Herve Barmasse of Italy, Adam Bielecki of Poland, and Felix Berg of Germany have done an alpine-style climb up the south face of 6,958m Numbur, in Nepal’s Rolwaling Valley.
The European team says they climbed Numbur “by fair means” on October 18-19. They graded the route ED-, WI 5, M4, and called it Nepali Ice Spa as an ironic reference to the harsh conditions. These included “a bivouac at 6,900m, without a tent or sleeping bag, in temperatures of -25°C and winds of up to 60 kph,” said Barmasse.
Topo of the new route. The broken line shows their descent. Photo: Adam Bielecki/Instagram
All together or not at all
“It was a daring climb, to say the least,” Barmasse wrote. The team faced a crisis even before starting. Bielecki fell sick and only decided to continue because his partners insisted on everyone going together or aborting the climb.
Their chosen route first followed a previous attempt by a Spanish team up a series of icefalls in what seemed like good ice conditions. Soon, however, the climbers faced falling ice and rock along the route. A chunk hit Barmasse on the shoulder.
“The pain was intense, but turning back [with those rocks coming down] would have been even more risky,” he said.
They continued, deviating to vertical terrain, more difficult but safer than the chutes.
“From there, meter after meter, the route becomes increasingly interesting, aesthetic, and unpredictable,” said Barmasse.
Tough bivouac
The hardest part was the last 200 vertical meters, which featured loose, unstable snow with no way to protect their progress. At 6,900m, although they were close to the summit, they had to bivouac for the night under a snow cornice. They could just sit in the tent and endure high winds and -25º temperatures through a very long night.
No spa: The climbers endure a tough bivouac. Photo: Herve Barmasse
Dawn came eventually, they had no frostbite, and climbed the last meters to the summit.
“It was a thrilling ascent, technically splendid, profound,” Barmasse said. “Technically, you can be ready to climb anything, but for an adventure like this, you can never be ready enough.” He added that the real feat was surviving the elements.
Numbur was first climbed in 1963 by Hiroshi Matsuo and Mingma Tsering Sherpa, also via the south face. In 1981, a French team did the first ascent of the southwest ridge. Herve Barmasse notes that their own climb is the first alpine-style ascent of the south face.
