat. “We will certainly not play the first fiddle if we play the fiddle at all,” said Pawel in an interview with the Polish radio station “RMF 24”. “But we will try to support Alex as much as we can.”

Only seven climbers left in Pivtsov’s team

Pivtsov’s team in Islamabad

While Txikon’s team grew, the K2 winter expedition team from Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan shrank from eleven climbers – as originally planned – to seven, due to lack of money. Now the experienced Kazakh Vassily Pivtsov, who has already scaled all 14 eight-thousanders, will lead only six climbers: the Russians Artem Brown, Roman Abildaev and Konstantin Shepelev, the Kazakh Tursunali Aubakirov and Dmitry Muraviov and the Kyrgyz Mikhail Danichkin. The mountaineers from the former CIS states are on their way to Northern Pakistan.

Nardi and Ballard in Camp 1

Daniele Nardi on Nanga Parbat

Still in the old year the Italian Daniele Nardi and the Brit Tom Ballard arrived in the base camp at the foot of Nanga Parbat. As reported, they want to climb together with the two Pakistani Rahmat Ullah Baig and Kareem Hayat the 8125-meter-high mountain on a new route via the Mummery Rib in the Diamir Face, which has not yet been mastered. They already reached Camp 1 at 4,700 meters.

Edi Koblmüller on the summit of Cho Oyu in 1978

Only the spouses were in the know. The three Austrians Edi Koblmüller, Alois Furtner and Gerhard Haberl as well as the two Germans Herbert Spousta and Peter von Gizycki had agreed on strict secrecy. After all, the eight-thousander Cho Oyu was not open to climbers in Nepal in 1978. So the five climbers disguised themselves as trekking tourists and hiked to Gokyo. Their actual destination was a few kilometers behind: the 3,000-meter-high Southeast Face of the 8,188-meter-high Cho Oyu. “I was obsessed with this idea,” Alois Furtner, who reached the summit with Koblmüller on 27 October 1978, writes to me. The others turned around about 200 meters below the summit. “Friends of ours later called it a ‘century adventure’. Today I know that it was a very courageous undertaking,” recalls the now 70-year-old Furtner. “At that time I was so determined and focused that it had to happen. Just as a pregnant woman has to give birth to her child, I had to realize this plan in a similar way. And I succeeded.”

Sleeping in snow caves

In the Southeast Face

A picture of the upper part of the wall in a book by Reinhold Messner had inspired the quintet. The mountaineers had no more information. First, they carried about 250 kilograms of equipment from Gokyo to the base camp at 5,100 meters. Koblmüller, Furtner and von Gizycki ascended to an altitude of 6,700 meters at the foot of the summit wall. There they deposited a tent with equipment and descended again. On 22 October the five mountaineers started their summit attempt. They climbed in “pure Alpine style”, Furtner says. “We had no Sherpas on the mountain, no supplies, no bottled oxygen, no communication with the outside world, we were completely on our own. There was also no doctor. We were not allowed to make any mistakes,” says Alois. “Food, petrol, fixed ropes were reduced to a minimum. We only used tents in the lower part of the wall. In the summit wall we dug out snow caves to reduce weight.”

Like Brocken spectres

The summit wall demanded everything from climbers. Their route led over an ice pillar in the middle of the wall, which was up to 70 degrees steep. In the morning of the summit day the thermometer showed minus 40 degrees Celsius. Haberl got frostbite at his fingertips, which finally cost him the summit. Furtner and Koblmüller reached the highest point shortly before sunset. “We both knew that we had achieved something great,” recalls Alois. “I had four turquoise stones around my neck. I pressed one of them into the snow of the ‘Turquoise Goddess’ (that’s the translation of Cho Oyu) at the summit in return for good luck. I remember one thing – it was mythical: The setting sun enlarged our shadows and threw them onto the wall of fog in the direction of Everest, it was like Brocken spectres.”

Five years entry ban

Nepalese side of Cho Oyu (Southeast Face on the right)

The descent turned into a race against time. At 6,600 meters the five mountaineers were snowed in. Two nights and a complete day they crowded together in a tent, food was running out. The quintet digged their way down to the valley through partly breast-high snow and finally reached the base camp on 1 November, ten days after setting off for their summit push. One day later they were back in Gokyo. Because they had climbed Cho Oyu without a permit, the Nepalese authorities punished the climbers with a five-year travel ban. “At that time our ascent virtually disappeared,” reports Furtner. “In the same year, Messner and Habeler climbed Everest without bottled oxygen – that was the world sensation.”

“The adventure of my life”

Alois Furtner

To date, the route via the Southeast Face of Cho Oyu, completed by Furtner and Koblmüller (who froze to death in a snowstorm in Georgia in 2015), has not been repeated. That actually says it all about its degree of difficulty. “Looking back, I’m still deeply moved by how we climbed the wall back then. There were so many obstacles on the way to the summit and also on our way back. And yet we all arrived at the base camp relatively unharmed,” says Alois Furtner. “It was the adventure of my life, and the summit picture was the photo of my life.”

The Cho Oyu pioneer takes a critical view of today’s Himalayan mountaineering. “Gokyo becomes a Zermatt in the Himalayas, the peaks are climbed in hundreds and the ascents are broadcasted live. I lean back calmly and think of our happy ascent with a feeling of well-being,” says Alois. “I am also very pleased that Reinhold Messner, in his Cho Oyu book, classifies our ascent as a ‘milestone in climbing great Himalayan walls’. I accept this compliment gratefully.”

P.S.: Yes, yes, I know, the anniversary was two months ago – but 40 years ago is still true.

Giant contrast to 2016

Last March, Ralf and I were in Thulosirubari when the first two of three planned parts of the new school building were inaugurated. The whole village was in a party mood. I looked into hundreds of smiling faces that communicated optimism. Not only at the school, everywhere in Thulosirubari construction work was on. What a contrast to my visit two years earlier! In 2016, one year after the earthquake, the village had still been a field of ruins, the inhabitants had seemed depressed, paralyzed.

Thank you for your big heart!

Third construction phase

“School up!” – as I had the chance to experience last March and the memory of it still warms my heart – is so much more than just an investment in a building that ensures that the students no longer have to be taught in corrugated iron sheds: The new school has become a symbol of hope and a new beginning. It is impossible to forget the natural disaster of 2015, but the people of Thulosirubari are now looking to the future – thanks to your generosity.

And it is this generosity that I would like to appeal to again shortly before Christmas: Please continue donating for “School up!” because we have not yet crossed the finishing line! The construction work on the third part of the building is in progress and must be financed. Here is the bank account again:

Recipient: Nepalhilfe Beilngries e.V.
Bank: Volksbank Bayern Mitte eG/Germany
IBAN: DE05 7216 0818 0004 6227 07
BIC/SWIFT-Code: GENODEF1INP
Intended purpose: Gerlinde and Ralf School

The last meters to the summit of Lunag Ri (picture taken by a drone)

“I traverse the last few metres over wind packed snow that sticks to the granite on the Nepalese side of the mountain. Even though my head is full with the impressions that I absorb every moment up here, my thoughts are somehow empty. The knowledge that I must not make any mistake is constantly present and dominates all other feelings. It results in an intense, almost exhausting concentration – a feeling I know only from other solo ascents in the mountains,” Austrian top climber David Lama writes on his website about the moment when the 28-year-old was the first to set his foot on the summit of the 6,907-metre-high Lunag Ri about a month ago (see video below). The technically difficult mountain is located in the Rolwaling Himal on the border between Nepal and Tibet, more than 35 kilometers as the crow flies northwest of Mount Everest. “Having arrived at the very front of the summit spur, I stand still. It feels strange that suddenly I have no more further to go. I sink down to my knees, tired and happy, even though I wouldn’t be able to express it that way right now. Briefly I think about Conrad. He is the only one I would have liked to share this moment with.”

Successful in the third attempt

David Lama alone en route

In their first joint attempt in fall 2015, Lama and US climber Conrad Anker, who’s up to every Himalayan trick, had to turn back 300 meters below the summit because of a tactical mistake. A year later, Conrad suffered a heart attack on the mountain and had to leave early. David then tried a solo ascent reaching a point about 250 meters below the summit. After the 56-year-old Anker, meanwhile having recovered from his myocardial infarction, had cancelled for the third attempt this fall out of consideration for his family, David meticulously planned another solo attempt and was – as reported – successful on 25 October. Since then, the mountaineering scene had been eagerly awaiting further information from Lama.

“Quite close to my limit”

On the ridge

According to David, he fought his way up the mountain for three days in icy temperatures of up to minus 30 degrees Celsius and stormy winds of up to 80 kilometers per hour via the Northwest Ridge. In challenging combined terrain, Lama had to overcome steep snowfields and fragile ice as well as rock passages. David says, he belayed himself only in particularly exposed passages and climbed most of the time without rope. The Austrian spent two nights in the bivouac tent, after the summit success he descended in one go and reached the base camp in the dark. “On the last day I came quite close to my limit,” David says in retrospect. “The three days at Lunag Ri were sometimes the most intense time I have ever experienced on a mountain. Being alone has reinforced this feeling, as well as everything I have experienced since my first attempt with Conrad Anker in 2015.”

David Lama

There is a proverb in German speaking countries saying: “Three times is divine”. Once again David Lama is currently tackling the still unclimbed 6895-meter-high Lunag Ri in Nepal – however, this time on his own from the very beginning. The technically difficult mountain is located in the Rolwaling Himal on the border between Nepal and Tibet, more than 35 kilometers as the crow flies northwest of Mount Everest. In 2015 and in 2016, the 28-year-old top climber from Austria had failed on the “almost seven-thousander”, both times about 300 meters below the summit – on the first attempt via the Northeast Ridge along with the experienced American climber Conrad Anker. Lama and Anker had also been team mates for the second try, but Conrad had suffered a heart attack on the mountain and had had to leave the expedition prematurely. David had then tried to reach the highest point solo over a slightly modified route – in vain. He had run out of time and strength.

As light as possible

David with Conrad Anker (r.) in 2016

“It was no longer about reaching the summit – that would have been suicidal – it was about gathering my strength to descend safely,” David summed up his experiences at that time. He hadn’t felt comfortable with his solo attempt: “What’s missing is the shared experience on the mountain, and the shared responsibility for success.” Also this time Lama asked Conrad Anker, who has meanwhile recovered from his heart attack, to join him on Lunag Ri. But the 55-year-old declined out of consideration for his family. So David decided to try it again solo – in contrast to 2016, however, planned. He wants to take as little material as possible with him on his solo ascent to the summit. “Being lighter en route, I can climb more often without using a rope,“ David said before his departure to Nepal in an interview with the Austrian daily “The Standard”.

Better fail than cheat yourself

David climbing on the Northeast Ridge of Lunag Ri

Lama is confident that he can reach the summit of Lunag Ri in his third attempt. But if not, David’s world would not collapse either. “For me, success is not defined by getting to the top of a mountain,” he once wrote. “It means that I live up to my own standards. If we are satisfied with setting humble goals, we are cheating ourselves. It is the courage to fail that makes the difference.”

Manaslu (l.) and Pinnacle East (r.)

The first summit success of the fall season on the eight-thousanders is reported from the 8,163-meter-high Manaslu. Dawa Sherpa from the Nepalese expedition operator Seven Summit Treks writes on Facebook that four Sherpas of their team have fixed the ropes up to the highest point. Besides Mingma Tenjing Sherpa, Gyaljen Sherpa, Tenjing Chhombi Sherpa and Temba Bhote, the Spaniard Sergi Mingote and the Brazilian Moeses Fiamoncini reached the summit. Mingote confirmed the summit success – also on Facebook – and added: “I am fine.” Last summer, Sergi scaled Broad Peak and then K2 in Pakistan, without using bottled oxygen. After Manaslu, the 47-year-old professional climber wants to tackle the eight-thousander Dhaulagiri even this fall, also located in western Nepal.

Almost 200 foreign summit aspirants

Now that the fixed ropes are laid up to the summit, there should be lots of success stories from Manaslu in the next few days. Almost 200 foreign mountaineers have been granted permits for this season to climb the eighth highest mountain in the world. This continues the trend of recent years: Among the clients of commercial expeditions, Manaslu has turned into “Fall’s Everest” in terms of popularity.

Construction side in Thulosirubari (on the right the two already completed school buildings)

“The construction work is going smoothly,” writes Shyam Pandit, who coordinates the projects of the German aid organisation Nepalhilfe Beilngries in the Himalayan state. At the end of last week, Shyam once again visited the construction site of the new school in the mountain village of Thulosirubari, some 70 kilometers east of the capital Kathmandu. After teaching in the first two parts of the building started as well as using the corresponding toilet block, the third and last section of the building is being constructed right next door. Your donations made this possible for our aid project “School up!”, which I founded together with the two climbers Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and Ralf Dujmovits after the devastating earthquake in 2015, in order to rebuild the destroyed school in Thulosirubari as quickly as possible.

Please do not let up!

Concreting of the floor slab

The first floor slab of the third section of the new school building has just been concreted. The next step is to build the walls for the second floor. Another toilet block will also be built next to this building. As you can see, we have already come a long way, but not yet reached our destination. Shyam Pandit quotes the contractor as saying that construction could be completed in spring 2019. Let’s wait and see! But of course we can only go on if we don’t run out of money. So, please continue to support “School up!” with your donations. They will be used exclusively for this project if you indicate “Gerlinde and Ralf School” as intended purpose. Here again the bank account details:

Recipient: Nepalhilfe Beilngries e.V.
Bank: Volksbank Bayern Mitte eG/Germany
IBAN: DE05 7216 0818 0004 6227 07
BIC/SWIFT-Code: GENODEF1INP
Intended purpose: Gerlinde and Ralf School

Thanks a million for your support, also on behalf of Thulosirubari’s children, their parents and their teachers. You are great!

Rescue flight on Everest

A committee is to get to the bottom of it. Since Friday, new guidelines for helicopter rescue have been in force in Nepal, with which the government wants to prevent insurance fraud with “fake rescue flights” in the future. A “Tourist Search and Rescue Committee” will monitor all rescue operations. The committee includes representatives of the ministries of home and of health as well as of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), the Himalayan Rescue Association (HRA), the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) and the tourist police. Helicopter companies, expedition and trekking agencies, hospitals and insurance companies are now obliged to provide all details of rescue flights and medical care as well as insurance invoices in a timely manner so that the committee can review them. In the event of irregularities, the committee is also responsible for punishing the black sheeps in the sector.

No more intermediaries

The government dropped its original plan to place the rescue operations completely in the hands of a police unit in the Ministry of Tourism. Now the expedition and trekking agencies have to take on their responsibility. They are to arrange everything necessary to rescue their clients in case of emergency. Only the patient and a helper or guide will be allowed to be flown by the rescue helicopter. Hospitals are to provide the agency concerned with a cost estimate for the treatment of the client. Intermediaries between insurance companies and tourism agencies are completely banned from the rescue service.

CAAN to cap costs for rescue flights

Return flight by helicopter

After last spring’s climbing season, massive insurance fraud with “fake rescue flights” had been uncovered. Guides are said to have urged climbers and trekking tourists even when they felt unwell to get on a rescue helicopter and be flown back to Kathmandu for treatment. These flights were then invoiced to the insurance companies – often at a completely overpriced rate. A commission of inquiry of the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism named eleven companies from the helicopter and trekking industry as well as four hospitals in Kathmandu that allegedly cheated insurance companies. But this is probably only the tip of the iceberg.

The commission found out that some mountain guides had also mixed baking soda into the food so that their clients got diarrhoea and were flown out by rescue helicopters. In addition, helicopters were packed with allegedly sick climbers and trekking tourists, afterwards the insurance companies should pay for several individual flights instead of one. According to the government more than 1,300 helicopter rescue flights were reported in the first five months of the year alone.

International insurance companies had threatened not to cover any more rescue flights in Nepal unless the government intervened. They demanded to cap the cost: to 4,000 dollars per flight. The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal is now to set a cost ceiling, depending on flight hours, distance and rescue altitude.

Animal with four back legs

But is a committee really the smartest solution to get a grip on the problem? I am skeptical. Committees usually do not tend to work quickly and effectively – or as the British author John le Carré  wrote (in his spy novel “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”): “A committee is an animal with four back legs.”

Rescue helicopter at Everest Base Camp

The air is getting thinner for those in Nepal who feather their beds with fake rescue flights. According to the Kathmandu-based newspaper “The Himalayan Times”, international insurance companies have set an ultimatum until 1 September to put an end to these illegal activities. Otherwise, they no longer want to cover the costs of helicopter rescue flights. The Nepalese government plans to set up a police unit in the Tourism Ministry that is to manage all rescues.

Not practicable

Lakpa Norbu Sherpa (r.) and Maurizio Folini

Lakpa Norbu Sherpa, who has been coordinating rescue on Mount Everest since 2003 as base camp manager of the Himalayan Rescue Association (HRA), is sceptical. “Police officers are no specialists”, tells me the 37-year-old, who was trained as a helicopter rescuer in Switzerland in 2012. Similar comments are made by Maurizio Folini: “The solution is not practicable. The police have no idea how to save people in the mountains.” The 53-year-old helicopter pilot from Italy is a pioneer for rescue flights on the eight-thousanders in Nepal. Since 2011 Folini has been flying regularly on the highest mountains in the world, in 2013 he managed the highest longline helicopter rescue of all time when he brought down a Nepalese climber from 7,800 meter on Everest.

Tip of the iceberg

He repeatedly pointed out that many of the rescue flights declared in Nepal in recent years were in fact none at all, Maurizio says to me: “But as a pilot you have little influence there. Last spring I refused such flights. I only flew when I had real patients on board.” An investigation commission of the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism has meanwhile named eleven companies from the helicopter and trekking industry and four hospitals in Kathmandu that allegedly defrauded insurance companies. But this should only be the tip of the iceberg.

Baking soda mixed into food

Rescue flight on Everest

Mountain tourists are said to have been urged to get on the rescue helicopters even when they were slightly unwell. The Commission even reports of individual cases where local guides mixed baking soda as a laxative into food to provoke diarrhea and then persuaded their clients to return to Kathmandu on a rescue flight. Helicopters have been packed with several sick people, it said. However, the companies cashed it up with the insurance companies as several individual flights of the patients.

Three times higher invoice

Folini points out that most of the fake rescue flights start on the trekking routes, for example in Gorak Shep, the last settlement before Everest Base Camp, or in the Gokyo Valley, a popular trekking destination near the highest mountain on earth. “Trekking tourists or mountaineers are influenced by the agencies,” says Maurizio Folini. “The business is made by the agencies that invoice three times more than the real amount, 12,000 instead of 4,000 dollars per rescue.” According to Maurizio, some hospitals in Kathmandu also have “dirty fingers”. Many of the patients suffering from high altitude sickness who are now flown directly to the capital could just as easily be treated in the clinic in Lhukla, the gateway to the Everest region, he says.

Only half of the helicopters needed

Maurizio in the cockpit

According to the government commission, more than 1,300 helicopter rescues were reported in the first five months of 2018, causing insurance costs of more than 6.5 million dollars. “The biggest business for the helicopter companies is fake rescue,” says Folini. He suggests a kind of “filter” to get a grip on the problem: “We need a checkpoint like we already have in Everest Base Camp with the HRA. A doctor has to confirm that the helicopter transport is really necessary.” Maurizio believes that if the fake rescue flights were to disappear, half of the helicopters would be enough: “That would also be good for tourism in the Everest region. There’s too much flying now. You can hardly hike in the Khumbu without being disturbed by flight noise.”

Grievances also in the Alps

However, Folini warns against seeing the problem only through Western glasses. “Also in the Alps not everything is great,” says Maurizio, referring to prestigious mountains such as Mont Blanc or the Matterhorn, where much more people are climbing than on Everest and where, for example, the faeces problem is unsolved: “On Mont Blanc, the waste from the toilets often ends up on the glacier. And try to climb the Matterhorn without stepping into a pile!” Even in the Alps, not every helicopter flight is a “clean rescue”, says the experienced pilot, who has completed more than 14,000 flight hours since 1993. “Rescue is always business. How can we point a finger at a poor country like Nepal if we can’t solve our own problems at home?”

The bricks are already there

Your donations for our aid project “School up!” continue to work. The base plate for the third section of the new school in the small mountain village of Thulosirubari, 70 kilometers east of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, has now been concreted. In the next step, the bricks for the walls of the first floor will be laid. Ralf Dujmovits – the so far only German climber to have climbed all 14 eight-thousanders – and I had laid the foundation stone for the third construction phase with another eight classrooms in mid-March. At that time, the first two buildings had been festively inaugurated.

Not yet at the finish line

The old school of Thulosirubari had been damaged by the devastating earthquake in Nepal at the end of April 2015 so badly that it had had to be demolished. In June 2015, I had founded “School up!” with Ralf and the Austrian Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner – the first woman in the world to stand on the summits of all eight-thousanders without bottled oxygen – in order to rebuild the destroyed school as quickly as possible. We have already come a long way, but have not yet reached our goal and need further donations. Here once again the bank account of “School up!”:

Recipient: Nepalhilfe Beilngries e.V.
Bank: Volksbank Bayern Mitte eG/Germany
IBAN: DE05 7216 0818 0004 6227 07
BIC/SWIFT-Code: GENODEF1INP
Intended purpose: Gerlinde and Ralf School

Thanks a million! You are great!

South side of Mount Everest

It would not have taken much more for the two women from Germany to shake hands on the roof of the world. Within 48 hours Ingrid Schittich at first, then Susanne Müller-Zantop reached the 8850-meter-high summit of Mount Everest last spring: Schittich on 15 May from the Tibetan north side, Müller-Zantop on 17 May from the Nepalese south side. They didn’t know about each other. Billi Bierling, head of the mountaineering chronicle “Himalayan Database”, first drew their attention to the fact that they had narrowly missed each other on Everest.

Oldest German women on Everest

Ingrid Schittich, in the background Mount Everest

Another thing Ingrid and Susanne have in common is that both mountaineers are already beyond the age of 60. Aged 63, Schittich is now the oldest German woman ever to reach the summit of the world’s highest mountain, 61-year-old Müller-Zantop the second oldest. In any case the circle is rather exclusive. Before the spring season 2018, only nine other German women had scaled Everest – most of them much younger than Ingrid and Susanne. They are also expected to be at the top of the age pyramid of Everest female climbers across Europe (data for spring 2018 have not yet been published). The world’s oldest woman on Everest to date was the 73-year-old Japanese Tamae Watanabe in 2012.

Seven Summits completed

On the summit

She wanted to prove “that even at an advanced age you can still achieve high physical performance,” says Ingrid Schittich, who began to climb genuinely only at the age of 49. It was already her third attempt on the north side of Everest: In 2016 she had had to turn around at 7,000 meters, in 2017 at 7,650 meters. Both times she had felt bad. With her summit success this spring, the 63-year-old completed her collection of the “Seven Summits”, the highest mountains of all continents.

Deep satisfaction

“During the ascent I only thought of the effort. Thoughts came up like I’ll never do that again,” recalls the physician from Munich. “On the summit I was happy and felt a deep satisfaction that I had achieved my goal.” Ingrid really enjoyed the moment, because she and her four companions from the team of the Swiss expedition operator “Kobler & Partner” were en route on the Northeast Ridge “without traffic jams or obstruction by other climbers. Also on the summit we were alone.”

Poster for cosmetics on the summit

15 minutes on the top

Susanne Müller-Zantop had also dreamt to experience the moment on the highest point of the world this way. But things turned out very differently. “I was happy and undisturbed during my ascent, I only met a few people,” says the German entrepreneur, who lives in Zurich in Switzerland. “The summit was a shock, first I stared at a poster for Chinese women’s cosmetics. There was hardly any place, it was so crowded. My Sherpa pulled a Lama’s coat, sword and cap out of his backpack, quickly put everything on and filmed himself. I was disappointed, there was no opportunity for rest, enjoying the panorama or even devotion.” After a quarter of an hour Susanne fled from this “marketing platform,” as she calls it.

Fitter than before

Susanne Müller-Zantop

Like Ingrid Schittich, Müller-Zantop was a late comer in terms of high altitude. In 2016 she scaled Cho Oyu. “I didn’t discover the eight-thousander world until I was 60,” says Susanne. “Maybe I’m just ready for it now. I think I’m mentally super strong now, much stronger than before.” She also had no problems with her fitness on Everest. “I don’t think that you necessarily lose your strength while getting older. Maybe I am even physically stronger and fitter than before.”

Overcoming fears

The experiences on Everest are still having an effect on both climbers. “You find everything there: living legends, young guns, adventure addicts, record addicts, people who search for meaning and tourists like me,” says Susanne Müller-Zantop. “I take with me many pictures and the gratitude that I belong to the privileged ones who were allowed to stand on the highest point on earth. I also take along that I can deal even better with my fears than before. And I was really scared on the way.”

Shyam Pandit (l.) at the construction site at Thulosirubari

“The construction work is going smoothly,” writes Shyam Pandit, liaison man of the German aid organisation “Nepalhilfe Beilngries” in Nepal. In Thulosirubari, a small mountain village about 70 kilometers east of the capital Kathmandu, the third part of the new school with eight additional classrooms is being built. The foundations are laid, the base plate is soon to be concreted. If all goes well, this third building could be ready by 2019. The first two buildings with classrooms for twelve school classes were – as reported – ceremonially inaugurated in March. At that time Ralf Dujmovits, the only German climber so far who stood on all 14 eight-thousanders, and I laid the foundation stone for the next construction phase in Thulosirubari.

“A new beginning for our dreams”

The foundations are laid

All this has been made possible by your donations for “School up!”, the aid project I had launched after the devastating earthquake in April 2015 along with Ralf and the Austrian top climber Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner (she was the first woman in the world to climb all eight-thousanders without bottled oxygen). The money that Gerlinde, Ralf and I collect goes directly into this one construction project that the “Nepalhilfe Beilngries” has been organizing and carrying out for us. I repeat the words of thanks that the students of Thulosirubari sent us at the beginning of the year: “We still remember that day. It was Saturday, 25 April 2015, when we lost our houses – and our dreams too between the colapsed buildings. We heard that God comes in many shapes. Some came to our place to reshape our damaged confidence. With our open heart, we thank you for your big heart, for reviving our hopes again. And our dreams have now got a new start.”

Please continue to support us!

To complete the third school building too, we are still dependent on your support. Once again the bank account of “School up!”:

Recipient: Nepalhilfe Beilngries e.V.
Bank: Volksbank Bayern Mitte eG/Germany
IBAN: DE05 7216 0818 0004 6227 07
BIC/SWIFT-Code: GENODEF1INP
Intended purpose: Gerlinde and Ralf School

A thousand thanks – also on behalf of the people of Thulosirubari!

Update 3 July: Now the iron girders are also mounted – despite the monsoon, which means that construction work has to be temporarily suspended due to rainfall.

Thomas Lämmle on top of Lhotse

Having scaled the fifth and fourth highest mountain on earth, without bottled oxygen and a High-Altitude Sherpa by his side – the spring season in Nepal went like clockwork for the German climber Thomas Lämmle. The 52-year-old from the town of Waldburg in Baden-Württemberg summited the 8,485-meter-high Makalu on 13 May. Only eight days later, on 21 May, Thomas stood on top of the 8,516-meter-high Lhotse, in the immediate vicinity of Mount Everest. Lämmle has now scaled seven eight-thousanders after Cho Oyu (in 2003), Gasherbrum II (in 2005 and 2013), Manaslu (in 2008), Shishapangma (in 2013) and Mount Everest (in 2016). I asked him about his experiences.

Thomas, last year your four summit attempts on Makalu failed due to bad weather. How have you been during your successful summit bid this spring?

Everything carried by himself

Last year’s failure was virtually the prerequisite for success this year. Last year I started four times from Makalu La (7,500 m) towards the summit. I had to do the trail-breaking by myself during all four summit pushes and was mostly alone en route. The biggest problem was the changing weather and snowfall, which hindered the ascent. Despite all the capricious weather, I reached an altitude of 8,250 meters. However, I realized that with the 2017 tactic, Makalu could not be climbed alone and without oxygen.

The Advanced Base Camp (ABC) is located at 5,700 meters, too high for real regeneration. The way from Camp 3 to the summit is too long. Moreover, you reach the Camp too late to prepare properly for the summit. This is only possible from Camp 4. Based on my experiences from 2017 and my knowledge from 25 years of research in high altitude physiology, I prepared a detailed ascent plan for Makalu. And it worked!

View to the main summit of Makalu

Already in March, I trained and pre-acclimatized on Kilimanjaro. On 10 April, I arrived in Nepal. On 23 April, I reached the ABC on Makalu for the first time. After setting up Camp 2 (6,600 m) and Camp 3 (7,500 m) in the following days and staying overnight in Camp 3 on 3 May, I descended to 4,400 meters for regeneration, to a yak-alp in Langmale. There I waited until (the Austrian meteorologist) Karl Gabl informed me about a good weather window: Summit day should be on 12 May, but with stormy days ahead, he said.

On 7 May, I set off for my ascent and finally reached Camp 3 on Makalu La on 10 May. Unfortunately Karl had made a mistake of one day, so that I was stuck in the storm for three days. In the afternoon of 12 May, however, the storm calmed down and I was able to move my tent to Camp 4 (7,600 m).

On top of Makalu

The following night, I set off at 1 am for the summit bid. I was the only climber on Makalu La at that time. Because of the storm, no one had been able to climb up to the pass. A beautiful, windless day lay before me. Unfortunately there were no fixed ropes above Camp 4 at first, which I could follow. So I used my last year’s GPS track and after some searching I reached the fixed ropes in the steep terrain towards the summit. At 3 pm, after 14 hours of ascent, I reached the main summit with the prayer flags. Five hours later I was back in Camp 4. On the descent, I met numerous Sherpas with clients who were all using bottled oxygen.

Eight days after that success, you stood on top of Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain on earth. Was that rather easy compared to Makalu or did you have to toil the same way?

Descent from Makalu

On 16 May, I reached Everest Base Camp. I was shocked by the crowds and the helicopter noise. I just wanted to get away. I descended to Lobuche (4,900 m) to regenerate in a lodge. Actually I wanted to stand on top of Lhotse on 23 May. However, Karl Gabl predicted heavy snowfall after 22 May and advised me to wait for this precipitation period and only then to start a summit attempt. I was uncomfortable with this thought, perhaps the snowfall was already the harbinger of the monsoon. So I choose a “slap bang” action to reach the summit before 22 May.

View down from Camp 4 on Lhotse

On the morning of 18 May, I returned to Everest Base Camp, packed my things and entered the Khumbu Icefall at 3 am the following night. Twelve hours later I reached Camp 3 in the Lhotse Face, where I spent the next night. On 20 May I ascended to Camp 4 at 7,700 meters. From there I started at 11.30 pm towards the summit. Shortly behind the tents the fixed ropes started, which led me to the Lhotse Couloir. I had been warned several times of this couloir, which is only two meters wide in some places. The danger of being hit there by stones or ice is immense. However not on 21 May – the Lhotse Couloir was filled up with hard snow along its entire length. There was no rope team in front of me, so I could climb up the couloir comfortably and relaxed. I had a very macabre meeting just below the summit: The mummified corpse of a Russian climber is sitting there, over which you have to climb. At 8.30 am, I reached the top of the summit cornice. It was windless and I had a wonderful view over Makalu to Kangchenjunga. Afterwards I was able to abseil down the fixed ropes very quickly and already two hours later I stood in front of my tent in Camp 4.

Lhotse Couloir (seen from Everest)

Two eight-thousanders within a week without bottled oxygen – that demands a lot from the body and the psyche. What does it look like inside you after your return to Germany?

It may sound astonishing, but with my acclimatization tactics and the breathing technique I developed, Makalu was easy to climb this year. Due to the ascent from 4,400 meters and the following fast descent, my performance loss was relatively low. So I went to Lhotse very well acclimatized and hardly weakened. There the conditions were extremely good: a stable high pressure area with correspondingly high oxygen partial pressure, plus super conditions in the Lhotse Couloir. The ascent of Lhotse felt very easy and very relaxed. If I had had the money for an Everest permit, I probably would have climbed Everest as well. Of course, I am very happy to have scaled two relatively challenging eight-thousanders “by fair means” – my number six and seven.

Anything but appetizing pictures from the Everest high camps have rekindled the debate on the waste problem on the eight-thousanders. How did you experience the situation?

Unlike Everest, there is no “waste concept” for Makalu. At the end of the season, the ABC on Makalu is like a burning landfill site: all the waste is collected, poured with kerosene and lit. The ABC looks like that. Waste from the high camps is not transported away and is usually sunk into crevasses. However, there is far less climbing activity on Makalu than on Everest, so pollution is limited and concentrated in relatively small areas.

Garbage in Everest high camp

Things are a little different on Everest and Lhotse. There we have about 2,000 clients and Sherpas in the high season. Waste management works quite well in Base Camp and Camps 1 and 2 – where no oxygen has to be used to move around or transport waste. Especially the South Col (Camp 4), on the other hand, resembles a large garbage dump at the end of the season, because there oxygen would be required to remove the garbage. Of course, these costs are avoided. The National Park administration doesn’t check it at that high altitude. It looks a bit better in Camp 3, even though most of the rubbish is not removed, but disappears into crevasses.

For me personally, a far bigger problem than the garbage on the South Col is the helicopter noise in the whole Solu Khumbu. On sunny days, Everest Base Camp is like a major airport. Every five to ten minutes a helicopter takes off or lands. The noise is sometimes unbearable and doesn’t even fit into Everest National Park. According to a helicopter pilot, there are now 38 helicopters in Nepal, which are mainly used in Solu Khumbu for tourist flights and so-called “rescue flights”. A nice example of this was the members of a Chinese expedition who flew from Base Camp to their hotel in Kathmandu because of bad weather prospects. One week later, after a better weather forecast, they flew back and climbed the mountain with personal Sherpa and bottled oxygen above Camp 2.