Germany’s Felix Berg summited 8,163m Manaslu this week. It’s the only successful climb of the world’s eighth-highest mountain so far this season — not surprising, given the current conditions.
Berg reached the top on his own and in a whiteout on Monday, after a 15-hour push from Camp 2 (6,300m), Stefan Nestler reported. The descent back to Camp 2 in a snowstorm was likewise epic.
Luckily, Berg made it safely back to Base Camp yesterday. He climbed without supplemental oxygen or Sherpa support. There have been other teams on Manaslu this season, but all abandoned their attempts without even reaching the mountain’s upper sections. Ropes were fixed until Camp 2, but relentless snowfall may have covered at least some of them.
Annapurna NW Face next?
Berg was leading a small SummitClimb team, but there is no news of summits other than his. He is shortly supposed to join Adam Bielecki and Mariusz Hatala for a third attempt on Annapurna’s NW Face.
They will certainly have a lot to talk about when they meet. Bielecki and Hatala have just participated in an impressive rescue on Annapurna. They defied avalanches and a snowstorm to get inside a crevasse and rescue Anurag Maloo, miraculously alive after three days and after falling at least 100m.
The three men team originally planned to meet up in Nepal and acclimatize on 7,126m Himlung, near the Tibetan border. But the mountain was not in the right condition this season. So Berg went to guide on Manaslu, while the Poles acclimatized in South America, climbing Ojos del Salado and other Andean peaks.
Bielecki and Berg during an attempt to Langtang Lirung in 2019. Photo: Adam Bielecki
