Hamor, Benet, and Meroi won’t be alone in the Kangchenjunga region, attempting a new route this spring. Piolet d’Or winner Yuri Koshelenko is also heading there with regular partner Alexey Lonchinsky. The Russian pair likewise plans to open a new route.
The two teams have a lot in common: where they look for virgin faces, the pure alpine style, and the values that have shaped their mountaineering careers. Both began with big expeditions on 8,000m peaks in the late 20th century and evolved to focus on technical, exploratory routes on lesser mountains.
Now 62, Yuri Koshelenko climbed with some of the last Soviet teams of the 1990s, winning several awards. He came to specialize in new routes on difficult faces and has also been a mentor to younger generations of Russian climbers. Koshelenko won his Piolet d’Or in 2003 for an impressive 2,500m line on the south face of Nuptse with Valeri Babanov. Babanov, incidentally, is also in Nepal to attempt Everest without supplementary oxygen.
Koshelenko and Lonchinsky, 43, last climbed together in Nepal in 2023, when they made the first ascent of 6,645m Rolwaling Kang Shar. In 2024, Koshelenko bagged another first ascent, this time on an unnamed 6,000m peak in Ladakh in the Indian Himalaya with Bayarsaikhan Luvsand and Mikhail Pups.
The Russians have confirmed their plans to RussianClimb but have not revealed exactly which peak they will attempt. The Department of Tourism of Nepal has not updated its list of permits since April 9. We may have to wait until the climbers return to know more about this expedition.
