The recent summits on Shisha Pangma raised questions about risky conditions and officially banned no-oxygen ascents.
Mingma G, a new member of the no-O2 14×8,000m club, has answered some of those questions. He also shared videos of summiting hand in hand with Nirmal Purja, with Sirbaz Khan right behind. None of the three used supplementary oxygen.
After topping out on Shisha Pangma last Friday, Imagine Nepal team members are on their way to Tibet’s capital to celebrate.
“We all, as a group, have decided we wanted to visit Lhasa and then fly to Kathmandu from there,” Tracee Metcalfe told ExplorersWeb.
It was a lucky choice: The team later learned that floods had washed out the road to the border crossing at Kerung.
Frame of a summit video from Shisha Pangma shared by Tracee Metcalfe
While on the road, Metcalfe and Mingma G spoke with ExplorersWeb about the summit and conditions on the mountain. Mingma G also addressed the no-O2 controversy.
Safe conditions
“This was one of the most memorable expeditions of my career,” Mingma G said. “The last part of the climb across a beautiful pinnacle was amazing.”
Mingma G noted that Shisha Pangma had lots of snow but was otherwise in “great condition.” See the video below of Gnima Nuru sliding down on his crampons as he descends from his ninth 8,000’er.
Other members of the team agree about their great feelings during the ascent.
“It was magical,” said Tracee Metcalfe, now the first U.S. woman to summit all 14 of the world’s highest peaks.
In Edurne Pasaban’s footsteps
As they did Winter K2 in 2022, Mingma G and Purja launched the summit push without any previous announcement. The other team on the mountain (Seven Summit Treks) only found out when they arrived at Camp 3 on an acclimatization climb and saw Imagine Nepal’s members preparing to go.
When asked about it, Mingma not only didn’t deny it but stated: “We only told [others] we were going for the summit at the last moment because I wasn’t sure about the route. And yes, I didn’t want many climbers following us because they would just hang themselves on the rope instead of helping fix and carry rope.”
Variation routes to the summit of Shisha Pangma. The routes in orange involve the ridge and the Central summit, and the green line is Ocha de Olza’s variation. Photo: Inaki Ochoa de Olza, topo: Edurne Pasaban
Mingma G also had some grateful words for ExplorersWeb and Basque climber Edurne Pasaban.
“Edurne’s interview about the [Inaki Ochoa de Olza variation] route was very helpful for us,” he said. “I checked the route last year during the rescue efforts [after the second avalanche last year that took the lives of Gina Rzucidlo and Tenjen Lama] and tried to find some information about it. Then I found the interview with her on ExplorersWeb.”
Edurne Pasaban finished her own 14×8,000m quest on Shisha Pangma in 2010. She and her team reached the summit via a variation route previously opened by fellow Spaniard Inaki Ochoa de Olza, as she explained to Explorersweb.
Edurne Pasaban on the summit of Shisha Pangma in the spring of 2010. Photo: Edurne Pasaban
Although the Spanish team climbed Shisha Pangma in spring, Mingma G remarked that the conditions on that variation route this fall were very safe.
The oxygen issue
Friday’s summits marked a series of mountaineering records and raised questions about the use of oxygen. The China-Tibet Mountaineering Association (CMTA) has banned no-oxygen climbing above 7,000m in a document that was distributed to outfitters at the beginning of the season.
The summit team crowds on the narrow summit of Shisha Pangma. Photo: Mingma G
On Friday, Mingma G Sherpa announced that he had not used bottled oxygen on his climb, thus becoming the first Nepalese citizen to complete the 14×8,000m challenge in the no-O2 category. Asked about it by ExplorersWeb before the climb, Mingma G had said he hoped that he and his team would be excused from the requirement. Asked again after the summit, he insisted, “We were not obliged [to]. Sirbaz [Khan], [Nirmal Purja], and I climbed without oxygen on Shisha Pangma, and we were all in great shape.”
Mingma G also noted that Anja Blacha of Germany recently summited Cho Oyu, also without supplementary oxygen from the Chinese side. Indeed, she did so on Saturday with Seven Summit Treks:
Summit ‘bros’
Nirmal Purja’s summit was not confirmed until yesterday, Monday, although it was no secret to everyone on the mountain that he had joined Mingma G’s summit team. Purja’s own team contributed to the confusion with an Instagram post on Saturday that referred to the summit climb as something that had not yet happened 24 hours after it actually took place. Ultimately, Mingma G removed all doubts in the video below.
In it, the climbers insist that there was zero competition among these two “Nepali brothers” and friends. Nirmal Purja states the two of them are the “first” Nepalese to complete the no-O2 version of the 14×8,000m challenge, and Mingma G agrees.
Nirmal Purja was born in Nepal but renounced to his citizenship to become a UK national and join the army there. However, he later obtained a Non-Resident Nepali Citizen Card on Nov. 9, 2023, just days before he attempted Shisha Pangma without oxygen for the first time.
His summit push was aborted when his client, Anna Gutu, and guide, Mingmar Sherpa, died in an avalanche. His citizenship now becomes relevant since a first is at stake. However, his only competitor for the honor, Mingma G, is obviously happy to share the glory.
‘Records don’t matter’
Mingma G, a Sherpa from Rolwaling and an internationally certified IMGFA guide, is not really impressed by his own record, except for the positive impact it might have in Nepal.
“I am happy that at least Nepalese are now in the 14×8,000m club without O2, but these records don’t matter in my career now,” he said. “It’s just a week of celebration, and then everything will be the same again. I [will] do what I have been always doing. If anything, I might get more clients ;-)”
Sirbaz Khan’s hard work
Looking back at the summit video, behind Purja and Mingma G are two other climbers: Phur Galzen, dressed in Imagine Nepal’s blue down suit, and Sirbaz Khan of Pakistan, in bright orange.
Sirbaz Khan at K2 Base Camp. Photo: Naila Kiani
Khan has thus become the first Pakistani climber to summit the 14 8,000’ers. But there’s more to his record: Sirbaz started in his early twenties as a kitchen boy for international expeditions. He made his way up the highest mountains on Earth on a shoestring budget, working as he went. Instead of climbing as a guided client, he joined the working crews on the 8,000’ers, carrying loads and fixing ropes.
He summited his first 8,000’er, Nanga Parbat, in 2017, already without supplementary O2. In the last few years, he has worked and climbed with Imagine Nepal. He also worked on Shisha Pangma despite climbing without supplementary oxygen. In fact, Shisha Pangma is the 12th out of 14 peaks that Khan summited in that style. He only used oxygen on Annapurna and Kangchenjunga.
New summit push is on
Meanwhile, the Seven Summit Treks team left Advanced Base Camp today on their own summit push. They tentatively plan to summit on Wednesday. The SST team includes 13 climbers, including some sherpa guides, who will complete their 14×8,000m list if they reach the top.
Shisha Pangma. Photo: Seven Summit Treks
With them is the Climbalaya team and Nirmal Purja’s Elite Exped. Although Purja himself climbed with Mingma G’s group, his own team did not. Instead, they planned for October 9. It is unclear if Purja himself has remained with his team for the upcoming attempt.
