Kilian Jornet had a close call while attempting the West Ridge route made famous by Willie Unsoeld and Tom Hornbein.
Hornbein and Unsoeld’s West Ridge route starts by gaining the ridge from a couloir slightly above Camp 2 on Everest’s normal route. It was not an easy first stage for Jornet. He describes the conditions as “horrible, with blue ice underneath and a top layer of deep snow. [it meant taking] two steps up and one down for 1,000m.”
Jornet, climbing light as ever, at the beginning of his solo endeavor up Everest’s West Ridge. Photo: Kilian Jornet/Instagram
Swept down by avalanche
Once on the ridge, he waited three hours for the winds to drop, sheltered by a cornice. He then proceeded over mixed terrain to the base of the Hornbein Couloir. He climbed this for “a few hundred meters.”
Then he broke a wind slab and triggered an avalanche that swept him down some 50 meters. After some consideration, he decided to turn around at that point. He descended in a heavy snowfall, with his previous footprints totally buried, and two to three meters of visibility. It was “interesting,” the athlete admitted.
Jornet alone on the West Ridge, with an air-warming mask. Photo: Kilian Jornet/Instagram
In the end, Jornet made it safely back to Base Camp, without a summit but not necessarily unhappy.
“I’m a big believer in the how is way bigger and more important than the what,” he concluded. “In that sense, the climb was just perfect.”
Here’s a brief video he took during the climb:
