The Russian team has safely returned to the base of the Southwest Face of Manaslu, after a five-day descent in unfamiliar terrain — plus another five days on the way up — in rough weather.
The five-person team, comprising Andrey Vasiliev, Sergey Kondrashkin, Natalia Belyankina, Kirill Eizeman, and Vitaly Shipilov, has opened a partially new route in alpine style on the left side of the daunting Southwest Face of the mountain. They reached the summit on October 22, in worsening weather after a long, exhausting climb, completely alone on the mountain.
The descent has been equally epic, as the team had to face whiteout conditions and objective hazards that eventually forced them to descend a different line from the one they had climbed.
At approximately 7,100m, the descending climbers abandoned their line of ascent and continued their way down the Messner route for some 700m. Luckily, they managed to complete that unfamiliar section safely.
Yesterday, Vasiliev texted Mountain.ru that they had finally left the risky sections behind. Today, the climbers traversed the icefall at the base of the mountain, the last obstacle separating them from the Thulagi Glacier, where their Base Camp is located.
The Thulagi Glacier, southwest of Manaslu.
Waiting for details
At this point, there are few details about the climb. Their only means of communication was the short SMS sent by expedition leader Andrey Vasiliev, which was shared by Mountain.ru.
Andrey Vasiliev, second from the left, and his team. Photo: Mountain.ru
Vasiliev’s team previously acclimatized on Manaslu’s normal route, where they summited at the end of September. Then, they trekked to the southwest side of the mountain and launched a single summit push up a new route on the left side of the face. According to tracking data, the Russian line is similar but not identical to the 1972 Tyrolean route, opened by Reinhold Messner.
