8 September, 2010Chris Stangl broke down and spilled the truth. Hi didn't reach K2 top. He confessed on ORF.at earlier yesterday that he faked his feat in a "state of coma due to stress and fear of failure." Bergsteigen.at reported. "During the latest push, I entered a trance-like state in which I was really convinced that I had reached the highest point." He now states the supposed summit pic was taken at C3 (as ExplorersWeb had pointed out to him the previous day) and not on top. The pic. from www.mounteverest.net
7 September, 2010Cho Oyu: "Ukraine-Himalaya 2010" expedition started Sep, 3 from Kharkov. The members are: Serguey Bublik, Andrew Kyiko, Alexander Zakolodny - experienced climbers, who took part in Makalu expedition last spring. Anl also new members without Himalay experience join the team. The leader - Igor Svergun.
7 September, 2010VI International Elbrus Race: The Anatoli Boukreev Memorial Fund became the sponsor of the competition.
2 September, 2010The tragedy on Pobeda peak (7439 m, Tien Shan). Details.
Three climbers died on Pobeda peak during the descent. Info from Andrew Fedorov (Aksay Trevel):
Aug, 23 he (as guide), the client, three Polish climbers (Aleksandra Dzik, Krzysztof Starek, Jakub Hornowski), Efremov and Bainazarov, Maltsev, somebody from Moscow and two climbers from Ufa - about 15 Russians - reached Pobeda top at 2 p.m. The weather was fine, but there're the first signs of storm (cirus clouds) On the top Efremov (60 y.o.) felt bad, heart problem. When the team began to descend, he went by himself, but it's obvious that he had bad coordination.
At 7200 guys began to give him medicines.
About 4p.m. there were poor visibility, and strong wind. At 5-30 the wind became huragane. The group stopped when there were only 800 m (GPS) from Vazha. Polish climbers stopped above, they had the tent. Russians had only two small tents, but all could stay inside. One tent had been broken at night.
Aug, 24 they stayed at the tents. Huragane, snowfall. THey have very few food and gas.
Aug, 25 - they tried to descend, but had to turn back. Yuri Efremov died at 4 p.m. in spite of treatment . Kirill Mokhov was bad too, he was periodically out of counsciousness.
Aug, 26 the weather improved slightly. Kirill Mokhov died at 8 a.m. Other Russians managed to descend to Vazha - there was a cave, where were two climbers from Ufa.
Aug, 27 all Russians were in the cave. Polish climbers descended to the cave too.
Aug, 28 they decided to try to go down to the fixed ropes. THey breaked the trail by shovels.
Some of them descended to 6400, some - to 6100.
Aug, 29 Andrew Bainazarov died on the descent from 6400.
Aug, 30 THe group reached Dikiy pass, and were evaquated from there by heli (two flights)
All of them got frostbites (2-4 degree). Radiocontact Bc - climbers was during all the descent.
2 September, 2010K7 West. Summit! Oleg Koltunov and Vjacheslav Ivanov fron Saint Petersburg climbed the new route on the West Face. Detailes soon.
2 September, 2010New Snow Leopards registered in SL statistics. They are: Kilichenko Yuri (UKR), Pjasjatskas Andrjus (LTH), Nikolaev Oleg (RUS), Koval Victor (RUS), Abildaev Roman (RUS), Kalashnikov Vladimir (RUS), Bochkarev Victor (RUS). Also we have messages about those who have completed program but not registered yet: Andrew Chepiga (UKR), Irina Runova (RUS), Pavel Trofimov (RUS), Gennady Durov (KAZ), Anastasia Cheremhykh (KRG) and Natalia Zenina (LTV).
2 September, 2010The tragedy on Pobeda peak (7439 m, Tien Shan). Today RIA News wrote about three climbers died during the descent Aug, 28. Artur Hajzer gave some detailes: "On 23rd of August at 12.40 o'clock 3 Polish climbers summited Peak Pobeda: Aleksandra Dzik, Krzysztof Starek and Jakub Hornowski. Just after that drama started. They were together with a group of appr. 15 Russians. The weather became very bad. Big snowfall. In BC 1 metre snwo and more. The climbers were stocked on 6900 m for 4 days and 6000 m 2 days. 3 Russian dead - big tragedy. Finally the group consist of 3 Polish and 12 Russian managed to come down to 5800. The resque heli took the group down. Not everybody could manage to come into the heli by his own. Polish members have a frosbides 2nd degree. The group was finally transported to BC and Kazach border on appr. 30.08 and did not come back to Poland yet so I have news from their sat phone only".
1 September, 2010K2. Official Statement from Christian Stangl:
"Since I have got several blackmails und threats from some people of the Climbers community I hereby state, that I am not willing to discuss and much less defend summiting K2. Furthermore, for me it is of no importance to be on any of the ?summiters? lists. Just want to remind that webplatforms are not considered being in court. If climbing 8000+peaks (and only there) includes experiencing all the bad rumours and threats I had to endure since summiting K2 I don't want to be a member of this "climbing community" any more. I know very well who started spreading the rumors/story - I just refer to the book of Michael Kodas "High Crime". I am not climbing for anybody else but me! "
1 September, 2010Korean Alpine Federation decided that Miss Oh apparently didn't reach Kangchenjunga summit in 2009, based their doubts on the lack of a proper summit pic, climbing times, contradictions among climbing sherpas. After hearing KAF's conclusion, Eun-sun strongly rejected all accusations, and said that she intends to defend herself in an upcoming press conference."I will continue to collect evidence to prove the ascent and then ask for a review," she stated. Elizabeth Hawley: "I've already been asked whether we will mark her claim as unrecognized instead of disputed, and I've said no. I certainly feel sorry for her, but it would seem her only choice now is to go back and climb it again with lots of clear photos."
23 August, 2010Bhagirathi II (6512 m). Kazakhstan team has left for INdia today. Team members: Alexander Rudakov, Alexander Sofrygin, Ildar Gabbasov, Dmitry Honin, Mikhail Golovko.
16 August, 2010 Khan Tengri: Gleb Sokolov and Alexander Kirikov climbed the new route "Snake"
16 August, 2010 K2. Christian Stangle topped out Aug, 12 at 10-00 local time. He descended to BC. As for Kazakhstan team, that day Maxut Zhumayev decided to abort the expedition in spite of Vassily's point of view that the summit is available. Max decided not to risk in the "bottle neck", where a lot of climbers have the same feelings.
9 August, 2010Korean climbers Jae-Soo Kim and Byung-Woo Son summited Gasherbrum I Aug, 5 at 13-15 local time. Info from Kyu Dam Lee.
9 August, 2010Russians Oleg Koltunov and Vjacheslav Ivanov began to climb new route on K7 West (East Face)
7 August, 2010Alexey Bolotov summited Gasherbrum II August, 5. Some days ago, July, 28 he summited Gasherbrum I with Don Bowie.
7 August, 2010Sky-skier Fredrik Ericsson in fatal accident on K2.Fredrick and Gerlinde started early morning from C4. Fredrik fell in the beginning of "Bottle neck", possibly while placing an anchor. Looking for him in the whiteout, Gerlinde found only one of his skis, the bad visibility prevented more details. Gerlinde descended alone and met up with Darek Zaluski and Fabrizio Zangrilli at around 9 am, who had come up to help. Russian Yura Ermachek had descended off the shoulder toward camp III for a view of the ascent route. He spotted Fredrik's lifeless body and backpack about 400 meters above camp 3. Traversing to the body would be connected to extreme risk and Fredrik's dad decided 4 pm local time to leave his son there with his favorite view of the Chogolisa and Laila peaks. (www.mounteverest.net)
19 July, 2010Broad peak traverse: Basques Alberto Inurrategi, Mikel Zabalza and Juan Vallejo reached the Central summit (8013m)via new route. It's the first Basques new 8000+ route.The trio was going to set the tent on the col between Central and Main tops and continue the traverse. (www.explorersweb.com). Picture: Alberto Inurrategi on Broad peak traverse
14 July, 2010Kazakhs Maxut Zhumayev and Vassily Pivtsov will leave Almaty July, 17 for Islamabad. Their goal is K2 again. It's the sixth attempt for Vaso and 5th for Max. Both have already climbed 13 8000ers
Nick Shustrov: 20 years passed since impossible avalanche on peak Lenin killed 44 climbers from URSS, Israel, Czechoslovakia (now it is 2 different country), Switzerland and Spain... 23 of them were from my native city Leningrad. I remember nearly everybody of them by names, some of them were guys I used to climb together, some of them were Very Important People for Leningrad climbing society... we missed all of them...
i met them at achik-tash just 2 week before the avalanch. they always stay in my mind the same young, cheerful and full of life and energy...
5 July, 2010Kazakh Denis Urubko won the speed ascent on Noursultan peak (4376 m) near Almaty yesterday. Is there something what this animal doesn't win if plays? Of course, it's great training before September Elbrus Race competition, where Denis will take part again. Photo: diesel.elcat.kg (Denis is left)
5 July, 2010Polish mountaineer Marcin Kaczkan summited Nanga Parbat July, 2 at 10 a.m. Congratulations! He's that Marcin, who was rescued from 7750 m on K2 in february 2003 by Denis Urubko. And after some years Mercin is in Karakorum again, and so successful!
29 June, 2010Tien Shan. Alexander Korobkov and Nickolay Smagin (both from Sverdlovsk region, Russia) will start tomorrow their expedition to Khan Tengri - they're going to climb the new route on South Face or on the center of the North Face
29 June, 2010Karakorum. Don Bowie (Canada) and Alexey Bolotov (Russia) are going to climb some route(s) on Gasherbrums in Karakorum (GI, GII, GIII,GIV). Now they set their base camp and began the first acclimatizing push. Pics by Don Bowie (www.calpinist.com)
23 June, 2010Girls team are going to Amin Brakk. Two Ukrainians and one Russian girls reached BC yesterday. They aiming to Czech Express route on the West Face.
23 June, 2010K2 - Broad peak Polish Expedition. Yuri Ermachek (Yekaterinburg, Russia) is a member of Polish expedition led by Boguslav Ogrodnik.
23 June, 2010Nanga Parbat Polish Expedition.Artur Hajzer and Robert Szymczak summited Nanga Parbat yesterday at 1:30pm. They climbed 15 hours and then descended 10 hours to C4. (polskihimalaizmzimowy.pl)
23 May, 2010Makalu, Ukraine expeditionSummit!!! Bublik, Venslavovsky and Roshko are on the Makalu top. Two climbers from other expedition (from normal route) reached top at the same time. Ukrainians decised to descend via normal route. Detailes will be tomorrow.
17 May, 2010Shisha Pangma. Edurne Pasaban summited today at 11-30 local time. It's her 14th 8000-er! The second woman who 's completed the program 14Q. Asier Izaguirre, Alex Txicon, Nacho Orviz summited too. Italians Mario Panzieri, Michele Compagnoni and Alberto Magliano have summited as well, Montagna.tv reports. Congrats! (info: http://www.mounteverest.net)
17 May, 2010Lhotse normal route: Kazakh team led by Maxut Zhumayev summited May, 16. It was 13th 8000-er for Maxut and Vassily Pivtsov. (detailes about the summiteers list will be soon)
Lhotse new route! SMS from Denis Urubko (8-00 MSK): " May, 16 I climbed new route to Lhotse from South Col. I was alone. Started at 6-10, topped at 11-30, descended to C2 at 16-00. Congrats to Kazakhstan with new line at 8000" Picture: http://simonemoro.wordpress.com/
14 May, 2010Lhotse, Russian expedition.SMS from BC (11-30 MSK): "The team which'll bring Duganov's body down, reached only 7400. Alexey, Vladimir, Nickolay and Gennady will start for summit tomorrow. Only short weather window May, 16-17. Next after May, 23. Crossing fingers..."
12 May, 2010Makalu, Ukraine expeditionThe team waits weather improving in BC. Karl Gabl from Austria, who provides the forecast for the expedition, recomends to wait till May, 23...
11 May, 2010Lhotse, Russian expedition.SMS from Alexey Bolotov: The team'll try to bring down Duganov's body to BC.
10 May, 2010Lhotse-Everest.Denis Urubko has acclimatized at South Col. He spent night there May, 8 and May, 9 descended to BC in 5 hours.
10 May, 2010Lhotse, Russian expedition.Five climbers were going up to Lhotse top May, 7: Alexey Bolotov, Gennady Kirievsky, Nickolay Totmjanin, Vladimir Belous and Serguey Duganov. Serguey Duganov died May, 7 at 7800 during the descent. THis info came from Maxut Zhumayev. No details, no official report from the expedition yet. Our sincere condolences to Serguey's family and friends...
6 May, 2010Makalu, Ukraine expeditionThe team set the tent at 7750 m on the West ridge. They've already climb SW Face and now work at the ridge leads to the top. Ìàêàëó. Ýêñïåäèöèÿ Óêðàèíû. Êîìàíäà ïîñòàâèëà ëàãåðü íà 7750 ì
5 May, 2010Lhotse-Everest. Simone Moro & Denis Urubko are again in EBC. THeir client Aldo became ill, and decided to abort his Everest climb, and left Nepal yesterday. Now he's in Italy already. Simone and Denis are going to climb up tomorrow for the acclimatizing push till 8000 m. What'll be further, they'll decide soon.
1 May, 2010Lhotse-Everest. Simone Moro & Denis Urubko rest in KTM with the client Aldo, after they succesfully acclimatized till 7350 m. Next week they plan to climb Everest. We'll have a chance to see Denis in oxygen mask: he'd to save energy before next very important climb Lhotse-Everest. On the picture: Denis and Aldo at 6900 (simonemoro.wordpress.com)
1 May, 2010Lhotse, Kazakhstan team descended from C2 to BC for the rest.
29 April, 2010Annapurna.Tolo Ñalafat lost at 7600. He couldn't descent to C4 in the summit day, and spent the night out. In the morning his Sherpa borought the sleeping bag, oxygen and food from C4, because Tolo couldn't move. Karlos and Juanito were frostbitten and snowblinded, spent two nights in C4 with Horia Kolibasanu, who helped them. Apr, 28 the rescue heli couldn't pick up Tolo from 7600, next morning recsue heli could fly, but Tolo has gone already... Karlos and Juanito were rescued by heli from C4. And Horia too.
27 April, 2010Annapurna. Serguey Bogomolov and Eugeny Vinogradsky summited at about 16-00 local time. Now they're descending to C3.
11 April , 2010Piolet D'Or 2010. Winners are Americans Jed Brown and Kyle Dempster along with Scotsman Bruce Normand, who completed the North face of the Xuelian West (Chinese Tien Shan) - best technical climb; and Denis Urubko and Boris Dedeshko for Cho Oyu SE Face climb - best high-altitude climb. Reihold Messner was awarded PIolet D'Or for the lifetime achievement.
31 March, 2010 Cholatse 6440 m (Nepal) first climb has been made by Valery Shamalo, Alexander Gukov and Victor Koval, March, 20. Guys are just back to Saint Petersburg, and we wait their story soon. Cholatse is a mountain in the Khumbu region, was first climbed via the southwest ridge on April 22, 1982 by Vern Clevenger, Galen Rowell, John Roskelley and Bill O'Connor.
31 March, 2010Amin Brakk. Four women - two Ukrainians (Marina Kopteva and Anna Yasinskaya) and two Russians (Natalia Zlokazova and Galina Chibitok) - are planning Karakorum wall climb. Foto: Marina Kopteva
19 January, 2010Patagonia, Cathedral. Alexander Ruchkin, Vladimir Kachkov, Arcady Seregin and Tengiz Verulashvili headed to Patagonia Jan, 6. Their goal is peak Cathedral. They planned to climb two new routes by two parties, but yesterday they called that decided to climb all together.
6 December, 2009Piolet D'Or Russia 2009 was awarded yesterday to Alexander Ruchkin and Mikhail Mikhailov for their Minya Konka massiff climb in China. "Chrystal Peak" (RISK readers choice) has been awarded to the team led by Andrew Lebedev (Pamir Maraphon).
Alexey Bolotov (K2 West Face, Jannu North Face, Lhotse Middle, Annapurna new route, etc.) organizes Lhotse (8516 m) expedition (normal route) in spring 2010. Mountaineers are welcome to participate. E-mail: bolotov@bk.ru
1 September, 2009Siberian mountaineers Gleb Sokolov and Vitaly Gorelic have completed the new route on Pobeda peak.Pobeda is very serious 7000-er. Gleb has just called from the glacier, they descended successfully, but coudn't talk well, very tired.
9 August, 2009K2 Maxut's and Serguey's fouth attempt and Vassily's fifth attempt to topped out K2 hasn't been successful. Serguey Bogomolov wrote: THe weather's bad. Snow and mist is in BC. Out team stay alone here. The forecast isn't optimistic. We decided to cansel the expedition and has called for porters already. Photo from www.kazpatriot.kz. From left to right: Vassily, Serguey, Maxut.
5 August, 2009K2:Maxut SMS 7-20 à.m. Almaty time: (www.kazpatriot.kz)" We won't go up today. Our trio hoped to repeat summit bid attempt tonight with Japanese team, but the situation has changed. Their members went down to C3 yesterday. Japanese leader told us the weather forecast: the wind speed 100 km/h, so their team had refused from the summit bid. All other teams are leaving K2, heading home. We're tired, it's too hard for only three of us to break trail in meter-deep snow! Now we're descending to BC. Then we'll decide who and where will go, and what'll be the weather in August. The situation is very close to our K2 expedition in 2005. But there were 4 Kazakhs in the team...."Photo: Gerfried Goschl (www.gerfriedgoeschl.at) - bottleneck traverse - the most dangerous part of the normal route on K2.
4 August, 2009K2:Maxut SMS 5p.m. Almaty time: (www.mountain.kz) Summid bid wasn't successful. All descended to C4 (7800). There're a lot of snow and very few climbers who wanted to break the trail. We fixed ropes on two key parts: bottle neck and the traverse above it. We didn't climb only 100 m till the summit ridge. Gerlinde is descending from C4, but Maxut, Vaso and Serguey are staying in C4 for a tomorrow attempt of the summit bid again.
14-00 Moscow time:On 3 p.m. local ime Gerfried Goschl called that the group is at 8300, but due to very deep snow they go too slowly. So, he decided to turn back. Only Maxut, Vaso, Serguey and Gerlinde are on the route yet.
11-32 Moscow time: 9 climbers are in the end of bottle neck on traverse (8250 m), Gerlinde is among them too. Sepp and Chris are going down. (message from Gerfried Goschl blog)
4 August, 2009K2:Waiting news... Serguey Bogomolov, Maxut Zhumayev, Vassily PIvtsov, Gerlinde Kaltebrunner, Fabricio Zangrili, Ron, Santjago with Sherpa, Dave Watson, George Dijmaresku, Korean climber with his Sherpa were going to start up from C4 tonight, Gerfried Goschl group ( Sepp, Luis, Christian) spent night in C3.
3 August, 2009K2:Maxut Zhumayev, Vassily Pivtsov and Serguey Bogomolov are in C4. Today morning they started up from C3 in 9 a.m. Maxut and Vassily broke trail from C3, then Serguey and Sherpas helped them on the past part of the way. Strong wind, but the weather is affordable. (www.mount.kz)
30 July, 2009K2:All, who can take a gun, will go to the summit bid in the beginning of August. Today in the Base Camp an unanimous agreement have reached on the meeting of all climbers, who're still remain on K2.Kazakhs Max and Vassiliy, Russian Serguey, Austrians Gerlinde, Gerfried and Sepp, Canadian Louis, Ecuadorian Santiago – as well as Korean, Japanese and probably American climbers, gathered in BC today to unveil the latest message from the current K2 oracle: Karl Gabel’s forecast, just emailed from Innsbruck. “The first days of August may be good for a K2 summit attempt,” Max told home team Andrei Verkhovod after the meeting. “The wind is expected to drop down to 50km/h, even to 35 km/h on August 4th – which should thus be appointed as summit day (Tuesday). Therefore, all participants have agreed to join forces for the assault.” As for Gerlinde, she reported on her decision right after the meeting. “Ralf and the others have gone – I must confess I miss them so much,” she wrote. “David is heading home as well. However, I want to try once more if I’m given the chance.” (www.mount.kz and www.k2climb.net)
27 July, 2009K2:Serguey Bogomolov, Maxut Zhumayev, Vassily Pivtsov and Yang Chun Feng (chineese climber) and HAP Ibrahim returned to BC Jul, 24 after reaching C3 (7400 m) - the snow was very deep on the route. But next day, Jul, 25 they began new push, because the weather window was announced for the weekend. So, Jul, 25 they ascended to C2.
20 July, 2009Lenin peak, the avalanche July, 13, 1990. The special expedition, launched by St. Petersburg Mountaineering Federation and led by V. Leonov, has found the Sign "Mountain rescuer" N 9262. This sign belonged to Vladimir Golubev. He lived in Leningrad, borned in 1959.
14 July, 2009K2:Serguey Bogomolov set C1 and C2 and returned to BC for the rest July, 9
7 July, 2009Russia Mountaineering Championship (rocky class) started July, 5 in Siberia (Ergaki). 25 men and 15 women will take part in it. First part - "school" will held July 7-10, and then will be the second (main) part - the climbs, July 12-27. International mountaineering competition (rocky class also) are included in the festival program.
23 June, 2009K2: the fourth attempt to climb the Queen Mount will do Serguey Bogomolov , Maxut Zhumayev and Vassily Pivtsov. Some foreign climbers will teaming with them. Today climbers fly to Islamabad. The previous attempt was in 2007, when they ascended via North-West ridge (Japanese route) till 7800 m, then climbed till 8400 via new terrain along the upper part of the ridge and spent 3 nights there, waiting the weather improvement. They hoped to reach the summit, but the nature won that time. All of them have 12 8000-ers now.
8 June, 2009Two days ago Denis Urubko and Simone Moro won the Eiger Award 2009 - for their great first Winter Makalu climb in February. The award had been given to Simone from Chris Bonington in Grindelwald (CH). Denis was not at the ceremony due the short time to arrange visa.Photos
SNOW LEOPARDS INTERNATIONAL STATISTICS.
There are more than 530 Snow Leopards in the world. They're the climbers who had completed the program and summited all 7000-ers of the former USSR - Communism peak (7495 m), Pobeda peak (7439 m), Lenin peak (7134 m), Korjenevskaya peak (7105 m) and Khan Tengri peak (6995 m, it's his official altitude assumed in Russia). THe program began in USSR in 1961. Exept soviet (later - CIS climbers), Austrian, Bulgarian, Spanish, Canadian, Polish, American, Turcish, French, Japanese, etc. Snow Leopards are registered already in World's statistics.
Those who had completed the program but not registered yet his achivements, please, write to Vladimir Shataev shataev1@rambler.ru (Secretary of Euro-Asian Mountaineering Association) for receiving the Diploma and historical individual-number Honour Sign "The conquer of highest peaks of USSR"
29, May 2009Lhotse-Everest traverse.Two days ago one of the strongest Kazakhstan climbers - Serguey Samoilov reported lost during Lhotse summit push. Max and Vassily had found Serguey's body at 6800 near the sleeping bag. It's controversial, because first they said that had found Serguey's body between C3 and C4 attached to the fixed ropes and without injuries. Later they wrote about the body at 6800. It's unclear how did he die (guys saw him at 7500 the last time). Probaby, Serguey was caught by the avalanche. We'll explane the detailes as soon as the team return home.
Max, Vaso, Svetlana, Dmitry and Nickolay arrived in BC after dark yesterday, at 8:00pm, local time. The climb down from camp 1 had taken all day in thick fog and deep snow. The climbers had to feel their way down in the fog; trying to uncover old ropes buried in the fresh snow. This morning the team started the trek back to Lukla. (www.mountain.kz)
26, May 2009Lhotse-Everest traverse.The expedition is over. All descended to BC, because the weather's very bad, storm and probably monsoon came to Everest. So, the team is going to Kathmandu and try to be in time for their flight to Almaty May, 30. The head of the expedition Baglan Zhunussov arrived to Almaty this night already. He tried to climb Everest with the guide Serguey Lavrov and had understood how difficult is +8000 climb. He also confirmed that team member Alexander Sofrygin summited Lhotse May, 15 in very bad weather. So, it's not clear now if he'll be able to confirm his climb for Elizabeth Hawley. We hope he will and wait the detailes from Alexander as soon as he return home.
25 May 2009Denali. Serguey Baranov summited May, 18
25, May 2009Lhotse-Everest traverse. Trio Maxut Zhumayev, Vassily Pivtsov and Serguey Samoilov left BC two days ago and ascended to C3 yesterday and C4 today. There're no wind, visibility 200 m. Yeasterday was the strong wind, but it's snowing today. They're going for the traverse. The second group - Svetlana Sharipova, Dmity Grekov and Nickolay Gutnik - began to climb Lhotse and ascended to C2 yesterday. Today they turned back. (www.mountain.kz)
21, May 2009Lhotse-Everest traverse. Very strange info Maxut wrote yesterday for Mountain.kz: in his story are the words "...It doesn't matter, who's summited and what has he summited. We need only the team success. Somebody was already looking at himself as on the winner..." No detailes, but we know that guys had fixed ropes till about 8500 (as Maxut wrote in another source) so they were very close to the top. Some of guys could summit Lhotse that day. But no comments from the team, only the silence...
21, May 2009Nickolay Cherny (70) summited Everest today as a guide of "7 summits" team! (www.7summits.ru)
21, May 2009 Manaslu. Bolotov's team. Two days ago the team decended to BC and began the back trek to Kathmandu. The member of the expedition Vladimir Belous, who's at home already, published at www.angara.net the picture of Camp1 after the 4-days snowfall - the man 's sitting at the level of tent's top, and you can see 2 m of snow above it. So, they had to dig 3 m of fresh snow!!! Incredible!More pictures here
19 May , 2009Pumori (7145), South Face. Nickolay Zakharov, the head of the Krasnoyarsk team, called yesterday: the group of mountaineering veterans summited Pumori via normal route, breaking trail in the very deep snow. Avalanche danger forced the team which wanted to climb via South Face, to turn back 200 m below the summit (www.stolby.ru)
19 May , 2009Lhotse-Everest traverse.The team had fixed 600 m of ropes above 7900 (the work of 1-st and 2nd groups) and lifted 250 m of ropes, put them and other gear in the deposit at 8350. The team wrote about very strong wind near the summit and temperature -40C. Now the team rest in BC and hope for the next push... But probably, they had some more reasons to turn back... But we read only official news. (www.mountain.kz)
19, May 2009Manaslu. Bolotov's team. May 14 only 5 members stayed in the expedition. That day they tried to dig Camp 1 out of 2-meters deep snow. They had a lot of doubts... But yesterday, after the sixth attempt, Alexey Bolotov, Gleb Sokolov and Serguey Duganov summited! Bidzina Gudzhabidze turned back and descended to BC, where Eugeny Vinogradsky waited him.
14 May , 2009Lhotse-Everest traverse.Two groups ( LE traverse and Lhotse climbers) reached C4 today. They plan to start the summit bid in the night. (www.mountain.kz)
14 May, 2009 Manaslu. Bolotov's team. Guys rest in BC after the unsuccessful attempt on May, 9. Too much snow, avalanches, some climbers were caught by ot so big avalanche, but all was OK. Now the team hope for the fifth push, if the weather permit.
5 May, 2009 Manaslu. Bolotov's team. All rest in BC. EXpedition pictures are available on Russian expedition page.
5 May 2009E-Gongga, 6618 ì.Photo album from Sasha and Misha, who live in the mist in Sychuan and try to find their object...
5 May , 2009Lhotse-Everest traverse.May, 1 guys put the deposit at South Col, the second group set the tent at 7900 on Lhotse. May, 2 all three groups decended to the BC for the rest. Now all are ready for the summit bid. There were guests in BC - threkkingers led by Igor Karabin. May, 3 all athletes went down to Dingboche for the rest in the green zone at 3700. Iljinsky, Zhumayev, Lavrov and Baglan Zhunussov stay in BC to meet next guests from Almaty. May, 3 was Baglan's birthday. The best wishes! The weather has worsened after the dinner. Today trekking group reached BC - they were Alexey Raspopov (leader), Ljudmila Savina (Master of Sports in Mountaineering, Everest climber (97), doctor A. Chechulo and journalist Adam Kaparov. Gerlinde Kaltebrunner came to Kazakh BC in afternoon and discussed the joint work on Lhotse. All are expecting that Kazakhs will be firsts, who will prepare the route to Lhotse summit. (www.mountain.kz)
30 April, 2009Lhotse-Everest traverse. Maxut Zhumayev, SMS: All members are in C3 (some at 7400, some at 7300). The weather was changed. it's snowing. Gerlinde's tents are near us, she's going to Lhotse with her team. Then she'll try to climb K2 via Chesen route.(www.mountain.kz)
30 April, 2009 Manaslu. Bolotov's team. All are in BC.
29 April, 2009 Manaslu. Bolotov's team. Yesterday Eugeny Vinogradsky called to Russianclimb: Lena, we're in C3 (7100). We can't contact with Alexander Lutokhin (he's in C1). Help us, please, Call, please, to Serguey Bogomolov (he's at home, in Saratov - ed note) and ask him to call by sat phone to Lutokhin (he knows his number) and to say that Bolotov has successfully descended to C3 and is now in uor tent. All's OK.
Ed note: all"s been done. That's example of relations on the Mount: Manaslu- Saint Petersburg - Saratov - Manaslu.
27 April, 2009Pumori (7145), South Face. Krasnoyarsk team set the Base Camp (5180 m) yesterday. The weather's good. The team prepared to the acclimatization push. It's unusual situation in Himalaya in spring: very few snow, rivers are empty. (www.stolby.ru)
27 April, 2009 Manaslu. Bolotov's team. Today Bolotov and three climbers reached 7100. Dmitry Moskaljov with three climbers are at 6800 m. Others are at 6400. Tomorrow they will climb to 7400.
25 April 2009E-Gongga, 6618 ì. It rains in Sychuan. Mists... Thuraya doesn't play. Alexander Ruchkin and Mikhail Mikhailov set base camp.
25 April, 2009 Manaslu. Bolotov's team.Gleb Sokolov called today morning: Bolotov with three climbers are in BC. All is OK. THe weather is good now but they aren't sure that it will be the same soon. And ask of the weather forecast.
25 April, 2009Lhotse-Everest traverse.The team ascended to 7400. They've found good places for the tents. Very strong wind. Group 2 will climb to 7400 today. Baglan and Seguey Lavrov ascended from C2 to 7000 and then descended back. (www.mountain.kz)
24 April, 2009Lhotse-Everest traverse."We're in C3(7100ì), the strong wind blows all day. Tomorrow we'll stay here in C3, and will find more comfortable place for C3. There's very few snow. Sherpas had fixed ropes already ".(www.mountain.kz)
23 April, 2009Annapurna, Valery Babanov: "We decided to stop our climb because of too much of snow this year. The ascent to Annapurna to the west and north sides is objectively dangerous, that does not allow us to obtain the necessary acclimatization for a serious climb" (www.babanov.com)
20 April, 2009Pumori (7145), South Face. Russians (Krasnoyarsk team) are going to new route (Anton Pugovkin, Eugeny Beljaev, Igor Loginov and Vladimir Starov) The second team (veterans) are going to normal route - Alexander Kuznetsov, Valery Kohanov, Nickolay Smetanin,
Vladimir Karataev (who climbed Lhotse South Face), Eugeny Bakaleinikov.
Saint Petersburg climbers are also in this expedition:
Alexey Paskhin, Alexey Klimin, Dmitry Pulinets.The first ever Pumoru climb: Gerhard Lencer (1962) South Face Right rib has been climbed by Czhech team in 1966 Central part of South FAce is unclimbed yet.
16 April, 2009Lhotse-Everest traverse. SMS from Maxut Zhumayev: We ascended to C2 already, set the tents on the moraine, and built the stone wall behind them against the strong wind. Lavrov and Zhunussov also ascended to C2 and descended to C1. Groups 1 and 2 are going to climb to C3 after the dinner and then return back to C2.
15 April, 2009 Manaslu. Bolotov's team. Yesterday Alexey Bolotov with
Rozhkov, Ryzhenko, Frolenko, Belous and Duganov went up to C2.
(Other mates returned to BC). They spent night at 6400 (the new dislocation for C2) and today are back to BC.
Dmitry Sinev and Alexander Lutokhin are going to start from BC on 3
a.m. to reach C2 and go up further to 6800 m.
The weather forecast is good for next 3-4 days, but it'll be windy.
Koreans tried to summit, but had to turn back on the plateau 7400-7500.
Now they're sitting in the mess tent and seeing the films. Heavy
snowfall stopped a week ago (as a result - about 2 meters of the fresh snow,
which is melting actively now). Climbers can ascend without crampons above C1. Joao had fixed 300 of ropes, but now ropes are
under the deep snow, and nobody can use them. There're two sites in the upper part of the icefall, where we need new fixed ropes
crossing the crevasses. It's too heavy snow above the icefall, very difficult to break the trail. Above 6400 we can see the
route to the col (6800). Icefall is calm now, no ice and rocks
falls, in spite of the warm weather - but we see as stones are
falling around the icefall!
14 April, 2009Lhotse-Everest traverse. Kazakh climbers are actively preparing to the first high-altitude push. The team number 1 (climbers, who are going to the traverse - Pivtsov, Zhumayev, Samoilov, Shutov, Skopin and Sofrygin) are going tomorrow to C2 (6400), then April, 16 - radial push to C3 (7100), then April, 17 back to BC. The team number 2 (climbers, who are going to Lhotse - Grekov, Sharipov, Gutnik and Rudakov) will do the same as team#1. The team number 3 (climbers, who're going to Everest - Zhunussov, Lavrov and two Sherpas) are going to C1 tomorrow, then next day to C2, and next day back to BC. (info www.mountain.kz)
Kazakhs try to be in C3 asap, because there's no big room for 60 expeditions's tents, and very steep slope.
13 April, 2009 Manaslu. Bolotov's team. Alexey called that the whole team had puja in the BC today morning, and then went up to C1 (5700m). Yesterday the duo Dmitry Sinev - Alexander Lutokhin climbed till C1. They're tired, and it's not surprised - on the second day after arriving to BC.
12 April, 2009Lhotse-Everest traverse. The team reached the Base Camp.
9 April, 2009 Manaslu. The team led by Alexey Bolotov today had to reach BC. But the snow storm forced them to stop on the place 150 m below the BC. POrters left all loads and returned back to the village Samagaon. We should note that they were not groomed porters from Kathmandu, but strong ones from the local villages. So it was the reason to did so. Dmitry Sinev and Vladimir Lutohkin stay in the tent near the loads, but other team returned to Samagaon too.
The team has got sad news about Peter Morawski's death (two Peters were in the common permit with Bolotov's team). The team mourn...
8 April, 2009Lhotse-Everest traverse. After waiting for three days stuck in KTM due to bad weather, the Kazakh Lhotse-Everest Traverse team flew to Lukla on April 5, ExWeb's contributor Andrey Verkhovod reported from Almaty.
Before departing on the trek, the team found that a duffel containing valuable comms equipment was missing. A search by the climbers, local helpers, Assian Trekking and the police failed to locate the gear. The climbing team reached Namche on Monday and remained there for an extra day, hoping to recover their lost equipment.
“The team’s cook Tsakat Limbu tried to negotiate with the local branch of the Maoist party to help in the search,” Andrey wrote. “However, the duffel only appeared after a fat reward was offered in exchange.”
The climbing team and their caravan left Namche today for the final leg towards Everest BC. (www.mountain.kz)
6 April, 2009Lhotse-Everest traverse. The team is in Namche Bazar. Tomorrow they'll stay there, play football, and the day later will go to Tiengboche.
1 April, 2009Lhotse-Everest traverse. The team had brifing in KTM, met with Elizabeth Hawley and preparing to fly to Lukla. Beside of the traverse team there's some mates in the expedition: Svetlana Sharipova (Kazakhstan), Dmitry Grekov (Kyrgyzstan) and Nickolay Gutnik (Kyrgyzstan) are going to Lhotse. Baglan Zhunussov is going to Everest with his guide Serguey Lavrov. Other members are Artjon Skopin, Alexander Sofrygin and Alexander Rudakov.
27 March, 2009Lhotse-Everest traverse. Kazakhstan team will fly from Almaty to Nepal tomorrow. Only the most strong climbers will go to traverse: Maxut Zhumayev, Vassily Pivtsov, Serguey Samoilv and Eugeny Shutov. Their mates will help them. The coach Ervand Iljinsky said that there're two problematic parts of the route - the descent route from Lhotse and the descent route from Everest via Yjugoslavian/American route, because there're no fresh info about them. (www.mount.kz, photo www.mountain.kz) By the way, guys may meet Chzeh team, who're going to work on the yjugoslavian/american route too.
23 March, 2009Project "Winter K2 climb" Reconnaissance. Victor Kozlov and Nickolay Totmjanin are going by Baltoro glacier now. Their goal - to reach K2 Base Camp and to choose the line for the future (winter 2010) K2 expedition. Today Victor called by sat phone that they're at 4600, with porters. It's winter yet, not spring. Very cold nights. They have to trail break in the waist-deep snow.
Russian National team are preparing to winter K2 expedition. They decided to climb from Pakistan side, instead of Chinese, as they planned before, because Chinese permit's fee is too high. The second reason: there no civil helicopters in China, only army, and the expedition won't be
able to use them in emergency case. The third reason: there no porters in CHina to help to carry loads from the end of camel's trek to the base camp. As you remember, Kazakhs expedition in 2007 met with the same situation, and climbers were obliged to carry all loads to BC by themselves, and spent a lot of energy for it.
20 March, 2009Annapurna. Valery Babanov and Victor Afanasiev are going to climb new route via the West Face. They're in Kathmandu now, met with Elizabeth Hawley, and waiting porters. They'll start tomorrow. (www.babanov.com)
20 March, 2009Boris Korshinov are going to Everest this spring. In February he took part in ski maraphones Euro Lopet (10 competiions, 27 January - 20 February). There are very popular maraphones - about 6000-7000 athletes started in every competition. One of start was in Germany Feb, 14-15. Boris (born in 1935) successfuly finished, his result was better than many younger skiers, and he was awarded with a cup "Iron man"
20 March, 2009Manaslu expedition, led by Alexey Bolotov, will fly from Moscow March, 28. Members are: Eugeny Vinogradsky, Gleb Sokolov, Ilja Rozhkov, Arcady Ryzhenko, Dmitry Frolenko, Alexander Bachurin, Alexander Lutokhin, Dmitry Sinev, Edward Rozhkov, Irina Avdeeva, Olga Bystrova, Dmitry Moskalev, Yuri Soifer, Bidzina Gudzhabidze, Alexander Chesnokov, Yekaterina Plakhova, Mihnea Radulesku, Vladimir Belous and Serguey Duganov. Peter Hamor, Piotr Moravsky are in the same permit, but they're heading the new route on Manaslu West Face.
20 March, 2009 Yesterday Denis Urubko showed slidefilm about Makalu Winter climb in Russian Geographic Society (founded in 1845). Tomorrow he together with Simone Moro will do slideshow in Moscow.
2 March, 2009Svetlana Sharipova (Kazakhstan) and Artjom Skopin (from the same Central Sport Club of Kazakhstan Army) and his Ukrainian client have summited Aconcagua yesterday. Sveta said by phone that she was very tied, but today the team would be in Mendosa. Sveta had already climbed Dhaulagiri (2007) and Makalu (2008), and now she's preparing to Everest climb from Nepal side. Kazakhstan National team will start March, 28 from Almaty to Nepal for the traverse Lhotse-Everest.
14 February, 2009 Winter Makalu expedition.Yesterday Denis and Simone flew to Kathmandu from Hillary BC (4800).
9 February, 2009WINTER MAKALU SUMMIT!!! Denis Urubko (SMS 2-00 p.m. Moscow time): "We're on the summit at 2-00 p.m. local time, then descended to the tent at 7700 m. Now we have to stay alive after this night and to descend". We CONGRATULATE DENIS AND SIMONE!!!
22 January , 2009 Winter Makalu expedition.Guys are at 6900. "We're drinking tea, listening to Ramstine in the tent at 6900. The wind is dying, so I'm going to dig the hole for the deposit. Tomorrow we'll go down to BC. There is chocolate... I have a strange feeling - as I've never been on Makalu summit..."
27 April, 2010Annapurna. Carlos Pauner, Juanito Oiarzabal and Tolo Calafat summited. Martin Ramos and Jorge Egocheaga summited at 10 am. Next was Peter Hamor and next Piotr Pustelnik and Kinga Baranovska reached summit too.Piotr has thus become the third Polish climber to complete the 14x8000ers, after Jerzy Kukuczka and Krzysztof Wielicki.
27 April, 2010 Korean lady-climber Oh Eun Sun - the first woman bags all 14 8000-ers. She's the 20th in the common list. Today at 18-15 (Seoul time, about 3 pm local time) she reached the summit of Annapurna (8091 m), after 13 hrs going up from C4, and 11 hrs going up from C2 to C4 the day before. Congratulations to Miss Oh!
27 April, 2010Romanian Horia Kolibasanu summited Annapurna today! Congratulations!
26 April, 2010Dhaulagiri. In the 50th anniversary of Dhaula’s first ascent by a Swiss/Austrian expedition, Iran’s national expedition topped out Dhaulagiri early this morning. They set C3 yesterday at 7250m and were the first summiteers of the mountain this season. (www.mountainzone.ir)
21 April, 2010Women's Overland Himalaya Expedition, 1958!!! Three women - Eve Sims ( leader),
Anne Davies and Antonia Deacock - drove from England through some countries to Delhi and futher to HImalaya peaks...
31 March, 2010Makalu new route via South Face, between the SW Ridge (Czechs in 1976) and the SE Ridge (Japanese in 1970), is planned by American giudes Chris Warner and Marty Schmidt.
13 November, 2009Tomaz Humar lost on Langtang Lirung.
He did the solo climb. November 9th, Asian Trekking received an emergency call from BC crew member Jagat: Tomaz had had an accident at approximately 6,300m and requested immediate rescue. Sherpas managed the rescue attempt, but didn't find Tomaz. Next, three rescue pilot/climbers from Switzerland are arrived, together with some Tomaz’s relatives. Pilot Robert Andenmatten and rescuer Simon Anthamatten could get Tomaz down from Langthang Lirung. Unfortunately Tomaz did not survive...(www.mounteverest.net)
15 October, 2009Shisha Pangma. Italian Roby Piantoni fell to his death on Shisha Pangma's south face earlier today. Roberto "Roby" Piantoni, a proffesional alpine guide from Bergamo (Italy) had previously summited GII and Everest without O2, plus attempts on Manaslu and Broad Peak. He was 32 years old. Montagna.org reports Roby's team was apparently on a summit push via the face's Bonington route. Roby's lethal fall probably took place early in the morning, local time.
Edurne Pasaban aborts Shisha attempt. “Weather forecasts show no improvement in the short/middle term, and so it's no use to try and extend our climbing permit. We’re going home.” (www.mounteverest.net)
5 October, 2009Andrew Lock has thus become the 18th man to ever summit the 14 8,000ers, and the first Australian. He summited Shisha Pangma Main Oct, 2 at 5-05 p.m. with Neil Ward. "It was a very tough climb via a variation of the Inaki route on the north face," Andrew added. "We were caught in a storm on descent which forced us to an open bivouac at 7,600m without equipment thrown in for good measure. I've just iarrived in Base Camp, bit tired, more later. " (www.mounteverest.net)
30 September, 2009 Charles Houston, a pioneering American climber and altitude researcher, died at his home in Vermont on September 27. He was 96. Houston was part of the Anglo-American team that made the first ascent of 25,643-foot Nanda Devi in 1936, and he attempted K2 in 1938 and 1953.
Houston’s research and writing on high altitude (notably the 1980 book Going High and the 2005 work Going Higher) were instrumental in helping climbers understand the process of acclimatization and the dangers of high altitude pulmonary edema and other mountain ailments. Charlie said: “We entered the mountains as strangers, but we left as brothers.” (www.climbing.com)
18 August, 2009Latok II. August, 16 the rescue attempt being made for Oscar Perez on Latok II has been called off. Sebastian Alvaro in Skardu. Seb confirmed that the team, reportedly consisting of 6 Spaniards, 3 North Americans, and 16 local high altitude/low altitude porters has been unable to locate Oscar.
For 10 days, Pakistani Army Air Corps helicopters and mountain climbers of diverse nationalities tried a desperate attempt to rescue alive a climber from the unclimbed and unfixed wall of Latok 2, a massive peak of 7,125 meters in the heart of the Karakorum.
Spanish mountain climber Oscar Perez was at approximately 6,200 m of altitude with a broken leg and an arm immobilized after suffering an accident when he tried to scale it in alpine style with his companion Alvaro Novellon.
The rescue became a fight against the clock for Oscar, trapped on the wall with no tent, only a small sleeping bag to sleep in, a gas canister for making water and some basic food. The rescue went on with the uncertainty of knowing if Oscar Perez remained alive, since he did not have means to communicate with the outside world.
The attempt was finally called off today, due to the time elapsed, the failure to locate Oscar, and the difficulty of the route in combination with bad weather posing danger to the rescuers. (www.mounteverest.net)
18 August, 2009K2.American Dave Watson skied down K2's bottleneck on Aug 4. He started skiing at 8350m and continued to camp3 at 7300. He downclimbed the Black Pyramid to camp2 at 6600m and skied from camp2 to ABC at 5200m.
This was the first descent of the bottleneck and the longest ski run on K2.
Watson has also skied from 7600m on Broad Peak and 7200m on Everest. He has summited Everest 2 times.
11 August, 2009 Riccardo Cassin died at age 100 Italian legend Riccardo Cassin died near Lecco on Thursday, August 6. Part of Ragni di Lecco (the Lecco Spiders), Cassin made many legendary climbs in the Dolomites and around the world, fought in WWII and set up shop with his own climbing gear. In 1961 at age 52, Riccardo became the first to summit Denali via the Cassin Ridge, and he continued to climb well into his 80s. (www.mounteverest.net)
6 August, 2009Spantik. Iranian lady climbers Leila Ebrahimi, Parastou Abrishami, Shiva Farsi, Fereshteh Khademi-talab, Masoumeh Maleki and Mahsa Moti-ei summited Spantik yesterday, along with Mahmoud Hashemi, Hadi Saberi and Abbaas Ranjbari. The team topped-out at 2,30pm after climbing for 12 hours from C3. (www.k2climb.net)
3 August, 2009Gasherbrum II. Bulgarian Boyan Petrov summited
August 01 in a lonely push. He descended to Base camp today. Some days ago, July, 26 Nikolay Petkov, Doychin Boyanov, Nikolay Valkov and Boyan Petrov
summited Gasherbrum I.
3 August, 2009Korean climber miss Oh Eun-Sun summited Gasherbrum I today on 1-16 local time - it became her 13th 8000-er! She climbed without supplementary oxygen. Miss Oh has now just Annapurna left to complete the 14x8000ers list. (www.mounteverest.net) Photo: Black Yak
27 July, 2009K2: summit push is over. Avalanche risk at the Shoulder has forced the Abruzzi team back(Gerfried Goschl and all his team, and also Jorge, Joelle, Martin, Louis, Quintero and his porter Qurben), while Gerlinde and David attempted to reach the peak’s summit by climbing a variation route left of the (too dangerous in the current conditions) Bottleneck – they eventually retreated though, due to the late hour. (www.k2climb.net)
27 July, 2009Gasherbrum II. Spanish cllimber Luis M. Barbero missed on the route not far from the top during a summit push. All searching/rescue attempts have been thwarted by bad weather and high avalanche risks (www.k2climb.net)
26 July, 2009Everest. Basque team Alberto Inurrategi, Miguel Zabalza and Juan Vallejo are going to Everest to climb Horbein couloir in alpine style. THe expedition is onder the patronage of Culture Department. (www.desnivel.com)
26 July, 2009Gasherbrum II: Veikka Gustafsson climbed his 14th 8000-er! Congrats! Yesterday at 8-00 am Veikka and Kazya Hiraide stood on the top of GII and took pleasure from great Karakorum views. (www.k2climb.net)
22 July, 2009K2: Jorge Egocheaga summited K2 July, 19 on 7-30 - K2 became his 10th 8000er. After the summit he returned to C3, where mates were waiting, and then they all descended to BC. (www.k2climb.net).
20 July, 2009 Broad peak. Italian climber Cristina Castagna fell to her death on July, 18, while descending back to BC together with mate Giampaolo Casarotto.
"We were descending from C4,” Casarotto told Il Giornale di Vicenza. “She was walking 10 meters ahead of me. Suddenly, she slipped down, hit some rocks and then fell in a crevasse. When I reached her, she was gone – there was nothing I could do but crying.” (www.k2climb.net) Photo: www.elgrio.net
14 July, 2009Gasherbrum II. Swiss Ueli Steck summited Gasherbrum II on July 9th. It was his first 8000-er. He's using the current GII expedition as high-altitude practice for a Makalu solo attempt in fall. (www.k2climb.net)
14 July, 2009Nanga Parbat . Korean climber Miss Go Mi-Sun lost on the descent after the summit. Joao Garcia summits Nanga Parbat - bags his 13th 8000er. Gerfried Goschl, Louis Rousseau, Herbert Schutter, Sepp Bachmair and Hans Goger climbed new route on Nanga, but their friend Wolfgang Koblinger (he was part of the group who attempted the summit from the Kinshoffer route) disappeared on the descent not far fronm the summit.Miss Oh Eun-Sun summited Nanga July, 10 - it's her 12th 8000-er
29 June, 2009Swiss climber Stephan Siegrist has made the first successful redpoint ascent of "Magic Mushroom" up the North Face of the Eiger.
The route had been established in 2007 by Roger Schali and Christoph Hainz and leads up the 3219 metres high mushroom in 21 pitches and now goes free at 7c+. On the summit Stephan exchanged his harness for a parachute and BASE jumped back down to valley. Stephan explains: "The combination of climbing and base jumping on the Eiger was something I had dreamt about for a long time but after the death of my good friend Xavier Bongard in Lauterbrunnen in 1994, base jumping had become a kind of ‘taboo’. I don't really see it as an evolution of alpinism, but I think it's a successful combination of a difficult route on the Eiger (the only one which ends on the mushroom) with a BASE jump - especially since I did it in a clean style, bringing the rig up with me." (www.planetmountain.com)
27 June, 2009K2: Italian Michele Fait fell to his death while skiing down from K2's C2 on Cesen route. Michele was a skier with a curriculum of high class descents, such as Shisha Pangma 7900m, Gasherbrum II from 7800m and from some 6000m peaks in Peru.
Photo: Planetmountain.com
Together with mate Fredrik Ericsson, Fait was on his second partial descent down K2's slopes, when he suddenly fell, witnesses in BC reported. Ericsson was skiing lower down the slopes and after he had seen Fait falling, began to haul upwards to get to him. The leader Fabrizio headed out back up the middle of the glacier. Ericsson and Fabrizio reached Fait’s limp body 20 minutes later and began to lower him down to the base of the route. Fait’s recovery was interrupted later that day due to high avalanche risk. The day later His remains have been wrapped and buried. Michele Fait, from Trentino, hoped to climb K2 without supplementay O2 and then ski down from the summit, teaming up with Swedish Fredrik Ericsson. He had previously summited GII and Shisha Pangma, and had attempted K2 for the first time back in 2004.
(www.k2climb.net)
20 May , 2009 Lhotse. Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, Ralf Dujmovits, Hirotaka Takeuchi and David Gottler summited Lhotse at 11:00am, local time today.
Gerlinde is now level with Edurne Pasaban: both hold the current female record with 12x8000ers summited; Ralf has become a 14x8000er summiteer. (www.8000ers.com)
IMG Lhotse Expedition has also put three members on top today: Chhewang Lendu Sherpa of Khumjung (on his 3rd Lhotse summit), Gregory Vernovage (USA) and Philippe Robin Arslanian (France). (www.mounteverest.net)
20 May , 2009Everest North side. Japanese climbers summited May, 18: Yasunori Tanaka (57) and Kenta Miyamori (28). Wu Wenhong died on Everest this morning at around 4 am Xinhua reported, quoting CTMA. The mountaineer reportedly summitted as part of a large Chinese group at around 10 am May, 18, but died on descent at around 8,750 meters of altitude exhaustion in spite of his team mates' efforts to administer oxygen and first aid.
(www.mounteverest.net)
19 May , 2009Manaslu.Italian Mario Panzeri reached summit today. Manaslu is Panzeri's 10th 8000er.
Hungarian Zsolt Eross, reached Manaslu’s main summit and Tamara Romero and Inma Garrido, from the Andalusian female Manaslu expedition also topped-out.
19 May , 2009Dhaulagiri. The climbers from South Korea Kim Chang and Seo Sung Ho from the Dynamic Busan Expedition reached the summit at 3 pm yesterday. This is their second 8000 meter ascent this season after their successful ascent of Manaslu on 28 April. Dhaulagiri marks the 9th 8000 meter peak for Kim Chang Ho (all without aid of bottled oxygen) (www.mounteverest.net)
19 May , 2009Kangchenjunga. May, 17 Spanish Ferran Latorre, climbing ahead of the rest, topped-out Kangchenjunga around 2:30 pm, local time. Ferran's mates Edurne Pasaban, Juanito Oiarzabal, Asier Izguirre and Alex Chicon reached the summit about two hours later. Kangch became Edurne's 12th 8000er, and Edurne - the 4th woman climbed this Mount. Congrats! (www.mounteverest.net)
13 May 2009Italian K2 pioneer Achille Compagnoni died today in a northern Italy hospital at age 94, media reports. After several failed attempts, K2 was finally summited in 1954 by the Italians, Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni. (www.mounteverest.net)
photo: www.montagna.org
12 May 2009Dhaulagiri. Iranian climber Mehdi Etemadfar missed. He fell to his death during the summit bid. Korean team ariived to BC after the successful Manaslu climb - now the plan to reach Dhaulagiri and Annapurna tops. May, 8 six Indian Army climbers summited. (www.mounteverest.net)
12 ìàÿ 2009Kangchenjunga. Edurne Pasaban with her team had acclimatized in C3. They plan the summit bid May, 15. Nives Meroi with Romano Benet had acclimatized at 7000. (www.mounteverest.net)
12 May 2009 Makalu West Ridge. Basque team was forced to turn back after 6500 m - too strong wind. (www.mounteverest.net)
12 May 2009Shisha Pangma.Romanian team climb new route close to the British route. (www.mounteverest.net)
12 May 2009Manaslu. Andaluzian women team. Lina Quesada and Ana fell ill, so the team decended from C3. Ana was airlifted to KTM. Carlos Pauner and Italians were obliged to decsend to BC too. (www.mounteverest.net)
7 May 2009Makalu. Koreans Kim Jae Soo and the girl Mi Sun Go and two guys summited May, 1. The Basque team started yesterday alpine-style climb via West Ridge. They hope to climb it in 5-6 days.
5 May 2009
5 May 2009Manaslu. Italian team led by Mario Merelli, had troubles - one of the members, Marco Rusconi at 8,000m fell ill and his condition worsened in C3. His mates had to drag him down to C2, where they learned of Giuseppe’s death. Merelli reports that Carlos Pauner’s doctor, the Andalusian female team and parts of the Val Valesia expedition all collaborated in Marco’s rescue and tried their best for Giuseppe. Two Iranian climbers, on their way up, simply turned around in order to help Marco down. ()
5 May 2009Dhaulagiri. Czech climber David Fojtik summited Dhaulagiri on May 1st. He skied down from the summit – except for a crystal ice section between 7,300m and 6,700m. Dhaulagiri is David’s second 8000 m summit (first was Everest, on May 2006- both without supplementary O2.
Korean had reached the top that day too, while the other Korean didn't find the way to the tent and spent night in qouloir, get frostbites. ()
29 April 2009Manaslu. Joao Garcia and Koreans Kim Chang-Ho, Seo Sung-Ho, and Lhakpa Tsering Sherpa summited Manaslu! But the same day Italian Giuseppe Antonelli, who was lost to HAPE while retreating from C3. ()
27 April 200917-th Piolet D'Or awarded to: (Spirit of exploration)Kazuya Hiraide ad Kei Taniguchi, Êàmåò, 7756m, South-East Face, 26.09 – 7.10, àlpine style, first climb Samurai Direct, (1800ì, M5+, ë¸ä 5+); (Commitment) Fumitaka Ichimura, Yusuke Sato è Kazuki Amano, Êàlànkà, 6931 m , North Face, 1800 m, Ì5 mixt.; ( Technical difficulty) Ueli Steck and Simon Anthamatten, Òångkampoche, 6500 m , 21-24.04.08, route Checkmate (2000 ì, ìixt Ì7, ice 5, rocks 6/À0; Walter Bonatti -for lifetime achievement .www.pioletsdor.org.
8 April, 2009Piotr Morawski perished on Dhaulagiri.
At 8.40 am local time this morning, Polish Piotr Morawski fell to his death in a crevasse. At only 33, Piotr had summited six 8000ers, and made the first winter summit on Shisha Pangma (together with Simone Moro in January, 2005). Peter Hamor and Piotr Morawski were climbing Dhaulagiri as a preparatory ascent before attempting to open a new route on Manaslu’s west face.
Morawski fell in a 20 meter-deep crevasse at 5,760m - just 80 meters below C1. He was on his way down from C2, together with Slovak Peter Hamor and Justyna Szczepieniec. A group of fellow Polish climbers - Mazik (expedition Doctor), Pawlikowski and Witkowski - belonging to the Tatra Rescuers Association was on their way to C1. Together with Hamor, they got Morawski out of the crevasse, after which Dr. Mazik could only confirm Piotr’s death. (www.mounteverest.net)
25 March, 2009
23 March, 2009 Chzehs Libor Uher, Petr Masek, Radim Sliva, Petr Valchar and Jan Behun are going to Himalaya double: Everest’s Hornbein Couloir (on the north side!) and Annapurna’s East ridge.
LATEST MOUNTAINEERING WORLD'S
NEWS
2 September, 2010
6 December, 2009
Siguniang, 6250 m, 
style. Denis Urubko and Boris Dedeshko. 
are available on
23 March, 2009
