Yuri Koshelenko and Aleksey Lonchinski have just returned from a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful attempt on one of the great unclimbed walls of the Himalaya: the East Face of Jannu East.
The Stoic’s advice
Before the expedition, Koshelenko had simply said that he and Lonchinski were heading to the Kangchenjunga region but preferred to keep their goal quiet until their return.
“[Marcus Aurelius] and other Stoic philosophers don’t recommend [speaking about future goals]…it can break the motivation,” the Russian Piolet d’Or winner said.
After acclimatizing on Langtang’s Langshisa Ri, they obtained a three-person permit for Jannu, Koshelenko told ExplorersWeb today. They jumped on a helicopter, piloted by Simone Moro, on May 8. Alexandr Semenov was the third man on the team.
The expedition would not have flown under the radar so easily if they had revealed their plans. The unclimbed East Face of 7,468m Jannu East is one of the most coveted and difficult goals in Nepal’s Himalaya.
The Kangchenjunga region from the foot of Jannu East. Photo: Yuri Koshelenko
The helicopter deposited the climbers right on the glacier, about one hour from the start of their route.
The main approaches to Jannu. Photo: Guido Magnone for the Himalayan Club
Impossible conditions
Jannu East with the bivy spot reached by the Russian team, blue triangle. Photo: Yuri Koshelenko
The team’s bivouac tent at the base of the cliff, center left, endured constant snow sluffs. Frame from a video courtesy of Yuri Koshelenko
A dozen attempts
Yuri Koshelenko, 62, climbed with some of the last Soviet teams of the 1990s, winning several awards. He came to specialize in new routes on difficult faces and has also been a mentor to younger generations of Russian climbers. He and Valeri Babanov won the Piolet d’Or in 2003 for their 2,500m line on the south face of Nuptse. (Babanov went to Nepal this spring to attempt Everest without supplementary oxygen, but seems to have used bottled gas in the end.)
Koshelenko and Lonchinsky, 43, last climbed together in Nepal in 2023, when they made the first ascent of 6,645m Rolwaling Kang Shar. In 2024, Koshelenko bagged another first ascent, this time on an unnamed 6,000m peak in Ladakh in the Indian Himalaya with Bayarsaikhan Luvsand and Mikhail Pups.
