Updates from all around.
Peter Hamor has just become the first Slovak to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders. He finished off the quest on Dhaulagiri today.
On Makalu, after some contradictory reports, it appears that three climbers did reach Main Summit on May 11th. Everest Nepal side route has also been fixed to the summit, whereas summit-bids continue from Northside of the mountain.
Last but not the least, a big summit push is currently underway on Kangchenjunga. Not many updates about solitary teams on Cho Oyu, Shisha Pangma and Annapurna, though.
Peter Hamor: 14x8000ers
Slovak Peter Hamor summited Dhaulagiri today, to finish off the 14x8000ers quest. He has become the first Slovakian to do so. On summit, he was joined by young Michal Sabovcik, who bagged his first eight-thousander.
Meanwhile, other Dhaulagiri teams including Carlos Soria, Italian Marco Confortola and Santiago Quintero keep waiting for a weather window to launch summit push. Carlos Soria says, they will be trying to go up, tomorrow. Commercial expedition, Adventure Consultants, has just completed acclimatization.
Makalu Summits and a Summit-Push
First summit push of the season on Makalu failed on May 10th, when around 20 climbers turned back from Foresummit amidst deteriorating weather. The group of climbers didn’t have enough rope to fix the treacherous ridge to the summit.
However, on May 11th, three climbers made it to the summit. Mingma Gylje Sherpa, leader of Dreamers Destination team, wrote on Facebook, “we reached Makalu foresummit at 9:03am on 11th May and I reached main summit at 10:18am. My partner Tashi and Jingxue (Chinese) reached at 10:48 am after I put the final rope. Rope was not fix to main summit and we had to use our own 60m+20m main rope which we almost left at camp3 after some people told it was fixed till Summit”
“This part of Makalu was little scary because of soft snow and blue ice inside.” He commented about the final ridge to Main summit. Mingma, Ngatasi and Liu had climbed Dhaulagiri on April 30th.
German climber Thomas Lammle, who retreated from C3 during first summit push, made another attempt to reach the top yesterday. However, he turned back from 7200m this afternoon due to bad conditions. “Down: back at C2 – I reached the upper snow field 7200m, but the snow was too deep for a single person. Going down to ABC.” He is the only climber on the mountain, now.
Everest: Summits from South, More Ascents from North
After waiting for more than two weeks as weather continued to hamper rope-fixing plans, Everest Southside Sherpa finally made it to the summit this afternoon. It’s reported that fourteen climbers topped out from Nepalese side today.
Earlier, nine Sherpa opened the Northside route on May 11th. Since then multiple climbers have summited the mountain.
Kangchenjunga Summit-Bid
Kangchenjunga final summit push is currently underway, as climbers reached C4 (7300m) this afternoon. They are now on the way to the summit. They will perhaps climb all night and a good portion of the day tomorrow to scale final 1300 vertical meters to the top. It’s expected that a Sherpa team will be fixing ropes ahead of main summit party.
Kangchenjunga summit window was forecasted around May 16th/17th. However, later predictions showed an increase in wind speed on 17th. Majority of climbers, thus, want to reach the top tomorrow. Teams left BC on May 13th and spent a night in C2. Yesterday, they climbed to C3 and reached C4 today.
Summit-push party includes Khoo Swee Chiow, Nadav Ben Yehuda, Nepalese female expedition Maya Sherpa, Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita and Dawa Yangzum Sherpa, Mathew Du Puy, Chris Burke, Chris Warner, Lakpa Sherpa, Tsering Sherpa, Pema Sherpa and Sophie Lavaud.
Italian Kangchenjunga Traverse team, Simone Moro and Tamara Lunger and Indian climber Arjun Vajpai have decided to wait for another weather window, and are resting in BC now. Simone and Tamara last checked in from C3 on May 11th. They wanted to go further up to conclude acclimatization.
Cho Oyu
No further updates from Cho Oyu, where a single team of around a dozen climbers including Sherpa, was working on setting up high camps and gaining acclimatization. The route is said to be in difficult condition, this season.
Shisha Pangma
David Gottler and Herve Barmasse are still waiting for weather window to launch their new route attempt on Shisha Pangma South Face in alpine style. The duo found good climbing condition on Col during acclimatization and hopes that the South Face is also in good shape too.
Annapurna
Rick Allen, Adam Bielecki and Felix Berg summited Tilicho Peak a week ago and were expected to reach Annapurna BC soon afterwards. The trio intended to climb Annapurna NW Face in alpine style. However, there is no further news from the team.
