Pythom News Feed Content (Desnivel)
(Desnivel/Brief and Translation by Pythom) It was a dramatic ascent. Basque Alberto Zerain roped up with Argentine Mariano Galvan to attempt a new route on Manaslu. What followed was a strange disappearance of a cache they had left in C2 on the new line. As they descended, more than a hundred people reached the summit via the normal route in great weather.
A few days later, Zerain and Galvan both reached the top via the normal route on the now deserted mountain, Galvan in a 48-hour non-stop speed climb.
In a frank interview with Desnivel, Zerain says there was severe riff between the two and commercial expedition leader Russell Brice of Himex over permits, and they even believe Brice was behind the disappearance of their gear, possibly with the aid of a Japanese team also in place to attempt a new line. “We believe that Russell Brice called the Japanese and told them to throw down the cache,” Zerain told the Spanish climbing news source.
A seasoned mountaineer with nine 8000ers scaled without oxygen, Zerain says there were about 350 people in Manaslu base camp this year, guides, trek support and clients, one single outfit had 70 Chinese and 90 sherpas or more. “All on oxygen, of course.”
He says it’s hard to say how many made the top, but “certainly more than a hundred people in two days, with full support and 95% use of supplementary oxygen.”
Full interview on Desnivel (Spanish)
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