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.

Tenjing Sherpa climbing Everest

The good weather window in the Himalayas is impressively long. Since this spring’s first ascent of Mount Everest on 13 May by the Sherpa team that had fixed the ropes up to the summit on the south side of the mountain, climbers have reached the highest point at 8,850 meters day after day. Several hundred summit successes have since been counted. Today, Tenjing Sherpa also succeeded, without bottled oxygen. The 26-year-old wants to climb directly afterwards the neighboring eight-thousander Lhotse, if conditions allow it. According to Iswari Poudel, managing director of the expedition organizer “Himalayan Guides”, Lakpa Dendi Sherpa, just like Tenjing, reached the summit without breathing mask today. It was already Lakpa’s third (!) Everest ascent this season, Poudel said.

Colibasanu and Hamor give up

Horia Colibasanu (r.) and Peter Hamor (l.)

Briton Jon Griffith, who accompanied Tenjing Sherpa to the summit as a photographer and filmmaker, used bottled oxygen on his ascent. They see their expedition as a tribute to their friend, the Swiss top climber Ueli Steck who fell to death a year ago on the nearly-eight-thousander Nuptse. In 2017, Ueli and Tenjing had planned an Everest-Lhotse traverse without bottled oxygen via the Everest West Ridge. That’s exactly what the Romanian Horia Colibasanu and the Slovak Peter Hamor wanted to tackle this spring. They declared their expedition over today. The avalanche danger on the route was too great, Horia explained the decision. They had climbed up to an altitude of 7,500 meters.

Lämmle without breathing mask on Lhotse

Thomas Lämmle on top of Lhotse

Already last Sunday, the German climber Thomas Lämmle reached the 8,516 meter high summit of Lhotse, just eight days after his success on Makalu. “Same style: Solo, without oxygen and carried all equipment (tent, stove, food, sleeping bag, etc.) by my own,” ​Lämmle wrote yesterday on Facebook. For the 52-year-old from the city of Waldburg in Baden-Württemberg, Lhotse was the seventh eight-thousander after Cho Oyu (in 2003), Gasherbrum II (in 2005 and 2013), Manaslu (in 2008), Shishapangma (in 2013), Mount Everest (in 2016) and Makalu.

Three of the four world’s highest mountains in 25 days

Nima Jangmu Sherpa

An extraordinary feat was also achieved by Nima Jangmu Sherpa. The 27-year-old reached yesterday as the first woman from Nepal the 8,586 meter high summit of Kangchenjunga. Thus the Sherpani scaled within 25 days the three highest mountains in Nepal, which are three of the four highest in the world. On 29 April, Nima Jangmu had stood on top of Lhotse, on 14 May on the summit of Mount Everest – with breathing mask. In 2008, the Frenchwomen Elisabeth Revol had also scaled three eight-thousanders in one season. Only 16 days had lain then between her ascents of Broad Peak, Gasherbrum I and Gasherbrum II, without bottled oxygen and Sherpa support.

Besides Nima Jangmu Sherpa, another female climber from the team of the Nepalese expedition operator “Imagine” managed a Kangchenjunga summit success yesterday: Chinese Dong Hong Juan stood on her 13th eight-thousander.

Update 25 May: According to Iswari Paudel, Managing Director of Himalayan Guides Nepal Treks & Expedition P. Ltd., Tenji Sherpa decided after his yesterday’s Everest summit success not to climb Lhotse and instead descend to BC.

Update 1 June: Billi Bierling told me that Tenjing had used bottled oxygen above the South Summit (8,750 m), Lakpka Dendi above the South Col (7,900m). Means: No Everest ascent without breathing mask this spring.

Thomas Lämmle on top of Makalu

Persistence pays off. The German high altitude climber Thomas Lämmle reached, as he wrote on Facebook yesterday, on last Sunday the 8,485 meter high summit of Makalu, the fifth highest mountain on earth. The 52-year-old from the city of Waldburg in Baden-Württemberg climbed without bottled oxygen and Sherpa support. Last year, Thomas had returned empty-handed from Makalu after four summit attempts, all of which had failed due to bad weather. Now, according to his own words, he also wants to tackle Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain in the world, “before the snowfall – means May 21st”. Makalu was Lämmle’s sixth eight-thousander after Cho Oyu (in 2003), Gasherbrum II (in 2005 and 2013), Manaslu (in 2008), Shishapangma (in 2013) and Mount Everest (in 2016).

Five summit successes on Kangchenjunga

West, Main, Central and South Summit of Kangchenjunga (from left to right)

From Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain of the world, this spring’s first summit successes on this eight-thousander were reported. According to confirmed information, five climbers reached the highest point at 8,586 meters on 16 May, including Australian-New Zealand climber Chris Jensen Burke. It was already her tenth eight-thousander success. Chris reports an extraordinary feat: Pemba Gelje Sherpa from the operator “Expedition Base” climbed in a single push from the base camp to the highest point. The day before, he had accompanied a client from Camp 3 down to BC, wrote Chris.

German summiteer

Among the summiteers was also the German Herbert Hellmuth. For the 49-year-old from the town of Bamberg it was his third eight-thousander success after Manaslu (in 2011) and Mount Everest (in 2013). In 2015 on K2, he had to turn around at 7,000 meters.

Two more deaths

R.I.P.

Meanwhile, no day passes by on Mount Everest without dozens of summit successes. However, there is also sad news. A Sherpa who had reached the highest point on Monday with a team of the operator “Seven Summit Treks”, but had stayed behind on the descent, has since been missing. There is no hope of finding him alive. In addition, yesterday a Russian climber died in Camp 2 at 6,400 meters from the consequences of high altitude sickness. He had tried to climb Lhotse without bottled oxygen and had turned back 100 meters below the summit.

Soria’s first Dhaulagiri summit attempt failed

Carlos Soria

On Dhaulagiri, the 79-year-old Spaniard Carlos Soria and his comrades abandoned their first summit attempt. They had spent the previous night in Camp 3 at 7,250 meters. The wind was too strong, the expedition team said. The climbers are returning to the base camp. It is already Carlos’ ninth attempt on Dhaulagiri. Besides this mountain, he lacks only Shishapangma in his eight-thousander collection.

Update: Early this morning the news was spread on Facebook that also Maya Sherpa had reached the summit of Kangchenjunga. After having read it on several platforms, I included it in this summary. Obviously too hasty. Chris Jensen Burke wrote to me from the base camp that on 16 May, definitely only five climbers had reached the summit and that there had been no more ascents since then. Currently a summit attempt of the expedition operator “Asian Trekking” was on, wrote Chris: “Reports that Maya Sherpa summited are not correct.” I then removed the information about Maya’s supposed summit success from the report.

Ralf Dujmovits above Everest North Col

Everybody is writing about how crowded Mount Everest is. “The mountain is almost completely deserted,” Ralf Dujmovits tells me today via satellite phone. The only German who has so far climbed all 14 eight-thousanders has just returned from his second acclimatization climb on the Tibetan north side of Everest. He spent a night in Camp 2 at 7,700 meters, then he descended, as scheduled, to the Advanced Base Camp (ABC) at 6,300 meters.

Fixed ropes up to 8,300 meters

Sherpas on descent from Camp 3

The ABC is, of course, only temporarily deserted. “Almost all have descended further down,” says Ralf. Before their first summit attempt, the members of the commercial expeditions were to breathe “thicker air” in the so-called “Chinese Base Camp” at 5,200 meters or even further down. According to Dujmovits, the route has been secured with fixed ropes up to 8,300 meters, on Thursday or Friday the work should be completed up to the summit. There are about 140 climbers from abroad on the north side, in addition about as many Sherpas – only half as many mountaineers as on the Nepalese south side of Everest, where a total of around 750 foreign and local climbers are en route.

Regeneration at 6,300 meters

View down to the North Col (on the left Cho Oyu)

“I will take a three, four days break to regenerate completely,” says Ralf. “I will stay here in ABC and will not descend further down. I see no reason for that. I feel really well. Let’s see how the weather is developing.” The 55-year-old wants to make one more attempt – his eighth – to scale Everest without bottled oxygen. During his summit success in fall 1992, he had used a breathing mask above the South Col, in bad weather. Dujmovits had summited the other 13 eight-thousanders without supplemental oxygen. Only on Everest, he failed again and again – for different reasons. In his “definitively last” attempt, he treats himself to a safety feature: Ralf has engaged Mingma Sherpa, a Sherpa from the Khumbu area, who will be carrying a bottle of oxygen for the German – just in case of an emergency. Should he be forced to use the bottle, Ralf wants to descend immediately.

Hardly wind

Evening mood in Camp 2

It does not look like this at the moment. “I am quite confident,” says Ralf. After his pre-acclimatization trip in the Khumbu, where he had scaled the six-thousander Cholatse along with his partner Nancy Hansen, he feels “in an above-average good shape”. The night at 7,700 meters, however, was “mixed”, admits Dujmovits. “I had probably eaten something wrong before.” This morning he had packed up in snowfall and descended: “It has been nearly windless for days. That’s why clowds are forming, and it begins to snow.”

Visibility to the feet

The partly heavy snowfalls in the Himalayas have thwarted some summit attempts on eight-thousanders. So the German climber Thomas Lämmle, who wants to scale Makalu without bottled oxygen, today turned around in Camp 3 at nearly 7,500 meters. The Spaniard Kilian Jornet, meanwhile on the way to Everest, in his own words reached on Sunday in heavy snowfall a point on Cho Oyu he thought to be the highest: “Honestly, I am not sure that this was the summit, as I could only see my feet, but I was at some point around (the summit).”

Shishapangma (8027 m)

The sad news from the Himalayas don’t stop. On the 8000er Shishapangma in Tibet a German climber died of a high altitude cerebral edema. The expedition agency Amical alpin informed that the climber from the Bavarian region Chiemgau had belonged to a group of six members who, together with expedition leader Thomas Laemmle and their Climbing Sherpa Pasang, had reached the 8013-meter-high central summit of Shishapangma on 10th May. While descending the climber at first had shown symptoms of a high altitude pulmonary edema.

Abseiled down to 7500 metres

„An immediate treatment with emergency medicine as well as the descent initially showed little effect,” Amical said. Thomas Laemmle, a sports scientist very experienced in high altitude medicine, decided to send the other members ahead to the lower camp. He wanted to lead down the altitude-sick climber slowly, on short rope. The following night the climber also showed symptoms of a cerebral edema. Laemmle administered an emergency medicine immediately. Until next morning he was able to abseil the climber to a height of 7500 metres. But the efforts to save the mountaineer’s life were unsuccessful. „A tent and bottled oxygen were already on the way up the mountain, but on 11th May at 11:23 he died in the arms of the expedition leader”, Amical announced.

Everest ascent cancelled

Due to the rescue Thomas Laemmle also got a high altitude pulmonary edema and frostbites at his toes. „Both are not so bad – now I’ve been in a hospital in Kathmandu – but an ascent of Everest without oxygen will not be possible”, Laemmle wrote in his blog. He had already reached the main summit of Shishapangma on 30th April. Initially Laemmle wanted to climb four 8000ers within four months: after Shishapangma he planned to scale Mount Everest and afterwards in the Karakoram Gasherbrum II and Gasherbrum I. Laemmle now wants to recover and set off for the two Gasherbrums on 8th June.