Maciej Kimel, Michal Krol, and Mariusz Madej of Poland have set a new route up Kiajo Ri, a popular 6,187m peak in Nepal’s Khumbu Valley.
The trio called their 1,300m line Butterfly Effect and estimated its difficulty as M6, 6b. The climbers needed three days for the 34 pitches, plus another day for the descent.
Route topo on Kiajo Ri. Photo: Polski Himalaizm Sportowi
No rest
One of the main challenges was exhaustion. The climbers acclimatized for five days but had no time to rest. The continued good weather threatened to disappear in a few days, so they had to start immediately.
The three set off on October 31 at 5:30 am. Climbing in pure alpine style, they covered 500 vertical meters on mixed and rocky terrain on the first day, Polski Himalaizm Sportowy reported.
First bivy site. Photo: Polski Himalaizm Sportowi
The climbers said the wall was almost vertical from the beginning. “We knew that the –- relatively comfortable — bivouac spot was at around 5,600m,” they explained. This motivated them to climb 15 pitches to the bivy ledge, which they reached at 5:45 pm.
The following morning, they continued under a light snowfall, compensated by the excellent rock on the otherwise vertical central wall.
“Despite the considerable difficulties, the climbing went smoothly,” they reported. “After 14 pitches, we found ourselves on a comfortable shelf at 5,900m, [where] we slept in sleeping bags without a tent.”
A belay on mixed terrain. Photo: Polski Himalaizm Sportowi
To the summit
In the morning, they gained the remaining 300 vertical meters to the summit.
“At first, we climbed the eastern peak, thinking that getting to the main peak would be a mere formality,” they recalled. “Nothing could have been further from the truth! The ridge between the eastern and main peaks is very jagged and requires climbing.”
They reached the summit at 10:30 am. The descent was tricky due to the fragile terrain on the upper parts of the mountain and some overhanging rappels. Night fell before they finished descending, so they set up a bivouac at 5,700m. The following morning, they used the last few hours of good weather to reach Advanced Base Camp around noon.
Above a cloud sea. Photo: Polski Himalaizm Sportowi
Check the video summarizing the expedition on Maciej Kimel’s social media:
The route follows the northeast ridge of the peak, close to the previous Russian-Ukrainian route opened in 2013, called Stealing Beauty. The current team has noted that they were careful to open a completely new route. The two routes only intersected once, at 5,700m, said the climbers.
Bitter news
The team returned to the village of Marchamo exhausted and dehydrated but happy. But then they heard the tragic news from Langtang Lirung, that their good friend Ondrej Huserka had died in a crevasse fall.
“Joy turns into sadness, excitement into depression and anger,” they said. “Unfortunately, mountains sometimes take our loved ones away from us without any warning signs.”
Last year, Maciej Kimel opened a new route on Chobutse with Wadim Jablonski. Jablonski had tried to coordinate a rescue for Huserka right after he heard news of the accident. He had hoped that Huserka might have survived the fall.
Shortly afterward, Huserka’s partner Marek Holecek wrote on social media that the climber had died in his arms. Still, a long-line rescue was scheduled for Monday and then suspended because of bad weather.
Flying conditions have not improved in the last 24 hours, and it is not clear whether the retrieval operation will resume. Outfitter Subin Thakuri of 14 Summits Expeditions said that he was concerned about the risks to the rescuers.
