Summit on Kabru South

Today’s summit news does not just apply to commercial teams on 8,000’ers. Climbing a new route on an isolated peak in the Kangchenjunga region, Peter Hamor of Slovakia and his team quietly summited 7,394m Kabru South yesterday.

Hamor, Italians Nives Meroi and Romano Benet, and Bojan Jan of Slovenia forged their way up the peak’s virgin west face. They had no previous information, no Sherpas, and no camps.

“The conditions were challenging, but luckily the weather cleared up on the last day and the wind eased,” Hamor’s wife posted on the alpinist’s website.

Kabru South. Photo: Peter Hamor/Facebook

The team has now returned to their tiny Base Camp. Details will follow as soon as they make it back to Ramze village. It is unclear if the team climbed in a single push or did partial rotations. This new route up Kabru South is the most interesting climb of the season so far.

A rarely tried objective

Previously, Kabru South had been climbed only once, by an Indian team in 1994 led by H.S. Chauhan. That expedition climbed Kabru North, Kabru Main, and Kabru South on consecutive days, according to The Himalayan Database.

The west face remained unclimbed until now. It had been attempted only once before, by a Serbian team in 2004. That expedition ended after leader Dragan Jacimovic fell into a crevasse. He survived, but the team decided that the route was too technical and they were too short of rope and gear, they noted in their report. That gives a good idea of the kind of terrain Hamor, Meroi, Benet, and Jan tackled.

Nives Meroi and Romano Benet on Kagchenjunga back in 2012. Photo: Courtesy of Nives Meroi

Nives Meroi has climbed all 14 8,000’ers without oxygen (except Manaslu’s true summit), always with her husband Romano Benet. In a previous interview with ExplorersWeb, Meroi said she wouldn’t mind climbing Manaslu again, if not for the crowds and the excessive commercialization. Instead, the Italian turned her attention to a wild Himalayan face.

Kabru’s South has allured Hamor (as well as the Italian couple) since 2012. Hamor saw the west face again last year when he returned to Kangchenjunga.