Simone Moro and Nima Rinji Sherpa of Nepal are joining forces again in a trans-generational attempt to climb Manaslu alpine style in winter. It will be Nima’s second attempt and Moro’s seventh.
Moro, 58, and Nima, 19, will meet in Kathmandu this week and begin their acclimatization shortly after. However, they will not set foot on Manaslu before December 21, the beginning of astronomical winter.
They will climb in what Moro calls a “completely self-sufficient style — no supporting Sherpas, no supplementary oxygen, no fixed ropes, and no ‘discount’ on dates.”
Manaslu. Photo: Simone Moro
Against ‘fake winter’
Simone Moro adheres to the strict definition of a winter expedition. Climbers should not set foot above base camp, he believes, before December 21. Other climbers, including winter legends such as Denis Urubko, prefer to consider winter a meteorological term for the coldest time of year. For them, winter runs from December 1 to February 28.
In Nepal, the official winter climbing season also begins on December 1. At least, that’s when winter climbing permits become valid. In recent years, many Ama Dablam winter climbers have taken advantage of those first weeks of December, which often feature cold but stable, sunny weather. Ama Dablam was also the peak that Moro and Nima Rinji used for acclimatizing on their first attempt together last year.
Left to right, Nima Rinji Sherpa, Simone Moro, and Oswald Pereira at Manaslu Base Camp in 2024. Photo: Nima Rinji Sherpa
“This is the style I climb, and I am not going to…adapt the rules of winter to my convenience,” Moro told ExplorersWeb. “Everybody knows that the first weeks of December are the nicest of the year to climb. If I had adopted meteorological winter [December 1] instead of astronomical winter [December 21], I could have climbed many 8000’ers in winter. In fact, I could have climbed them all. But I’m looking for exploration, not for easy and fake ‘discounted’ results.”
In the winter of 2024-25, Moro and Nima Rinji, along with Oswald Pereira of Poland, called off their expedition when bad conditions made their alpine-style attempt unfeasible.
No pure winter 8,000m climb
This strict concept is significant because, under such criteria, he is aiming for a first-timer that sounds like a challenge to every other winter climber in history.
“No one has ever climbed an 8,000m [peak] in winter in pure alpine style,” he said. “We will try to achieve that.”
His most coveted achievement to date, he explains, was his almost alpine-style ascent of Makalu with Denis Urubko in 2009.
We were quite close to an alpine-style ascent because we did only two rotations. But now [it] is time to write a new big page into our humble career.
Moro on the summit of Makalu, winter 2009. Photo: Denis Urubko
A Polish expedition first climbed Manaslu in winter via the difficult Messner route on January 12, 1984. No one used oxygen. Yet under Moro’s strict criteria, that was not a pure winter climb because the Polish team reached Base Camp on December 2 and started shortly after. By December 21, they were at Camp 3.
Japanese climbers Yamada and Saito also climbed Manaslu in winter in 1985, in an epic single push from Base Camp without oxygen or anyone else on the mountain.
“That fantastic climb of Yamada and Saito happened on December 14, on their second attempt that season,” Moro explained. “[On] the 9th of December, they stopped at 7,200m and returned to Base Camp for a rest. Then they launched a second summit push that succeeded on December 14. Alpine style doesn’t allow any prior attempts on the same route in the same season.”
Winter Maestro
Both Moro and Nima are high-profile climbers, well-known to wider audiences. Simone Moro is the only climber who has made four first winter ascents on 8,000m peaks: Shisha Pangma (2005), Makalu (2009), Gasherbrum II (2011), and Nanga Parbat (2016). Often dubbed the Winter Maestro, Moro has attempted to climb Manaslu in winter six times.
Nima Rinji Sherpa and Simone Moro in Kathmandu in 2024. Photo: Nima Rinji Sherpa/Instagram
Nima Rinji Sherpa, the son of Seven Summit Treks founder Tashi Lakpa Sherpa, joined the outfitter’s expeditions to 8,000m peaks at 16 years old. Last fall, on Shisha Pangma, he became at 18 years old the youngest-ever 14×8,000m summiter. It made headlines around the world and turned him into a mountain celebrity.
Moro told Explorersweb last year that he wants to introduce Nima to a different kind of high-altitude mountaineering: small-scale, alpine-style winter expeditions, so he can become a professional alpinist.
Yet, it is not clear that this is the direction the promising Sherpa climber intends for himself. In a recent social media post, Nima Rinji stated that he will dedicate the years ahead to “building a safer climbing environment for our people, shaping a unified and transparent trekking system for the world, and standing on the front lines of the fight against climate change.”
Unfinished business on Manaslu
As for Moro, he spends most of his time in Nepal nowadays working as a high-altitude helicopter pilot, focusing on rescue missions on the 8,000’ers. However, he has continued to pursue winter Manaslu.
“I am aware a seventh attempt on a peak might look ridiculous, but this is what it takes when you don’t look for shortcuts and keep the bar at my highest level,” he said.
He noted that this will be his 122nd trip to Nepal since 1992, a place that feels like home to him.
