Climbing into the fog

No photo, no video, no GPS data. It’s not possible to prove clearly where exactly on the seven-thousander Latok I in the Karakoram the two Russian climbers Alexander Gukov and Sergey Glazunov finished their ascent on 23 July. The GPS tracker didn’t work properly. The mini-camera they had used to document the ascent was carried by Sergey when he fell to his death on 25 July. The body of the 26-year-old could not be recovered. Two days before, the two Russians had reached their highest point in the fog. “By 7 pm, Sergey climbed up a small col between a rock and a snowy serac. I was standing ten meters below him. The snow was almost vertical,” Alexander recalls on “mountain.ru”, where an English translation of his statements was published today.

“I did not feel the summit”

The versions of Glazunov and Gukov

„I started shooting the video, commenting that we climbed up somewhere. ‘What do you mean, ‘somewhere’: it’s Latok I, Sanya,” Sergey shouted. ‘Take me,’ I shouted to him. ‘This is unreal(istic), Sanya. Everything is covered with snow mushrooms and vertical slopes here,’ Sergey answered and began to descend.” Was Sergey really standing on the highest point of Latok I at 7,145 meters? He is still in doubts, Gukov admits: “I did not feel the summit, I don’t remember the pre-summit ridge, we did not stand together and hug one another and enjoy ourselves on the summit as I dreamt to,” Alexander writes on “mountain.ru”. “I think that it was the top of the North Ridge or the western ‚summit‘ of Latok I.“

Either on top of North Ridge or main summit, says Gukov

Alexander Gukov (r.) and Sergey Glazunov (l.) before their ascent

I ask the 42-year-old whether he is convinced that he and Sergey really have climbed the North Ridge to its end. “Of course I am sure,” Gukov answers me adding that the only alternative is that – as Sergey assumed – the highest point of their ascent was not the highest point of the North Ridge, but the main summit of Latok I. Actually, Alexander continues on “mountain.ru”, “it does not matter to me whether we climbed this 360m summit ridge or not.“ It was a good climb, writes Gukov, although he and Sergey were together en route for the first time, they harmonized well as a team.

After Glazunov’s fatal fall, Gukov had been trapped on the North Ridge at 6,200 meters for almost a week before being flown out of the wall by a Pakistani rescue helicopter on long line. He was severely dehydrated and suffered from frostbite on his feet. “I am getting better quite fast,” Alexander writes to me from Russia. Get well soon!

Broad Peak

Chroniclers of mountaineering in the Himalayas and Karakoram like the Germans Billi Bierling and Eberhard Jurgalski are in an unenviable position.  On the one hand, in the age of commercial climbing, they are facing a real flood of success reports which can hardly be overcome. On the other hand, summit successes are reported, which in fact are none because the climbers did not reach the highest point. “It’s getting harder and harder,” Billi Bierling told me some time ago. Following the retreat of the legendary chronicler Elizabeth Hawley (now 93 years old), Billi is now in charge of leading the Himalayan Database. “Actually, I’m inquiring closely. But sometimes I just want to have more time,” said Bierling. She assumed that most climbers were still honest, but sometimes the truth was “a bit distorted”, she complained.

It is disputed now whether the Nepalese expedition leader Mingma Gyalje Sherpa really led his group to the highest point of Broad Peak on 4 August, at the end of the summer season in Karakorum. Eberhard Jurgalski has compared Mingmas video, which was recorded in snow drifting, with other summit videos and photos from Broad Peak and concludes that the group has not reached the highest point of the eight-thousander but a different elevation on the summit ridge, at least 45 minutes away from the summit and about 25 meters lower than this.

In doubt, better once more

Really on top of Broad Peak?

The Swede Fredrik Sträng, who didn’t belong to Mingmas team, but reached along with them the turning point, has publicly stated that he was abandoning his claim of summiting Broad Peak. “I am not 100 % sure any more if we truly made it to the main summit or not,” Fredrik wrote on Facebook and announced that he would return next year to climb to the top of  Broad Peak without any doubt: “I don’t want to blame anything, but sometimes summiting in a snow-blizzard is perhaps not a recommended thing and blindly trusting someone who gets irritated when you ask him ‘Is this the summit?’ perhaps is not the best response.“ Sträng had asked a Pakistani companion three times whether they really were on top of Broad Peak. The Pakistani, who had scaled the mountain in good weather one week before, for the third time in his climbing career, had assured three times that this was the highest point.

In mid-June, Mingma Gyalje Sherpa had reached with some clients the summit ridge of Nanga Parbat – also in bad weather. Subsequently, the 31-year-old had publicly declared that he was not 100% sure whether they were really on the top. It’s not a new phenomenon that fore-summits are declared summits. So did some mountaineers on the eigth-thousander Makalu last spring. On Manaslu, it’s nearly common practice among commercial expeditions: After the fall season 2016, it turned out that most of the about 150 “summiters” had not entered the – admittedly not easily accessible – highest point but had made their “summit pictures”  nearby.

Mingma Gyalje Sherpa on Nanga Parbat

Mingma Gyalje Sherpa is not sure. He can not say with 100 percent certainty that he and his team really reached the 8,125-meter-high summit of Nanga Parbat on 11 June, the 31-year-old Nepalese today writes on Facebook, thus qualifying previous reports on the first summit success of the summer season on the eight-thousanders in Pakistan. He had relied on the local knowledge of a Pakistani climber who had summited the ninth highest mountain on earth in 2005 and with whom he had been on Gasherbrum I and II in 2016, writes Mingma. But the Pakistani had first led the team into a different gully than originally planned. This made the ascent harder and longer, says the Sherpa. When they finally reached the top of a ridge, the Pakistani told them this was the summit. “But that place didn’t look like the summit which I had figured out to be snow and two snow bar(rier)s,“ Mingma writes.

Frostbite on his toe

Unbidden souvenir

That is why they climbed two more possible summit points, but these also did not convince him completely. A third place, which could be considered as the true summit, was out of reach because his clients’ bottled oxygen ran out. At this time, according to Mingma, the mountaineers had already been en route for 20 hours, and it was getting dark. They descended. 43 hours after their departure, they reached Camp 3 again. Mingma paid the long ascent and descent with frostbite on his toe. “It’s my gift from Nanga Parbat.”

In doubt another attempt

“I am still in a dilemma about our summit,” concedes the head of the expedition operator Dreamers Destination. He wants to climb the 14 eight-thousanders and present summit pictures, which undoubtedly confirm that he has been on top, says Mingma adding that he would rather go back to Nanga Parbat than being part of a controversy about his performance. This attitude honors Mingma – in times when other climbers declare fore-summits for true summits without flinching. Maybe in the end it turns out that the Sherpa really reached the highest point of Nanga Parbat along with his team and has thus climbed his eleventh eight-thousander. The “summit pictures” are now being examined.

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

This year’s first summit successes on Manaslu are reported: Chhang Dawa Sherpa, head of the Nepalese operator Seven Summit Treks, said that nine foreign mountaineers and six Climbing Sherpas summited the eighth highest mountain on earth this morning. More teams are on the way up and plan to reach the highest point at 8,156 meters on Thursday or Friday. Dan Mazur from Summit Climb tweeted from Camp 4 at 7,450 meters announcing to climb towards the summit tonight. Rainer Pircher from Amical alpin is in Camp 4 too. Dominik Mueller, head of Amical, and his clients are spending the night at Camp 3 at 6,800 meters and want to climb up to Camp 4 on Thursday.

Some teams said: Too risky

Other teams like those of Himalayan Experience and Altitude Junkies had abandoned their Manaslu expeditions in the past few days due to avalanche danger in the upper parts of the route and a troublesome big crevasse below Camp 4. On Tuesday a group of Sherpas had been able to fix rope across the crevasse. Keep your fingers crossed for all climbers who are still on the mountain!
More than 100 mountaineers had applied for permits to climb Manaslu this fall. Thus it was probably the only mountain in Nepal with a halfway normal climbing life after the devastating earthquake on 25 April that had killed almost 9,000 people.