After a short break, the no-O2 climbers on Annapurna are leaving Camp 4 on their final summit push.
While not confirmed, the rope-fixing team on Dhaulagiri was expected to leave Camp 3 for the summit tonight, and some climbers may follow them. The first summits on both mountains are expected tomorrow around 7 am local time (8:45 pm this evening EDT). Followup summits should continue into Sunday.
Annapurna
Marie Saame’s Instagram post before leaving Camp 4 on Annapurna.
The no-O2 climbers are Stefi Troguet of Andorra, Charles Page of Canada, Israfil Ashurli of Azerbaijan, Marie Saame of Estonia, Andreas Frydensberg of Denmark, and Russians Valery Babanov, Anton Pugovkin, and Vitali Shipilov. According to their trackers, at 9:30 pm Nepal time, they were still preparing to leave Camp 4. They’re likely off by now.
Dhaulagiri
Climbers on Dhaulagiri reached Camp 3 today. One day ahead of them, a Sherpa rope-fixing team was hoping to start fixing the traverse to the summit area. All going well, they should summit first, but an unknown number of climbers could follow shortly behind them.
The small group of climbers includes Ukrainians Irina Galay and Valentyn Sypavin, and some Pioneer Expedition clients from India. A second group is outfitted by Imagine Nepal. We are not aware of anyone climbing without oxygen.
Duel between two Nepalis
Meanwhile, two Nepalese climbers are competing for a record: Sanu Sherpa, the leader of the Pioneer Adventure team on Dhaulagiri, and Nirmal Purja, heading for the summit of Annapurna with one client. Both are trying to become the first to summit the 14×8,000’ers three times. Both are likely to finish their third round sometime this year.
Purja holds a Guinness World Record certificate stating that he has climbed 49 “true” 8,000m summits in his career. Many of them were to the same few peaks he has repeatedly guided. Purja also noted that the “true” summits are recognized as the highest points and so recorded by Eberhard Jurgalski of 8,000ers.com (who also works for Guinness World Records).
“Fifty-two is my total 8,000m ascents, including foresummits climbed earlier in my career,” he adds. He says those early foresummits were similar to those of many other climbers who, at the time, genuinely believed they stood on top.
On his Instagram profile, Sanu Sherpa claims he has summited 40 8,000’ers, though the figure may be out of date. He has definitely completed two circuits of the 14×8,000’ers, climbed 5 more 8,000m peaks in 2025, and this past January, he summited Makalu (on oxygen). However, the winter success turned to tragedy when his client and a fellow Sherpa guide died on the way down. Sanu himself injured his leg during an attempted rescue after the incident.
