Denis Urubko of Russia and Maria Cardell of Spain have finally shared details of their new route on Nanga Parbat.
The couple took it easy after climbing from the Diamir side; in a very Urubko-style move, they remained an extra week in Base Camp, enjoying the solitude of the mountain. It was only yesterday, as they returned to Skardu, that they checked their emails and shared details of their line.
Difficult, exposed, lonely
They opened their route between July 6 and July 10. It combined varied terrain, with ice, mixed rock, snow, and a crevassed glacier, Urubko told Mountain.ru. He explained that the route is technically difficult and exposed to avalanches and rockfall in some sections.
In addition, the climbers went up in far from ideal weather conditions, with storms every afternoon and winds as high as 90kmph.
"We didn't use other people's ropes or tracks," Urubko told Mouintain.ru. "There were no breakdowns, injuries, or illnesses."
Indeed, they were the only people on that side of the mountain and, when the climb took place, they were the only people anywhere on the mountain. This season, summits on the normal route (the Kinshoffer) occurred on July 3 and July 4. David Goettler of Germany and French climbers Tiphaine Duperier and Boris Langenstein summited from the Rupal side on June 24.
You can read Urubko and Cardell's full report on Mountain.ru in Russian.
Crossing previous lines
Shortly after Urubko published a topo of the route, some members of the climbing community shared comments on social media pointing to the similarity of the line to previously opened routes. In particular, some pointed out that the route seems to coincide with a line opened in 2009 by Gerfried Goeschl of Austria and Louis Rousseau of Canada.
Urubko did note in his report that their route intersects the Austrian-Canadian route at around 6,600-6,800m. "But [our route] continues along the ridge, while the other team went along the glacier," he explained.
Asked by ExplorersWeb, Cardell confirmed the information from Pakistan: "Our route does not step on the Goeschl/Rousseau route at any section; both lines cross, but then the Austrian-Canadian route continues along the glacier and our line follows the ridge," Cardell said.
Cardell noted that she spoke to Rousseau before the expedition, and the Canadian climber shared information about his 2009 expedition alongside Goeschl (who later perished while attempting winter Gasherbrum I). Therefore, Urubko and Cardell were well aware of the location of the 2009 route.
"For a person not familiar with the terrain, it may look like it is the same line, but the distance between both routes is wide; everything else is speculation," Cardell said.
Many teams have climbed Nanga Parbat from its Diamir side. Crossing and/or following small sections with previous lines doesn't make Urubko and Cardell's feat any less impressive.
Female first
The achievement is especially significant for Maria "Pipi" Cardell. She is a ski patroller by profession and a member of Spain's elite female alpinism team. According to Urubko, Cardell is the first female climber to summit an 8,000'er via a new route opened in alpine style.
Urubko and Cardell took turns to lead during the climb, and in some sections they simul-climbed (progressed roped up at the same time, without belaying one another).
"It is an elegant and logical line, technical to a point that took me to my physical and mental limits," Cardell wrote. "I am not euphoric after the achievement. On the contrary, I feel calm...all the past efforts fit like pieces of a puzzle. Our dream is complete."
A solid pair
Cardell was enthusiastic in her praise for Urubko. "It is surreal to see how confidently he climbs in extremely complex terrain at high altitude," she said. "His intuition is based on wide experience, and his ability to obsessively focus becomes our guarantee of survival. [Added to his] supernatural strength at 8,000m, this makes him unique."
"Denis [Urubko] and I have been climbing together for ten years," Cardell wrote on Instagram. "We have been working and training all this time to get ready and, someday, achieve this dream."
Together, they have opened new routes, alpine style, on Chapayev (in the Tien Shan) and Ushba (in the Caucasus). They attempted a new route on Gasherbrum II in 2019, but Cardell had to drop out after injuring her back. Urubko soloed the route, naming it "Honeymoon" in tribute to Cardell. They also attempted a new route on Gasherbrum I, but eventually climbed via the normal route because of bad conditions.
Through the years, Urubko has been a methodical and very tough coach for iron-willed Cardell. "It has been training and more training...drytooling, climbing, running to exhaustion, learning new techniques and adopting new habits, don't drink, cry often, feeling utterly happy at every little step ahead, hesitating until finally managing to believe in myself and, never, never surrendering," Cardell said.
Forget-me-not
The pair has named the new route Незабудка (Nezabudka), meaning "the unforgettable girl." It is the Russian name of a flower known in English as the forget-me-not or scorpion grass. Under the Latin scientific name Myosotis and with some 60 variants, it is a small mountain plant that grows delicate flowers, generally blue, soon after the snow melts in alpine ecosystems. It is the official flower of Alaska. The relatively low altitude of Nanga Parbat's lower slopes allows grass and flowers to grow in Base Camp, especially during this relatively warm season.
German climber David Goettler had unfinished business with the Rupal side of Nanga Parbat: "I needed to prove I'm able to claim an 8,000’er in the style I like and off the normal route."
Back in Europe after climbing the Schell route and paragliding from the summit, Goettler is over the moon. He's not only ecstatic about the achievement, but also because he finally succeeded on a personal bet that has molded his high-altitude climbing career.
"After all these attempts and years I put into this project, it paid off and I am very happy," Goettler said. "I have fulfilled this dream, and flying down, it's kind of the cherry on the top, even if it was not right from the summit."
Prize for persistence
In some cases, when a climber achieves a project attempted and planned for years, they feel a kind of emptiness. Goettler, on the contrary, has found that it has motivated him for future climbs.
"The recent success has increased my motivation to chase similar projects because I have climbed Nanga Parbat in exactly the style I wanted. I have learned that it sometimes takes a lot of attempts, but in the end, with persistence and patience, it pays off."
This is an important issue for Goettler, who follows strict safety standards on his climbs. His goal is to complete a climb and descend safely, without "having to get epic," as he terms it.
"Through the years and the attempts, I turned around so many times because some small things didn't fit right or it was not perfect. Of course, I questioned myself. Perhaps I was not pushing hard enough? But in the end, I have proven that I can achieve my goals in what I consider the right way," Goettler explained.
Safe, not boring
Goettler concedes that his focus on safety "might look boring for audiences and the media, because I avoid drama. I am aware others push these limits far beyond [what I choose to do] and play with fire. But each climber has to decide this for themselves."
"Of course, bad luck is always possible, and you can always end up in a difficult situation without forcing it. However, if you push the limits again and again and again, you may need to start questioning your approach to mountaineering," Goettler told us.
On every attempt, Goetller studied his mistakes and tried to fix them for the next round. So, what changed on this attempt? What was the final finetuning that led to success instead of retreat? Was it just luck?
More than luck
"I believe it's not only luck, although we were indeed lucky with the weather window and with the conditions. The mountain was very dry this year, which made the going up to 6,000m quite complex, especially for Boris and Tiphaine [climbing partners Boris Langenstein and Tiphaine Duperier of France] who wanted to ski down from the top," Goettler said. "However, from 6,000m up, conditions were way better."
Goettler explained that, although the climbers had to break trail all the time, the snow was not as deep as in wetter years. As seen in videos from the mountain, the climbers wore small snowshoes, which made progress easier on the snowy patches.
The team enjoyed an extraordinary weather window. "For three days we had little wind and no precipitation," Goettler recalls. "However, from my experience climbing in Pakistan since 2004, I had learned that temperatures are rising in recent years, so we knew we would need to make the attempt early in the season. We still almost got there too late!"
Fine-tuned tactics
Reflecting on the increasing temperatures, Goettler believes expeditions in the Karakoram may consider an earlier start, even if that means overlapping with the Spring season in Nepal.
Goettler also made a key tactical adjustment for this final attempt.
"The summit day from the last bivy at 7,400m is extremely long, and the last time I underestimated it. On the maps, the terrain looks so vertical that you think it cannot be too long, but it is! It’s a long way to the top, especially because of the traverse of the Diamir side," Goettler said.
"Therefore, this time we took a tent, a stove, and a sleeping pad with us for the summit day. That way, we could always stop, pitch the tent, get shelter from the wind, and have a rest, no matter the altitude. Either on descent or during the ascent, if the weather turned for the worse, the safety items gave us confidence to tackle a longer summit day."
They reached the summit shortly after 3 pm local time, which is late on an 8,000'er. But they had perfect weather, so an evening descent was not concerning.
"However, it was just a little bit too much wind to feel comfortable taking off and paragliding directly from the summit," Goettler noted.
The descent
With too much wind to take off from the summit, Goettler started down with Langenstein and Duperier. The two French climbers put on their skis at the top and started down the summit ridge to the south summit of Nanga Parbat; Goettler followed on foot. The skiing was slow at that altitude, so he didn’t get left behind.
"At around 6:30 pm, we reached 7,700m. Here, the ridge opens up and the terrain falls away in a huge, steep snow field," Goettler said. "It was still a bit gusty, but I felt confident to take off."
The following 30 minutes will always remain in Goettler’s memory as one of the most amazing, surreal moments of his life.
"I took off, first flying toward the flank of the mountain, along the traverse of the Diamir side and right over the Mazeno Col back to the Rupal face, where I dropped down and landed right beside our Base Camp. It was one of my best and craziest moments in the mountains so far."
Thirty minutes vs. three days
Goettler's arrival shocked the Base Camp cook, who didn’t expect anyone for dinner so soon after hearing the summit news. He ran out of the tent when he heard Goettler calling.
Going down took much longer for Langenstein and Duperier. "The traverse is no more than 50 vertical meters, but it’s all ups and downs, which can take an extremely long time when you’re on skis," Goettler said. "They used the tent, improvising a bivy for the night. The following day, they continued to the place of our last proper camp, at 7,400m, right at the access point to the Rupal side, and they spent another night there."
The descent down the Rupal Face was so rough that the French climbers still needed another stop. They halted on the ridge at 6,000m because the lower part of the mountain was so prone to rockfall that it could only be downclimbed when frozen, between midnight and 6 am.
Their long descent provided Goetller with a new experience: waiting in base camp for partners on the mountain. "It was quite intense," he said. "We could only communicate over the radio when they were on the Rupal Face. While they were on the other side, only SMS over InReach worked, and there was so little we could say. It was unnerving not knowing where they were and how they felt."
The art of flying
Indeed, flying down proved an amazing way to descend from a high-altitude summit. It is safer, faster, and spectacular. Benjamin Vedrines and other French climbers experienced it on K2 last year, where it also worked wonderfully.
"I'm sure we will see it more and more, but it will not become the norm," Goettler said. “Most days, flying from a summit or a high point is not possible. Even with modern, more accurate forecasts, you need to be really lucky with conditions, and then high-altitude paragliding requires extra skills. Often, I carry my wing up and I can't fly."
Goettler recalls that he took his wing to Nanga Parbat last year when he attempted the climb with Vedrines, but he was unable to fly from any higher than 5,500m because of high winds. Equally, he brought the wing up Baruntse in spring, but he had to return on foot in foggy weather.
"Gliding makes life so easy when it works. You fly with zero worries about rockfall, avalanches, exhaustion, or anything. In 30 minutes, you're back down to safety."
Team workflow
Goettler has attempted Nanga Parbat on five occasions with different climbing partners. He has climbed with Herve Barmasse, Mike Arnold, and Benjamin Vedrines. Last year, he met Langenstein and Duperier on Nanga Parbat. They shared the same goal, so they quickly made plans to join forces in 2025.
"It was one of the best teams I have ever been on, even though our characters are rather different. I worked really well, it's so good to have a group where you spend no energy managing the team dynamics," Goettler said.
The climb
The climb was described by Goettler in a series of clips that he posted on social media. Here's a summary and the footage:
Day 1: Latabo Base Camp to Camp 1 (6,000m)
Goettler notes that the team had made a previous climb to this point to check conditions. They left a small gear deposit.
"For the ultra purists, our ascent wouldn't be 'alpine style,' but I’m still happy to call our climb alpine style because there wasn’t a single meter of fixed rope, no set camps, and no external help."
The team climbed with a 50m rope, some pitons and cams, one tent, and food and gas for five days.
Day 2: The ridge section and snow fields between 6,000m and 6,800m
"The route goes along a sharp ridge, then you have to cross big, wide open snowfields," Goettler described.
This is the section where the climbers enjoyed better conditions than the previous year, with not so much snow. Still, they used small snowshoes for some parts.
Day 3: To the third bivouac at 7,400m
For Goettler, this section is key to predicting whether the climb will be successful. Luckily, the forecasts were accurate, and the winds dropped.
Day 4, part 1: The traverse, 7,400m to 7,800m
Goettler turned around on this section on two previous occasions. They made much faster progress this time.
"The conditions on the summit ridge were exceptional, as was the weather, but the traverse itself has endless ups and downs, which makes for an exhausting return," he noted. "We swapped leads whenever someone needed a break, and with this teamwork, we maintained a slow but consistent pace to the Merkel Notch, just below the final unknown section of the route."
Day 4, part 2: From 7,800m to the summit
Once in unknown terrain, after the Merkel notch (a small col), they climbed a technical rocky section and crossed a snow field that took them to the south summit and then the main summit of Nanga Parbat.
"[The rock section] wasn’t super hard, but difficult enough to get the 50m rope and camalots out, which, at close to 8,000m, is spicy enough," Goettler recalled. "When we finally stood on the summit of Nanga Parbat, 14 hours after leaving our last camp, each of us knew that without the others we wouldn’t have made it. A feeling and a moment so powerful I won’t ever forget."
Denis Urubko and Maria Cardell have opened a new route on the Diamir Face of Nanga Parbat. The couple reached the summit yesterday, outfitter Active Adventure Holiday told ExplorersWeb.
Imram Ali Khan of AAH confirmed that Urubko, 52, and his partner Maria Cardell, 50, climbed the new route in alpine style and safely returned to Base Camp. We are waiting for details.
The last person to open a new alpine-style route on an 8,000m peak was Urubko himself. The powerful Russian soloed Gasherbrum II via a new line from Camp 1 in 2019. He called that line Honeymoon as a tribute to Cardell. She had intended to climb the route as well, but a back injury forced her to wait in Base Camp.
Triumphant return
In 2022, Urubko's career suffered a severe blow. While attempting to climb Gasherbrum I in winter via another new route, he fell into a crevasse and was severely frostbitten. It has taken him two years to recover. This summer's expedition to Nanga Parbat marks his triumphant return to high altitude.
The husband-wife team climbed alpine style, acclimatizing on lesser peaks near Skardu. While the summits were all below 6,000m, they managed long day climbs with a significant altitude gain each day, sleeping low after each climb. Then they moved to Nanga Parbat and waited for the right moment.
The climbers started their summit attempt last Saturday and estimated that they would spend five days on the Diamir Face.
Denis Urubko has summited all 8,000m peaks without supplementary oxygen or Sherpa support. He also has two winter first ascents, on Makalu (with Simone Moro) and Gasherbrum II (with Moro and Cory Richards).
Urubko has opened new routes on Manaslu, Broad Peak, Gasherbrum II (solo), and on the highly difficult south side of Cho Oyu. He has also made a name for himself — and friends around the world — for the many rescues he has performed in the Himalaya.
One of them made him an international hero and earned him France’s Legion of Honor. In 2018, he and Adam Bielecki of Poland abandoned their own attempt on Winter K2 and hurried to Nanga Parbat to attempt the incredibly difficult rescue of Tomasz Mackiewicz and Elisabeth Revol. They couldn’t reach Mackiewicz but saved Revol’s life.
Despite initial concerns about a potentially empty mountain because of the earlier India-Pakistan conflict, Nanga Parbat had at least some climbers on the normal Kinshofer route. They enjoyed a mountain without crowds, a Base Camp full of flowers, and very mild weather. But these same high temperatures also created difficult conditions that eventually proved lethal for one woman.
Klara Kolouchova of the Czech Republic fell to her death while descending at night. Two local climbers also needed help to make it down safely.
As the climbers return to Islamabad in Pakistan's scorching heat, here is a summary of the season's summits, rescues, injuries, and losses.
First summits and frostbite
Most climbers were with Seven Summit Treks, whose Sherpa guides immediately set about fixing the ropes. However, there was at least another small group, operated by Blue Sky Treks & Tours, at a different Base Camp.
With the rope fixing done only to above Camp 3, as most climbers rested in Base Camp after their acclimatization rounds to Camps 2 and 3, Marek Novotny and Ondra Hlasny of the Czech Republic set off for the summit ahead of the rest. They were the first to reach the top this season but suffered frostbite for their boldness.
"They spent too long in a bivouac, and one of them didn't take off his boots for days," Horia Colibasanu told ExplorersWeb. This climber frostbit several toes, while his partner suffered minor injuries.
Single massive summit push
Virtually everyone else in Base Camp launched their summit push last weekend. But they climbed in different styles, at different paces, with different skills.
This year, the hardest section lay between Base Camp and Camp 3 because of long sections of unstable rock, frequent rockfall, and old black ice where even the front points of crampons hardly bit in.
July 3
The first group summited on July 3, with their Sherpas fixing the ropes as they went. It was mild but windy. Dorota Rasisnzka-Samocko said the wind reached up to 60kph. It was also a very long day, as the climbers on oxygen began from Camp 3. Seven Summit Treks reported four international climbers and four guides from Nepal and Pakistan.
Others, like Horia Colibasanu (without oxygen or Sherpa support) and Allie Pepper of Australia, with Mikel Sherpa and Pasang Sherpa, invested an extra day and pitched a Camp 4 at around 7,000m to ensure a shorter, safer summit day. They reached the top the following morning.
July 4
On the second day, three climbers summited without bottled oxygen: Horia Colibasanu of Romania, on his 11th 8,000'er, and two Pakistani climbers: Sohail Sakhi from Hunza and Ashraf Sadpara, from the village of that name.
Accidents and rescues
Tragedy struck during the night of July 3. Klara Kolouchova of the Czech Republic felt too tired and decided to abort her summit push at Camp 3. Instead of spending the night there, she asked her Sherpa to go down to Base Camp right away, in the dark. Her fall took place slightly above the Kinshoffer wall, between Camps 2 and 3. The Sherpa couldn't see exactly what happened or where Kolouchova fell. Other climbers noted that there are several crevasses in the area.
On July 6, helicopter pilots scouted the Kinshofer route and the surrounding area but couldn't find the fallen climber.
While descending from the summit, Colibasanu described how he found Saad Mohammed stuck on a ledge, in the middle of the Kinshofer wall. He had not properly secured his rappelling device and had lost it. Colibasanu showed him how to rappel with a Munter hitch knot and a carabiner.
After an hour, he checked that Mohammed was doing well and continued down. Later, Colibasanu learnt that two high-altitude porters had left Base Camp to assist Mohammed down. His climbing partner, Tasheen, also needed some help on his own descent.
Asma Al Thani, climbing with Elite Exped, slipped and fell during the descent and needed stitches at Base Camp, but the Qatari princess -- who has been climbing with Elite Exped for several years -- was otherwise okay.
At 8,125m, Nanga Parbat in Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan is the world's ninth-highest mountain, and it is dangerous. It earned its "Killer Mountain" nickname because of the high fatality rate during its early climbing history.
It has three main faces: the south-facing Rupal Face, the northeast-facing Rakhiot Face, and the northwest-facing Diamir Face. The Rakhiot Face is less frequently climbed than either the Diamir or Rupal Faces.
Only three teams have successfully ascended the Rakhiot Face, but more than 30 climbers have died.
The first fatalities
In 1895, Albert Mummery, Ragobir Thapa, and Goman Singh died while scouting the Rakhiot Face. They’re presumed to have died in an avalanche or fall, as their bodies were never found.
German expeditions
The Rakhiot Face became a focal point in the 1930s, particularly for German climbers, as Nanga Parbat was one of the few 8,000’ers accessible to non-British expeditions because of restrictions on Everest and the remoteness of K2.
The face, characterized by the Rakhiot Glacier, Rakhiot Peak (7,070m), the Silver Saddle (7,400m), and a long ridge to the summit, presented a viable but hazardous route due to its length and exposure to avalanches and storms. The expeditions of this era targeted what would later be known as the Buhl Route, which contributed both to the mountain’s allure and its deadly reputation.
1932: Willy Merkl’s German-American expedition
The first significant attempt on the Rakhiot Face was in 1932, led by German climber Willy Merkl. The expedition, sometimes called German-American because of the inclusion of American climbers Rand Herron and Fritz Wiessner (Wiessner was German-born but became a U.S. citizen), aimed to establish a route via the Rakhiot Glacier and Rakhiot Peak.
Merkl’s party took a route to the left of the Northeast Ridge, which involved steep ice and rock. But they lacked Himalayan experience, and poor planning hampered their progress. They did not have enough porters, and bad weather added to their problems.
Peter Aschenbrenner and Herbert Kunigk reached 7,070m Rakhiot Peak but could not progress further. However, the expedition confirmed the feasibility of a route via Rakhiot Peak and the main ridge.
1934: Merkl’s second attempt
Merkl returned in 1934 with a better-prepared expedition, funded by the Nazi government. They targeted the same Rakhiot Face route as in 1932, with a minor variation.
Early in the expedition, climber Alfred Drexel died, likely from high-altitude pulmonary edema. Things only deteriorated from there.
Fierce storms caused chaos on the mountain. On July 6, Peter Aschenbrenner and Erwin Schneider reached 7,895m, one of the highest points ever attained at the time, but worsening weather forced them back.
On July 7, a ferocious storm trapped 14 team members at 7,480m near Camp 4, below Rakhiot Peak. This led to the deaths of Merkl, Willo Welzenbach, Uli Wieland, and six porters: Pintso Norbu, Nima Norbu, Dorje Sherpa, Tashi Sherpa, Dakshi Sherpa, and Gaylay Sherpa. The 1938 Nanga Parbat expedition found their bodies.
At the time, it was the deadliest mountaineering disaster in history. This tragedy, alongside later disasters, cemented Nanga Parbat’s Killer Mountain reputation.
1937: Karl Wien’s avalanche disaster
In 1937, another German expedition targeted the same route.
Led by Karl Wien, the team made slow progress because of heavy snowfall. On the night of June 14, a huge avalanche from the hanging glacier on Rakhiot Peak hit them in Camp 4. The avalanche rushed 1,200m across the flat terrace where their camp was set up, burying the tents under meters of ice and packed snow. The campsite was considered safe previously, but a sudden change in weather likely triggered the avalanche.
The avalanche killed seven German climbers (Wien, Hans Hartmann, Adolf Goettner, Martin Pfeffer, Gunther Hepp, Peter Mullritter, and Otto Fankhauser) and nine support staff members (Pasang P., Nim Tsering, Mambahadur, Kami, Gyaljen Monjo, Jigmay, Chong Karma, Ang Tsering II, and Da Thondup).
A search team led by Paul Bauer later found the tents buried under ice and snow, with one climber’s diary noting the camp’s unsafe position. Five bodies were found buried nearby. Described as having "no parallel in climbing annals" for its prolonged suffering, this disaster added to the Rakhiot Face’s deadly reputation.
1938: Paul Bauer’s cautious attempt
Paul Bauer led a German expedition in 1938, mindful of the 1934 and 1937 tragedies.
The team reached the Silver Saddle, halfway between Rakhiot Peak and the summit, but bad weather forced a retreat. Heinrich Harrer, a member of the expedition, noted the face’s challenging conditions. No fatalities occurred, but the expedition made no significant progress beyond previous attempts.
1939: Harrer’s reconnaissance
In 1939, Harrer joined a German expedition led by Peter Aufschnaiter, primarily to scout the Diamir Face. However, they also examined the Rakhiot Face, concluding that it was a viable but dangerous route. World War II and their internment in British India halted further attempts.
The 1930s saw five German expeditions to the Rakhiot Face, with at least 25 deaths and no successful ascents, underscoring its lethality.
1950: the British winter reconnaissance
The first documented winter attempt on Nanga Parbat occurred in December 1950, when a three-member British team of William Crace, John Thornley, and Robert Marsh scouted the Rakhiot Face.
Marsh descended with frostbiten toes, leaving Crace and Thornley in a tent at 5,500m. Both disappeared, likely swept away by an avalanche or caught in a storm.
"Thornley and Crace were both extremely determined," Marsh wrote for the Himalayan Club. "Thornley, for instance, marched 265km to Nanga Parbat over the Babusarr Pass, wearing a pair of gym shoes, in six days, and was in no way fatigued at the end. They were a fine pair of friends, and it took an expedition of this sort, where we lived close, in difficult conditions, to bring out fully the great qualities of endurance, patience, and kindness which were so characteristic of them. I am sure they wish for no better tribute than that. When they were last seen, they were still going up and still going strong."
1953: Nanga Parbat’s first ascent
The first successful ascent of Nanga Parbat was in 1953 via the Rakhiot Face. The German-Austrian expedition was led by Karl Maria Herrligkoffer (who did not climb), whose half-brother Willy Merkl had died in 1934.
The team included Austrians Hermann Buhl, Peter Aschenbrenner, Walter Frauenberger, and Kuno Rainer, plus Germans Otto Kempter, Hermann Kollensperger, Albert Bitterling, Fritz Aumann, and Hans Ertl. It also included several (unnamed in the literature) local porters who carried supplies to Base Camp and up to Camp 4.
The expedition followed what became the Buhl Route: starting at the Rakhiot Glacier with Base Camp at 3,967m, ascending to Rakhiot Peak, traversing the Silver Saddle, and climbing the North Ridge to the summit.
On May 24, the expedition reached Base Camp. On June 10, Buhl, Kollensperger, and porters set up Camp 2 at 6,200m on the Rakhiot Glacier. Two weeks later, the climbers and porters established Camp 4 at 6,700m, below Rakhiot Peak.
On July 1, Buhl, Kempter, Frauenberger, and Ertl set up Camp 5 at about 6,950m with porter support. The porters then returned to the lower camps.
Hermann Buhl’s solo summit push
On July 2, Buhl and Kempter stayed at Camp 5 before Kempter turned back. After delays and disagreements, Aschenbrenner, the climbing leader of the expedition, ordered a retreat because of the approaching monsoon. Buhl, determined to summit, continued alone.
On July 3 at 2 am, Buhl started his summit push, carrying food, a flag, some pervitin and padutin pills, but no rope and no supplemental oxygen. His solo push was in alpine style.
Pervitin was a drug containing methamphetamine, a powerful stimulant. It was widely used by the German military during World War II to enhance alertness and relieve combat fatigue. Padutin improves blood circulation and prevents frostbite by dilating blood vessels. Yet despite the pills, Buhl did suffer frostbite.
By morning, Buhl reached the Silver Saddle at 7,450m. On July 3, by 2 pm, he hit the Bazhin Gap at 7,830m, dropped his backpack, and climbed the Shoulder (8,070m). After a tough rock section, he reached Nanga Parbat’s summit at 7 pm the same day, after a grueling 17-hour climb. He left his ice axe on the summit.
On the way down, he bivouacked overnight on a narrow ledge at 7,900m. He returned to high camp on July 4 and reached Camp 5 at 7 pm after 41 hours, exhausted and frostbitten.
Buhl's solo push was a monumental achievement and is detailed in his book Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage.
Only four years later, Buhl disappeared on 7,665m Chogolisa.
Later ascents
The second ascent of the Buhl Route came on July 11, 1971, when Slovaks Ivan Fiala and Michael Orolin made the second ascent of Nanga Parbat's Rakhiot Face. Other members of the same expedition achieved first ascents of the southeast peak (7,600m) and the foresummit (7,850m).
The climbers had also attempted the Buhl Route in 1969. That time, adverse weather and logistical challenges halted them before the summit. They reached 6,950m.
This 1971 expedition remains the only successful repetition of the Buhl Route.
The Japanese Route
In the summer of 1995, Japanese climbers Hiroshi Sakai, Yukio Yabe, and Takeshi Akiyama established a new route on the Rakhiot Face, ascending below the East Peak and traversing to the North Ridge near the North Peak.
"After a 1992 reconnaissance to the north and a subsequent study of aerial photos, I was convinced we could climb a new route via the ridge derived from the East Peak of Silver Crag," Sakai wrote in the American Alpine Journal.
The Japanese party consisted of 10 members, though only three members had adequate experience at high altitude. Of these three, two were soon injured and unable to climb.
The expedition began on June 5 with a three-day march from Tatoo to a temporary Base Camp at 3,900m, using 100 porters to carry three tons of supplies. The main Base Camp was at 4,500m on the Great Moraine, higher than typical due to the long summit route. Acclimatization took five days, and they had established Camp 1 at 5,300m on the Rakhiot Glacier by June 11. From here, they deviated from the 1953 route.
The route from Camp 1 to Camp 2 involved a steep wall of snow and granite reaching 5,700m. The climbers faced a grade IV+ rock crack and a hazardous snow gully prone to rockfall named the Confessional Pitch because of its danger. On June 26, a falling stone injured one climber's arm, and he had to withdraw.
"As we climbed higher, we felt more and more rockfall flying down toward us, as our route led toward the upper part of this snow gully," Sakai recalled.
Inching higher, another injury
After overcoming an overhang and a jagged snow ridge, they set Camp 2 at 5,900m on June 25. Above Camp 2, at 6,300m, a 300m ice tower posed a major obstacle. The team navigated a vertical slit in the ice, climbing four pitches at 70°. Beyond this, the route eased into knee-deep snow along a ridge, leading to Camp 3 at 6,700m, established on July 4.
On July 7, Tamura was injured by a falling stone at the Confessional Pitch, requiring a three-day rescue. With only six climbers left, the team abandoned plans to traverse Nanga Parbat and rested until July 12.
The route to Camp 4 traversed the Silver Saddle’s flanks, tackling Yabe’s Crack, a 50m grade V climb. By July 18, after navigating 800m of snow and rock, Camp 4 was set at 7,350m near the Silver Plateau.
The summit push
On July 22, Sakai, Yabe, and Akiyama left high camp toward the summit. However, soon after, they returned to Camp 4 because Akiyama felt pain in his chest, and Yabe’s fingers and toes had gone numb with cold. During that night, they took oxygen to regain their strength.
On July 23, Sakai, Yabe, and Akiyama summited at 5:13 pm via a new route, after a grueling climb through the Silver Plateau and a steep summit wall. They faced exhaustion and worsening weather but reached the top.
The descent was tough, with a bivouac at 7,700m in a snowstorm. The team returned to Camp 4 after 39 hours and reached Base Camp on July 28 amid bad weather. Despite injuries and setbacks, the expedition succeeded, marking a new route on Nanga Parbat’s North Face.
This marked the third successful ascent of the Rakhiot Face and introduced a more direct but equally challenging alternative to the Buhl Route. No further ascents of this route have been recorded.
2008: a new route attempt
In the summer of 2008, Italian climbers Simon Kehrer, Walter Nones, and Karl Unterkircher attempted a new route via the Rakhiot Ice Wall.
The team arrived at Base Camp in late May, spending weeks acclimatizing and observing the Rakhiot Face, noting its avalanche-prone seracs and crevasses. On July 14, they began their summit push at 10 pm, hoping to minimize avalanche risk by climbing at night when it was coldest.
They cached a tent at 4,500m and began climbing again after midnight on July 15, navigating 60° ice and a near-vertical M4/5 mixed wall to 5,700m. After tackling deep snow and a serac, they reached 6,300m by 4 pm, where Unterkircher fell into a crevasse and died. Kehrer and Nones attempted a rescue but found his body buried under snow. Unable to recover it in dangerous conditions, they retrieved his gear and continued up.
Opting against a risky descent, they climbed toward the Silver Plateau via a longer, easier route through avalanche-prone slopes and steep mixed terrain. A storm on July 17 slowed progress with waist-deep snow, forcing bivouacs at 6,650m, 6,800m, 7,000m, and 7,300m.
They reached 7,500m on July 21. On July 22–23, they skied down the Buhl route in poor visibility, surviving two avalanches. Eventually, a Pakistani Army helicopter airlifted them from 5,400m to Base Camp on July 24. Recovering Unterkircher’s body was deemed impossible.
The route, named Via Karl Unterkircher (3,000m, IV-V M4+ 70°-80°), was dedicated to their fallen friend.
Since its last ascent in 1995, the Rakhiot Face remains unclimbed to the summit. Of the 80 people who have died on Nanga Parbat, more than a third perished on the Rakhiot Face.
You can find the climbing history of the Diamir Face here, and the Rupal Face here.
Tomorrow, Denis Urubko and his wife, Maria Cardell, will set off from Base Camp via a new route on the Diamir Face toward the summit of Nanga Parbat.
"The route is calling," Urubko told Mountain.ru. The Russian climber said that he and Cardell expect to spend four or five nights on the face during their pure alpine-style push.
Climbers elsewhere on Nanga Parbat and on other Karakoram 8,000'ers report very dry conditions and frequent rockfall. On the other hand, the weather has remained stable and warm.
Yesterday, some climbers reached the summit of Nanga Parbat while Klara Kolouchova of the Czech Republic lost her life in a fall.
Today, one of the Nepalese outfitters on the mountain has reported on the summits and given an official version of Kolouchova's accident.
Recent summiters included Nepalese Dawa Sherpa, Pasang Dukpa Sherpa, Lakpa Temba Sherpa, with Ali Hassan of Pakistan, who supported the climbers and fixed the ropes to the top as they went.
The international climbers were Dorota Rasinska-Samocko of Poland, Paula Strengell of Finland, Jorge Egocheaga of Spain and Rana Hassan of Pakistan. Unfortunately, Seven Summit Treks has not said whether the climbers used supplementary oxygen. Egocheaga has never used it, and Rana Hassan also wanted to climb without it.
July 4 summits
Horia Colibasanu summited Nanga Parbat at 7 am after a "long, hard night" from Camp 4. Colibasanu climbed on his own, with no oxygen or support beyond Base Camp. This is his 11th 8,000m peak, all in the same style.
It took Colibasanu nine hours to reach the top without oxygen from his Camp 4 at 7,100m.
Seven Summit Treks confirmed that Allie Pepper of Australia, with Mikel (Mingtemba) Sherpa and Dawa Sherpa have also reached the top.
Locals on top
In addition to staff working on the mountain, several Pakistani climbers have succeeded on Nanga Parbat.
Sohail Sakhi from Aliabad, Hunza, summited today on his own without oxygen or Sherpa support at 11 am. Sakhi previously summited K2 and both Gasherbrums. Shezad Karim, on O2, summited at 1 pm.
Ashraf Sadpara also summited and has now climbed all of Pakistan's 8,000'ers. He has also climbed K2 three times. Sadpara is the son of Ali Raza, a well-loved figure in Pakistani mountaineering, who dedicated years to mentoring young local climbers.
Saad Mohammed was supposed to be in the summit group this week, but things have not gone well for him. As he wrote on X, he needed two bivouacs to reach Camp 2 on Wednesday. He has remained there until today, suffering from fatigue and dehydration. Today, he is on the move to Camp 3.
Kolouchova's accident details
Seven Summit Treks has also provided some details on the fall that took the life of Klara Koluchova. They explained that the Czech climber fell above Camp 2 while she was descending. At the time, her supporting Sherpa, Taraman Tamang, was with her.
"She slipped on a rocky section of the mountain," 7ST wrote.
The agency also denies preliminary reports of an oxygen bottle explosion being involved in the accident. They offered a somewhat strange explanation: "The loud sound heard was caused by an oxygen bottle striking a rock during the fall, which created a noise resembling an explosion."
They added: "We kindly ask everyone to help disseminate accurate information and to respect the sensitivity of this tragic situation." Yet they avoid speaking of Kolouchova as deceased, merely identifying her as "missing," which also creates confusion.
Media around the world have reported on her death, which the Pakistani authorities have confirmed. The Czech media also revealed that Kolouchova's husband was a member of the expedition but didn't intend to climb beyond Base Camp.
The Pakistan army has deployed a helicopter to search for and retrieve Kolouchova's body from the mountain.
On the lower slopes of Nanga Parbat, well below those going for the summit, Czech climber Klara Kolouchova has died in an accident. The fatal circumstances remain murky.
The online media in Pakistan have posted different explanations. Early reports spoke of the explosion of an oxygen bottle. However, a later story in The Pamir Times suggests that Kolouchova fell somewhere between Camp 1 and Camp 2 at around 4 am this morning.
Climbing partners' report
“Her teammates later confirmed her death after reaching Base Camp, though the body remains at the fall site," Diamir's Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) Nizamuddin told The Pamir Times.
According to reports, Kolouchova was on Nanga Parbat with her husband and five other climbing partners. They had reached Base Camp on June 17. It is not clear whether they formed an independent group or were part of a larger team.
Tough conditions
Climbers on the mountain have reported tough conditions on the mountain this year because of high temperatures. There is little snow until Camp 3, and climbers have to thread past rocky sections and elsewhere, use the front points of their crampons on bare ice. There have also been several rockfalls.
Kolouchova was a cautious climber who was ready to turn around if conditions were too risky. That is what happened on her first attempt on Nanga Parbat last year. She aborted her attempt shortly after the Kinshofer wall because of weather and snow conditions.
Karrar Haidri, Secretary of Pakistan Alpine Club, confirmed her death and noted that an army helicopter will fly tomorrow morning to locate and retrieve her body.
Kolouchova, 46, was the first Czech female climber to summit the world's three highest peaks (Everest, K2, and Kangchenjunga). She had previously climbed Cho Oyu and, in 2024, added Annapurna to her successful 8,000m list. This past spring, she attempted Dhaulagiri. She was a mother of two.
Waiting for news about summits
Meanwhile, news is expected from the climbers who are high up on the mountain. Horia Colibasanu of Romania -- climbing independently without oxygen -- and Allie Pepper of Australia -- climbing with Mikel Sherpa -- will leave for the summit tonight.
Tashfeen of Pakistan, also without oxygen, is heading to Camp 4. Dorota Rasinska-Samocko of Poland returned to Camp 3 after summiting earlier today. There is very little information from the mountain, where there is no internet or cell connection.
A group of climbers has summited Nanga Parbat, according to the tracker of one of them.
Several climbers set off from Camp 3 (6,700-6,900m) yesterday for a long summit day. According to Allie Pepper of Australia (who will try to reach the top tomorrow), rope fixers marched at the front, preparing the route as they climbed. Neither Seven Summit Treks nor other outfitters has reported on their teams' progress, but individual climbers have texted their home teams via satellite. There is no Wi-Fi connection at Nanga Parbat Base Camp.
Steady progress
Dorota Rasinska-Samocko of Poland messaged her home team at 4:30 am local time, noting that her group had just crossed the high plateau before the summit pyramid. She estimated it would take them another four to five hours to top out. Her tracker subsequently verified her estimates. The signal shows steady progress, and she reached the top at 11:00 am Pakistan time. At the moment of posting this story, she is proceeding down at a good pace and nearing Camp 3.
This is Rasinska-Samocko's second time on the summit of Nanga Parbat. She completed the 14x8,000'ers last year, becoming the first Polish woman to finish the challenge, after two busy years. She summited Nanga Parbat and six other 8,000m peaks in 2022. At the time, she was part of the group outfitted by Seven Summit Treks that maintained an intense 14x8,000m climbing schedule. It culminated in her summit of Shisha Pangma in the fall of 2024.
Not the first summits
The commercial climbers were not the first on top this time. Marek Novotny and Ondra Hlasny of the Czech Republic went ahead of the rest and summited last week on the normal route, without the fixed ropes. And on June 24, David Goettler of Germany, plus Tiphaine Duperier and Boris Langenstein of France, summited via the difficult Schell route from the Rupal side of the mountain. The French climbers then made a complete descent on skis, and Goettler paraglided back to Base Camp.
We are still waiting for news from Denis Urubko and Maria Cardell, who planned to climb a new route alpine style on the Diamir Face of the mountain.
Climbers on Nanga Parbat reached Camp 3 today, despite tough conditions from the lack of snow. Still, that was the easy part. Now they need to decide whether to face uncertain forecasts and an extremely long summit day in order to follow the Sherpa rope fixers, or to wait another day.
The winds are strong, but they are not cold. Several climbers have commented on how warm it is at altitude.
Windy Camp 3
Horia Colibasanu is still in Camp 3. He was planning to move his camp higher today, but changed his mind and stayed at 6,650m for a second night.
"The wind is starting to blow...It would be too risky to head up at night, without oxygen, in these conditions," he said.
Instead, he will set off at 8 am, carrying his tent and supplies. He still intends to set up a fourth camp.
Allie Pepper and Mikel Sherpa are also in Camp 3, with the Australian climber admittedly exhausted after climbing long sections on rock and bare ice, front-pointing on her crampons. "[That] destroyed my feet and legs," she said. "There were falling rocks too, which was terrifying."
Pepper and Mikel Sherpa have their Camp 3 tent at 6,800m, a little higher than Colibasanu. Still, it is a long way to the top, so they, too, plan to move to Camp 4. However, not everyone is following the same strategy.
Rope fixers, others go tonight
As we have mentioned recently, outfitters are providing little or no information about progress on the mountain. We don't know, for example, if the ropes are fixed beyond Camp 3 or if there are tents at the altitude of Camp 4. Most climbers are communicating with home via their InReach devices, but not every home team shares that news on social media. However, Pepper's does, and she has reported that a group of climbers is leaving tonight and will go all the way to the summit behind the rope fixers.
These climbers are relying on supplemental oxygen and the strength of their guides to endure the long hours ahead. The summit is nearly 1,300 vertical meters above and also a long way horizontally.
Yet, the hardest part will be the descent. The tired summit climbers will probably need to rest and rehydrate at Camp 4, if tents and supplies are properly in place.
Dorota Razinska-Samocko of Poland is also in Camp 3 and confirms the difficult conditions getting there and pitching a tent.
"It took us [two hours] to make the platform," she texted. She and the group she is with intend to go for the summit tonight.
The ninth-largest mountain in the world, Pakistan's 8,125m Nanga Parbat has three main faces: the south-facing Rupal Face, the northeast-facing Rakhiot Face, and the northwest-facing Diamir Face.
On June 24, David Goettler, Tiphaine Duperier, and Boris Langenstein summited via the Schell Route after an 18-hour, alpine-style push from Camp 3 at 6,800m. From the summit, Duperier and Langenstein made the mountain's first complete ski descent, including the entire Rupal Face, according to Montagnes Magazine. Goettler paraglided from 7,700m to Base Camp.
This article will explore the climbing history of the Rupal Face.
The tallest mountain face
Many consider Nanga Parbat’s 4,600m Rupal Face the world's tallest mountain face because it forms a continuous, steep wall from the Rupal Valley at 3,500m to the summit at 8,125m. Its steep icefields, rocky buttresses, avalanche-prone slopes, and brutal weather make it a formidable challenge.
By contrast, 7,782m Namcha Barwa’s south face (5,282m to 5,782m high) and 7,294m Gyala Peri’s south face (4,794m to 5,294m high) both have greater total relief but include gentler, less consistent slopes, reducing their status as unbroken climbing faces.
The Rupal Face has had just 12 successful ascents across four routes.
The Messner Route: The first ascent
In 1970, Reinhold Messner and his brother Gunther climbed Nanga Parbat via the Rupal Face. They climbed up the South-Southeast Spur (often referred to as the Messner Route). The expedition was led by Karl Maria Herrligkoffer, and the Messner brothers reached the summit on June 27.
Because of worsening weather, exhaustion, and Gunther’s altitude sickness, the Messner brothers were unable to descend the Rupal Face. Instead, they made the first traverse of Nanga Parbat by descending the Diamir Face, following a route along the Mummery Rib’s lower slopes and improvising a westward path toward the Mazeno Ridge’s lower slopes, crossing gullies and snowfields near the Diamir Glacier.
Tragically, Gunther Messner died during this descent, likely in an avalanche on the Diamir Face.
Messner's route repeated
In 2005, a South Korean team started from Base Camp on April 20 in heavy snow. They set up Camp 1 at 5,280m and Camp 2 at 6,090m along the 1970 Messner Route.
They were still on the mountain in early June when bad weather hit them hard and destroyed their tents. Despite this, they made Camp 3 at 6,850m before an injury stopped their first summit attempt.
On July 13, Kim Chang-ho and Lee Hyun-jo left Camp 4 at 7,125m. After 24 hours, dodging falling rock and ice, they summited late on July 14. The climbers went down the Diamir Face, survived an avalanche, and reached Base Camp after 68 hours. On the summit, they found a container left by Reinhold Messner and returned it to him as proof of their climb.
An alpine-style attempt on the Messner Route
A notable attempt of the 1970 Messner Route came in 1988. Canadians Kevin Doyle, Ward Robinson, and Barry Blanchard, plus American Marc Twight, prepared by climbing nearby peaks.
Doyle, Robinson, and Blanchard tackled a new route on 6,500m Shigeri’s north face, spending two unplanned nights at altitude. Twight soloed a new route on Laila’s south face and east ridge (6,000m). The three of them reached 7,000m on the easier Schell Route.
On July 9, the team started on the Rupal Face by the Messner Route. They left with light gear: five days’ food, eight days’ fuel, two ropes, and some climbing equipment.
The first 1,000m were easy, but after camping below Wieland Rocks, the terrain got steep and hard, needing two ice tools. At 6,400m, they avoided a rockfall-prone gully, climbing tough mixed ground. In two and a half days, they gained 3,170m, resting for half a day on July 12.
They climbed a steep ice barrier and struggled through deep snow. At 7,300m, they faced hard, brittle ice in the Merkl Gully. By July 13, they reached 7,700m, close to the summit.
A close call
Here, their luck ran out. A sudden storm hit, with lightning, 160kmph winds, and avalanches. Robinson, sick and hypothermic, could barely move. An avalanche nearly swept them off the mountain while rappeling, but their one ice screw held. After five hours, they reached the Merkl Icefield and found shelter for Robinson.
Twight and Blanchard descended to 7,000m, losing a tent and both ropes. At 6,700m, they found a discarded pack from the 1984 Japanese team with ropes and gear. Their find helped them escape the mountain over the next day and a half.
"The atmosphere quivered, and I could hear the tension of the storm's electrical charge -- white noise crackling in my ears," Blanchard wrote in his book The Calling. "The midday sky was as dark as dusk...The avalanche had ended 27 minutes after it had begun. Ward's face looked old. Deep lines dragged down the corners of his mouth; I had never seen those lines in his face before. His eyes had the improperly focused look of shock, with too much black in his pupils."
On July 25, they tried again, climbing to 7,300m in just over two days. Sick again, Robinson retreated from 7,000m. Soon after, clouds and a brewing storm stopped the rest of the team, and they descended in 13 hours.
Importance of the 1988 attempt
This expedition was significant for several reasons. First, it highlighted the extreme challenge of the Messner Route, reinforcing its reputation as one of mountaineering’s toughest objectives. No team had summited via this route since 1970, and the 1988 attempt underscored why: the combination of technical ice climbing, unpredictable weather, and constant rockfall and avalanche risks demands exceptional skill and luck.
The team’s alpine-style approach — carrying minimal gear to move quickly — tested the limits of the strategy, showing both its potential and its vulnerabilities when equipment was lost. Their survival, especially after the storm and Robinson’s altitude sickness, demonstrated remarkable resilience and decision-making under pressure. Finding the Japanese pack was a stroke of luck that likely saved their lives.
Though they didn’t reach the summit, their 7,700m high point and detailed account provided valuable insights into this formidable route.
The Schell Route
The Schell Route has eight successful ascents.
We previously detailed the first ascent of the Schell Route, climbed in 1976 by Austrians Hanns Schell, Robert Schauer, Siegfried Gimpel, and Hilmar Sturm. David Goettler, Tiphaine Duperier, and Boris Langenstein repeated this long, difficult route a few days ago.
With only eight successful climbs, the importance of this latest ascent is obvious. The other ascents are: 1981 by Ronald Naar; 1984 by Oscar Cadiach and Jordi Magrina; 1990 by Marija Frantar and Joze Rozman; 1990 by Reinmar Joswig and Peter Mezger; 1990 by Osamu Nakajima; 2013 by Zsolt Torok, Teofil Vlad Dima, Aurel Salasan, and Marius Gane.
The 2025 ascent via the Schell Route comes 12 years since its last ascent in 2013, and Duperier becomes just the second woman to achieve this remarkable feat. Goettler had attempted this route four times previously.
The Southeast Pillar: The Polish-Mexican Route
In 1982, Swiss climber Ueli Buhler nearly conquered the Southeast Pillar. He reached the 8,042m south summit but was unable to continue to the main peak.
In 1985, a Polish-Mexican expedition opened a new route on the Rupal Face by the Southeast Pillar.
This 1985 expedition, led by Pawel Mularz, tackled the dangerous pillar in brutal weather. During the climb, Andrzej Samolewicz survived a 600m fall with only minor injuries, but an avalanche killed Piotr Kalmus while he descended from Camp 2 to Camp 1. On July 13, Jerzy Kukuczka, Zygmunt Andrzej Heinrich, Carlos Carsolio, and Slavomir Lobodzinski reached the summit from Camp 5, marking Kukuczka’s ninth 8,000m peak.
A winter solo attempt ends in tragedy
In the winter of 2012-13, Joel Wischnewski, a little-known mountaineer from France, attempted a highly ambitious solo climb of the Southeast Pillar on Nanga Parbat’s Rupal Face.
He left France at the end of December 2012, reached base camp on January 9, 2013, and made his last journal entry on February 6 from Camp 2, indicating he was moving up the Southeast Pillar.
When he didn't return, his agent in Pakistan launched a search. Three experienced Pakistani mountaineers climbed up the lower part of his proposed route, but found no trace of the Frenchman.
Wischnewski's body was found on Oct. 10, 2013, at approximately 6,100m on the Rupal Face near the foot of an icefall. Local villagers spotted his boots after the summer snowmelt in early September and notified the French embassy.
A team led by Brigadier Akram Khan recovered the body, and it was buried at the Herrligkoffer climbers’ cemetery near Base Camp. Wischnewski likely died in an avalanche.
The Central Pillar: The Anderson-House Route
Vince Anderson and Steve House climbed the Rupal Face by a 4,100m new route (M5, 5.9, WI4) in the autumn of 2005.
The duo's route up the Central Pillar was alpine-style and faced tough challenges, like loose rock on a hard 5.9 section. On day three, they reached a hanging glacier, then followed an icy ramp to their last camp at 7,400m. There, they joined the Messner Route at 7,900m and summited on September 6. Anderson and House descended by the Messner Route.
The 2005 Central Pillar route, distinct from the 1970 Messner Route and the 1985 Southeast Pillar, was a significant achievement and earned them the 2006 Piolet d’Or. Their climb followed a 2004 attempt by House and Bruce Miller, which reached 7,500m but was halted by altitude sickness.
A central route attempt
In 2005, Slovenian Tomaz Humar attempted a challenging new central route up the Rupal Face. He had previously tried a similar route in 2003 but retreated because of poor weather and health issues.
On this second attempt, Humar reached about 6,300m before bad weather trapped him, forcing him to dig into the snowy slope and wait for clearer skies and fewer avalanches. However, after days of waiting, he required a risky helicopter rescue by Pakistani pilots.
Climbing journalists and peers criticized him, but Slovenians watched the drama unfold on TV and celebrated Humar's safe return as a national hero. Four years later, Humar died on Langtang Lirung.
Another new route attempt
In 2018, Czech climbers Marek Holecek and Tomas Petrecek attempted a new alpine-style route on the Rupal Face.
Initially, they planned to establish a new line to the right of the 2005 Anderson-House route on the Central Pillar. However, bad weather and heavy snowfall forced them to adjust their plans. When a weather window opened, they shifted to a line closer to the 1970 Messner Route, following it until the Merkl Rinne, a steep gully used by the Messner brothers. From there, they deviated, climbing a new variation through rocky buttresses to the left of the gully, seeking a natural line of weaknesses.
After six days on the face, they reached approximately 7,800m on September 2. There, they were forced to retreat in increasingly strong winds (up to 100kmph). They were about 300m below the summit when they turned back.
They descended the Rupal Face, which Holecek described as extremely challenging, comparing it to a "cabriolet [horse-drawn carriage] trip without a windscreen in an ice storm."
Winter attempts
Since 1988, nine winter attempts have targeted the Rupal Face, but all were defeated by the extreme conditions.
Maciej Berbeka of Poland led three attempts. In 1988-89, his team reached 6,500–6,800m on the Messner Route before switching faces in harsh weather. In 1990-91, a Polish-English team reached 6,600m on the Schell Route, and in 1991-92, they reached 7,000m. Both times, severe weather stopped them.
Krzysztof Wielicki’s 2006-07 Polish expedition reached 6,800m on the Schell Route but retreated in fierce winds. As we previously noted, Joel Wischnewski vanished during his winter solo attempt in 2013. Tomasz Mackiewicz’s winter attempts on the Schell Route included a 2012-13 solo climb to 7,400m, and a joint effort with David Goettler to 7,200m in 2013-14.
In the winter of 2014-15, Russians Nikolay Totmjanin, Sergei Kondrashkin, Valery Shamalo, and Victor Koval reached 7,150m on the Schell Route before deteriorating weather, including high winds, snow blizzards, and zero visibility, forced them back.
Cleo Weidlich (a Brazilian-born American climber) and her Sherpa team abandoned their 2015-16 Schell Route attempt in treacherous conditions.
In 2021-22, Herve Barmasse and David Goettler stopped at 5,670m on the Schell Route because of avalanche risk and bad weather.
The Schell Route remains unclimbed in winter
While Nanga Parbat was finally climbed in winter -- on Feb. 26, 2016, via the Kinshofer Route on the Diamir Face by Simone Moro (Italy), Alex Txikon (Spain), and Ali Sadpara (Pakistan) -- the ever-formidable Rupal Face remains unclimbed during the harshest season.
Climbers are currently approaching the end of the packed trail on Nanga Parbat. The ropes are not yet fixed to the summit.
Horia Colibasau of Romania is resting today at "his" Camp 3, which is at just 6,650m. That's still far from the summit in both in altitude and distance, as seen in our Featured Image above.
"I'm thinking of taking my tent and climbing a little higher, to make it easier for me to go down and come back," he said.
This way, Colibasanu will launch his final summit push at night between Thursday and Friday.
Exhaustion vs shortage of supplies
In recent years, climbers have faced exhaustion and frostbite on Nanga Parbat due to the extremely long summit day from Camp 3. The 2023 season was particularly dramatic. Pawel Kopec of Poland died of exhaustion barely 200m from the tents. Azif Bhatti of Pakistan had to be helped down by Israfil Ashurli of Azerbaijan, who sacrificed his own summit bid.
On the other hand, spending one more day at altitude might leave Colibasanu short of supplies.
"I'm preparing some soup and a hot tea, then I'll start calculating gas and food, to decide whether to stay a day in Camp 4 (7,100m) or go straight to the summit," he told his home team.
Pepper in Camp 2
Allie Pepper of Australia and partner Mikel Sherpa are in Camp 2, according to Pepper's tracker. Their plan is to summit on Friday.
On June 24, Tiphaine du Perier and Boris Langenstein of France climbed the Schell route of Nanga Parbat. They then skied down the Rupal Face, which rises 4,600m from Base Camp to the summit.
This is the first ski descent of the Rupal Face and the first ski descent of 8,126m Nanga Parbat from the summit.
David Goettler summited with them and paraglided from 7,500m down to Base Camp.
Right strategy
This year, the team chose the right strategy: They acclimatized in Nepal in late May, then climbed Baruntse in early June. Then they flew to Pakistan and went right to Nanga Parbat. With the mountain in a dry condition and with rising temperatures, they prepared for a fast summit push, they told Montagnes magazine.
The trio set off from Base Camp on June 21 and climbed one camp a day until the summit morning, in perfect conditions.
Goettler and his companions chose the Schell route. Instead of heading directly up the Rupal Face, it traverses that side of the mountain to gain a ridge, and then from Camp 3, it switches to the Diamir side of the mountain.
That crossing was also the crux of the ski descent. The skiers described the descent from the summit as okay, but the traverse to the Diamir side on skis included an unpleasant mixed section with a lot of bare rocks, and a 30m rappel back to the Rupal side.
Success at last
As for Goettler, he has finally finished a project that has taken him five attempts, including two in winter. The German climber first descended a section on foot, then paraglided from approximately 7,500m at 6 pm in good conditions. He landed at Base Camp 30 minutes later.
Duperier and Langenstein had skied down Nanga Parbat's normal, Kinshofer route on the Diamir side in 2019, but that was not a complete descent. On that occasion, Duperier stopped before the summit, and although Langenstein reached the top, he had to descend some 50 vertical meters on foot until he found conditions suitable for skiing. Duperier waited for him and joined him on the way down.
There is news from both sides of Nanga Parbat: Czech climbers Marek Novotny and Ondra Hlasny have bagged the first summits from the normal route on the Diamir side, while David Goettler has finally -- after five attempts! -- triumphed from the Rupal side. He partnered with French skiers Tiphaine Duperier and Boris Langenstein.
At Base Camp on the Diamir side, most climbers have started a massive summit push. However, the route is not yet completely fixed, and conditions are deteriorating fast.
Diamir side
Sa'ad Mohamed of Pakistan confirmed that two Czech climbers, whom he identifies only as Marek and Ondra, summited at noon on June 26. We would welcome the help of the community to find their complete names. The expedition outfitter, Blue Sky Treks and Tours, posted the following story on Instagram:
Sa'ad Mohamed, climbing without oxygen, set off from Base Camp yesterday, accompanied by a partner identified as Tashfeen. They reached Base Camp at 4:40 pm and reported difficult conditions.
"The route up to Camp 1 has considerably deteriorated," Mohammad noted, referring to the effects of the intense heat.
Route in poor state
Meanwhile, Doroka Razinska-Samocko of Poland reached Camp 2 at 4 am today.
"We are climbing at night to avoid falling rocks and avalanches," she reported. "Everything is melting and sliding down. The Kinshofer Wall was difficult in these conditions."
Razinska-Samocko said she had climbed with Pasang Sherpa to Camp 2 but will proceed to Camp 3 tomorrow on her own. She will then go to Camp 4 the following day.
"It won't be easy -- we will need to fix ropes," she noted.
Horia Colibasanu of Romania is also in Camp 2, preparing to head for Camp 3. He mentioned that a rock fell on a tent near his. Luckily, no one was injured.
Ali Pepper of Australia, climbing with Mikel Sherpa and intending to summit without oxygen, also reported that the glacier sections are quickly melting under the witheringly hot temperatures. They planned to leave Base Camp today, 24 hours later than most climbers, hoping the route would still be safe.
Rupal Face
David Goettler confirmed on Instagram that he summited Nanga Parbat and posted what looked like a summit photo of him and French skiers Boring Langenstein and Typhaine Duperier. Unfortunately, the German shared no details about the route or the style in which they did it. They planned for an alpine-style push up the Rupal Face and said that if conditions permitted, the French climbers would ski down and Goettler would paraglide.
We know at least that Duperier and Langenstein had their skis with them:
Duperier and Langenstein climbed and skied Nanga Parbat via the normal route in 2019. They wanted to repeat the feat down the huge Rupal Face. We will have to wait to see if they succeeded.
Goettler, 43, was attempting Nanga Parbat for the third summer in a row and his fifth time overall, always in alpine style.
Over 450 permits
Pakistani media have reported that as of last week, Gilgil-Baltistan authorities have approved 469 mountaineering permits. That's likely almost the total for the season, since in Pakistan, everyone applies for permits in advance.
"The Department received 555 applications for mountaineering permits in 2025, surpassing last year's total of 423," The News said.
So far, the overall number of climbers on Pakistan's 8,000m peaks seems rather small this season. However, climbers coming to K2 and Broad Peak will soon add to the action, as big teams such as 14 Peaks Expeditions are starting their approach trek this week.
Alpine-style teams
A significant number of alpine-style teams have headed to the country's lower but technical peaks. Some started their projects very early in the season and are already done. The overall rise in temperatures and its impact on conditions have already reshaped the plans of some climbers, such as those on Ultar Sar, Hunza Peak, and Spantik.
Others will wait for what they hope will be better conditions in late summer or early fall. Last year, for example, Adam Bielecki of Poland and Louis Rousseau of Canada attempted some first ascents in the Hunza region in October but had mixed luck.
This topsy-turvy season, we have more information from alpine-style teams -- usually a reticent bunch -- than from the 8,000m commercial teams. Possible summits may have occurred on Nanga Parbat, but nothing is confirmed. Hopefully, the flow of news will increase soon, as some K2 and Broad Peak teams have just arrived in Base Camp.
K2
The first big groups have just arrived at K2 Base Camp. That is, if any group can be considered big this summer, when the Karakoram 8,000'ers are unusually quiet because of the India-Pakistan conflict this spring.
Summit Karakoram reports that its first group in Base Camp includes only 12 climbers: a small group from Nepal-based outfitter 8K and a small team from the UK's Impact Ascents -- two climbers, two high-altitude porters from Pakistan, and one Base Camp crew member.
Among the new arrivals is Vibeke Andrea Sefland of Norway, who is aiming for her 9th 8,000m peak. She has posted a nice description of the approach trek on social media, below, and will use a tracker during the expedition so that everyone can follow her progress.
Teams from Seven Summit Treks, Madison Mountaineering, and EliteExped should also be coming, but have not yet arrived. Mingma David Sherpa, hoping to reach the top of K2 for a record 7th time, will lead the EliteExped group.
Nanga Parbat
Nowadays on the 8,000m peaks, climbers typically progress at the pace of the rope fixers. However, independent climbers may hurry ahead of them to summit before the crowds.
Yesterday, Pakistani climber Saad Mohammed wrote on X that two unidentified Czech climbers may have reached the summit. The information has not been confirmed. Today, clouds cover the upper sections of the mountain. Mohammed noted that the weather has been cloudy over the last two days, with rain in Base Camp.
At last word, the high-altitude staff have fixed ropes above Camp 2 but have not yet reached the summit. A significant percentage of those attempting Nanga Parbat this summer intend to climb without supplementary oxygen. Most of them have already been to Camp 2, then retreated to Base Camp to rest and wait for better weather.
Rope fixers have begun securing the lower section of the normal route of 8,125m Nanga Parbat. Some independent climbers have begun their acclimatization. On the Rupal Face, David Goettler, Boris Langenstein, and Tiphaine Duperier are progressing. Here’s the latest news from Nanga Parbat.
Horia Colibasanu has spent this week acclimatizing. The Romanian aims to summit Nanga Parbat via the Kinshofer (standard) route on the Diamir Face without supplemental oxygen or high-altitude porters.
Three days ago, he reached Camp 1 at 5,000m and overnighted there. His mattress sprung a leak overnight, and by morning he felt like he was "in a boat." That night, about 12cm of snow fell, although temperatures remained mild at around 4–5°C.
He had intended to move higher, but conditions were too hazardous. The previous Sunday, a large avalanche had struck the couloir above the rock protecting Camp 1. So instead of risking that passage, Colibasanu descended to Base Camp to wait before attempting Camp 2.
Brutal climb, brutal sun
Yesterday, that opportunity came, and Colibasanu reached Camp 2 at 6,000m.
"It was brutal — 1,800m climbed with all my gear on my back," he wrote on social media.
He said the final 150m involved a tricky rock wall, and he found barely enough space for his tent. He managed to set it up on a two meter by one meter platform, securing it to fixed ropes to stabilize it. However, ice beneath part of the platform made leveling the tent challenging.
Sa’ad Mohamed of Pakistan also aims to summit Nanga Parbat via the Kinshofer route without supplemental oxygen or high-altitude porters. Today, he reached Camp 2 while acclimatizing, noting, "The sun is brutal up here."
Currently, there is no news from Denis Urubko and Maria Cardell, who are attempting a new route on the Diamir Face.
The Rupal Face
David Goettler, Boris Langenstein, and Tiphaine Duperier are climbing the demanding Schell Route on the hazardous Rupal Face.
The trio arrived a week ago and recently climbed to 6,000m to assess conditions. They are now at Latabo Base Camp, nestled beneath the Rupal Face, awaiting a suitable weather window. The team is climbing without external support or supplemental oxygen.
Goettler’s goal is to summit Nanga Parbat on this, his fifth attempt on the Rupal Face, then descend by paraglider, a feat never before accomplished. Langenstein and Duperier will ski from the summit.
The 1976 Schell route climb
On August 11, 1976, four Austrians — Hanns Schell (leader), Robert Schauer, Siegfried Gimpel, and Hilmar Sturm — summited Nanga Parbat via a new route, now known as the Schell Route, without supplemental oxygen. This was the fifth overall ascent of Nanga Parbat and the second ascent of the Rupal Face.
The Austrian team established Camp 1 at 5,100m in early July. After navigating rockfall and couloirs, they reached Camp 2 at 6,100m. They set up Camp 3 at 7,000m after heavy snowfall, during which they lost their cache of supplies and their tent was buried under two meters of snow.
From Camp 3, it took the Austrians four days to reach Nanga Parbat’s summit via this new route. After an eight-hour climb through deep snow, they established Camp 4 at 7,450m. On August 10, 1976, Schell’s team reached 8,042m by 7 pm but bivouacked at 8,020m due to darkness. On August 11, they finally summited, one month after leaving Base Camp.
In the early stages, the Austrians required fixed ropes and faced heavy snow and rockfall between Camps 1 and 2. A severe storm hit Camp 2 mid-climb, and monsoon-like rains and floods in Pakistan forced a six-day retreat to Base Camp.
Later, the weather cleared, but the snow had buried their equipment. A sudden gust nearly destroyed their Camp 3 tent. On the summit day, August 11, a storm at 8,000m forced a temporary retreat, but conditions improved by noon, with warm, clear weather at 7,700m.
Their descent, conducted between August 11 and September 5, 1976, was challenging. Schell suffered severe exhaustion and lung issues, which slowed their progress.
Current forecast on Nanga Parbat
Mountain Forecast indicates low winds at the beginning of next week. The weather for the summit and for 7,500m over the coming days is as follows:
Denis Urubko and Maria Cardell are in Pakistan to open a new alpine-style route on Nanga Parbat's Diamir Face. Here, we examine the climbing history of this formidable 4,000m wall.
Nanga Parbat (8,125m) is located in Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan region and has three main faces: the south-facing Rupal Face, the northeast-facing Rakhiot Face, and the northwest-facing Diamir Face. The Diamir Face is bordered by the Diamir Glacier to the west and the Mazeno Ridge to the south, which separates it from the Rupal Face.
The Diamir Face features a complex mix of steep snowfields, icy slopes, rock bands, and couloirs. There are significant avalanche-prone areas and seracs, especially in the lower and mid-sections. It is Nanga Parbat’s most commonly climbed face because of its short approach, established routes, and relatively low (but still significant) avalanche risk compared with the 4,600m Rupal Face or the Rakhiot Face’s long, dangerous glaciers. However, the Diamir Face has other significant hazards, including rockfall and crevasses.
Before the first successful ascent of Nanga Parbat in 1953, dozens of mountaineers had died on the mountain from avalanches and harsh weather. No one topped out until Hermann Buhl’s successful solo summit push via the Rakhiot Face, a story that we’ll revisit on its anniversary on July 3.
Reconnaissance
In 1932, Willy Merkl's German-American team explored Nanga Parbat. Though they focused on the Rakhiot Face, they also scouted the Diamir Face and noted its steep ice and rocky bands. In 1934, Merkl’s second expedition again prioritized the Rakhiot Face, but that expedition ended in tragedy when a storm killed Merkl, among others.
Paul Bauer’s German team mapped potential Diamir routes in 1938 while also focusing on the Rakhiot Face. In 1939, Heinrich Harrer and a German team scouted the Diamir Face, concluding it was a viable ascent route, but World War II and their internment in British India halted their plans.
Mummery’s audacious plan
The Diamir Face’s climbing history began in the summer of 1895 with British mountaineer Albert Frederick Mummery and his small team. They aimed to summit Nanga Parbat by the central rib, known now as the Mummery Rib or Mummery Spur. Their expedition was the first recorded attempt to summit an 8,000m peak.
Inspired by earlier reconnaissances in the Karakoram and a desire to test the limits of high-altitude climbing, Mummery formed an audacious plan: He'd climb an 8,000m peak without a large, heavily supported team typical of later Himalayan siege-style expeditions. Mummery’s alpine-style approach was groundbreaking for its minimalism, relying on a small group and limited resources.
Mummery's team included J. Norman Collie, Geoffrey Hastings, and Gurkha porters Ragobir Thapa and Goman Singh.
The Mummery Rib attempt
Mummery’s party approached from the Diamir Valley. His strategy was to scout and climb the central rib, a steep rocky feature on the Diamir Face that offered a direct route toward the summit.
Mummery's expedition reached 6,100m on the Mummery Rib, which was a remarkable achievement for the time, given their lack of supplemental oxygen, primitive equipment, and limited understanding of high-altitude physiology.
At 6,100m, Ragobir began to suffer from severe altitude sickness (likely high-altitude pulmonary edema), which forced the team to abandon their ascent. Mummery, Collie, and Hastings recognized the impossibility of continuing up the technically demanding and exposed Mummery Rib with a sick teammate in deteriorating conditions.
A tragic outcome
After abandoning the Mummery Rib, Mummery decided to explore an alternative route via the Rakhiot Face, hoping to find a more feasible line to the summit. On Aug. 24, 1895, Mummery, Ragobir, and Goman Singh set out on the Rakhiot Glacier. They were never seen again.
Collie, who remained at a lower camp, later concluded that an avalanche must have swept the trio away while they were crossing a snow-covered pass or glacier. Search parties found no trace of Mummery or the Gurkhas. Devastated by the tragedy, Collie returned to Britain and later wrote about the expedition, emphasizing Mummery’s bold vision and the inherent risks of high-altitude exploration.
After Mummery’s attempt, the exposed Mummery Rib saw little attention for decades. Early Nanga Parbat expeditions focused on the Rakhiot Face, and the Mummery Rib’s steepness and danger deterred climbers for years.
Descending the Diamir Face
In 1970, Reinhold Messner joined a German expedition to Nanga Parbat led by Karl Herrligkoffer. Messner and his brother Gunther climbed the Rupal Face, the steepest and highest rock-and-ice wall in the world, following a new route established by the expedition. They navigated steep icefields, rocky bands, and difficult terrain, reaching the summit on June 27. This marked Messner’s first 8,000m peak and was the first successful ascent of the Rupal Face.
After summiting, worsening weather and exhaustion made descending the Rupal Face too risky. With no fixed ropes or support, the Messner brothers chose to go down the Diamir Face, marking the first traverse of Nanga Parbat (Rupal Face up, Diamir Face down). They followed the Mummery Rib’s lower slopes before improvising a westward path toward the Mazeno Ridge’s lower slopes, crossing gullies and snowfields near the Diamir Glacier. Tragically, Gunther disappeared in this area during the descent, likely swept away by an avalanche. Reinhold barely survived, suffering severe frostbite and losing several toes.
Gunther’s remains, discovered in 2005, reinforced the accuracy of Messner’s earlier account, which had been controversial at the time.
Messner’s solo climb
In 1978, Messner returned to Nanga Parbat with a bold goal: to climb an 8,000m peak entirely alone, without support, fixed ropes, or supplemental oxygen.
Messner approached via the Diamir Valley and chose a new route on the Diamir Face, starting from Base Camp at 4,200m on July 20. He explicitly avoided the Mummery Rib because of high rockfall risk. Instead, he went further west toward the Mazeno Ridge’s lower slopes, steep icefields, and rocky sections. On August 9, equipped with minimal gear, he reached the summit, completing the first entirely solo ascent of an 8,000m peak.
For his descent, Messner chose a different route because of avalanche risk. Descending through a steep gully (now called the Messner Couloir) parallel to the Mummery Rib’s left side, he avoided the rib's rocky spur by staying west and crossing adjacent snowfields and gullies, especially in the lower sections He bivouacked three times during the descent, relying on his experience from the 1970 traverse.
A secret solo climb
In the summer of 1999, Hungarian Zsolt Eross ascended Messner’s 1978 descent route. For several years, Eross's climb was not widely known.
It began in July 1999, when four Hungarian mountaineers organized a trek in Pakistan. The team included Zsolt Eross, Andras Foldes, Laszlo Mecs, and Peter Dely. They had no money to obtain permits for an 8,000m peak and did not have proper gear or equipment.
They headed to the Nanga Parbat region with little beyond a tarp for a shelter and a little food they had rationed from the trek. Despite these limitations, they managed to climb 6,608m Ganalo Peak, a subsidiary peak of Nanga Parbat. Then, 31-year-old Eross told his friends that he wanted to explore Messner’s route on Nanga Parbat. Somehow, he persuaded the group to move to the base of the mountain.
Climbing without permits, they had to hide from the authorities. This game of cat and mouse prevented them from properly acclimatizing. Nevertheless, Eross began to ascend Messner’s 1978 descent route alone, with practically no rope or gear.
During his ascent, Eross made three bivouacs. His first was on the plateau below Messner’s Couloir at 5,400m, the second was where the route crosses left through the sloping rock barrier, and his third was below the final headwall. On July 18, 1999, Eross topped out despite deep snow on the upper sections.
From the summit, Eross descended to his highest bivouac and continued down parallel to the Mummery Rib. During the descent, he became lost, fell into a crevasse from which he eventually escaped, and was later swept down 400m by an avalanche. Though he lost 10kg and frostbit his toes, Eross survived the climb.
An incredible achievement, kept secret
Alongside Hermann Buhl (whose climb was partially solo, as Buhl climbed solo from 6,900m to the summit via the Rakhiot Face), Reinhold Messner (1978 Diamir Face), and Krzysztof Wielicki (1996 Kinshofer Route on the Diamir Face), Eross became the fourth person to summit Nanga Parbat solo.
For several years, Eross and his teammates kept the climb a secret, fearing they would be banned from entering Pakistan.
With no permit, Eross's climb was not officially recognized. However, it was undoubtedly a great solo mountaineering achievement, and his route remains significant for its historical connection to Messner's route.
Daniele Nardi
Italian Daniele Nardi made multiple attempts on the Mummery Rib, driven by a passion to climb it in winter.
In 2012–13, Nardi and Elisabeth Revol reached 6,400m but retreated in harsh conditions. Nardi tried again in 2013–14 and other winters, aiming to solo the Rib. His fifth attempt in 2019, with British climber Tom Ballard, aimed for a new winter route. They reached about 6,300m by February 24 and dropped out of contact soon after. Their bodies were spotted through a telescope on March 9 by Alex Txikon, ending rescue efforts delayed by weather and regional tensions.
No expedition has definitively ascended the entire length of the Mummery Rib to the summit. Its upper sections above 7,000m are unclimbed because of extreme danger. It remains one of mountaineering’s unsolved challenges.
The first ascent of the Diamir Face
The Diamir Face was finally ascended in 1962, when Toni Kinshofer, Siegfried Low, and Anderl Mannhardt climbed a buttress on the left side, now known as the Kinshofer Route. This was the second overall ascent of Nanga Parbat, following Hermann Buhl’s 1953 Rakhiot Face climb.
The 1962 route avoided the avalanche-prone central Diamir Face by ascending a buttress on the left side, reaching the Kinshofer Icefield, and traversing the Bazhin Gap to the summit. Tragically, Low died during the descent, and Kinshofer and Mannhardt suffered severe frostbite.
The modern normal route and further variations
The Kinshofer Route has become the standard route, with some variations that are minor adjustments to the established line. These variations are not entirely new routes, but adaptations to address specific conditions like rockfall or serac danger.
The current Kinshofer Route (called Kinshofer Line 1a) deviates slightly from the original 1962 route to avoid hazardous sections, particularly around the Kinshofer Icefield and Bazhin Gap.
In the summer of 1978, a team of climbers from Czechoslovakia set their sights on the Diamir Face. The team included Andrej Belica, Joseph Just, Marian Zatko, and Juraj Zatko. They reached the North Summit at 7,800m by a variation of the Kinshofer Route. This ascent, though less celebrated than Reinhold Messner’s solo climb on the face’s right side that same year, was an impressive achievement.
In 2003, Jean-Christophe Lafaille and Simone Moro climbed a new 1,400m line (the "Tom and Martina" route) in alpine style on a broad buttress/spur, left of and parallel to the 1978 Slovak Route. Graded at 90° ice and M6, it later joined the Kinshofer Route. Lafaille continued to the summit via the Kinshofer with Ed Viesturs, whom he met at Camp 3.
In 2022, because of rockfall on the Kinshofer Route, a team led by Mingma G switched to a variation approximating Messner’s 1978 route and established a new Camp 1 at 5,100m. This wasn’t a new route, but a tactical shift to a safer line on the Diamir Face.
Slovenians to the upper Mazeno Ridge
In the summer of 2011, two Slovenian women, Mojca Svajger and Irena Mrak, attempted the Diamir Face. They originally aimed for the Kinshofer Route in a classic siege style, without supplementary oxygen or high-altitude porters. However, they switched to an alpine-style ascent beside the Mummery Rib and reached the upper Mazeno Ridge at 7,590m.
On July 24, the Slovenian party established a Base Camp at 4,250m, below the Diamir Face. By August 10, they had acclimatized by reaching 5,800m on the slopes of the Mazeno Ridge and Ganalo Peak. On August 23, the team began their ascent, targeting a direct line on the face to reach the Mazeno Ridge.
They climbed through challenging terrain, including the Messner Couloir, a steep gully with slopes of 45°–60° and a section of 70°. The route was exposed to serac fall, particularly between 4,700m and 5,800m, and included navigating black ice and falling rocks below the Messner Serac.
The two climbers reached the crest of the upper Mazeno Ridge at 7,590m on August 23 at 1:30 pm, ascending 3,100m.
"We missed the passage to the summit," Irena Mrak told ExplorersWeb. "[But] we completed a route to the ridge, spend nine days in the face, and had a severe accident on our return in the Messner/Mummery Couloir. Obviously, we survived."
The pair reached Base Camp on August 25 after a three-day descent.
While they did not reach the main summit, the Slovenians' new route was notable for completing a significant portion of the Diamir Face and connecting to the Mazeno Ridge.
Reinhold Messner, commenting on this ascent, said: “The summit isn’t that important. The adventure counts. Eight bivouacs on such a dangerous face is worth more than a few summits by all the prepared normal routes on 8,000m peaks.”
More notable climbs
The Mazeno Ridge was finally fully climbed to the summit in 2012 by Sandy Allan and Rick Allen. They started up the Schell Route to the summit and descended by the Kinshofer Route on the Diamir Face.
In 2022, Francois Cazzanelli and Pietro Picco climbed a 1,400m variant (M6, 90° ice, 85° snow) to 6,000m, joining the Kinshofer Route. Their variation, Aosta Valley Express, included a new start to the Kinshofer Route, not an independent new route.
This month, Urubko and Cardell hope to write a new chapter in the history of Nanga Parbat.
Pakistan climbs this year will range from attempts at a bold new route and the first ski descent of the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat to ultra-commercial approaches. The climbing styles seem worlds apart, yet they reflect both how much the high-altitude scene has changed and how some climbers continue to tackle big mountains in the spirit of classical adventure.
Denis Urubko and Maria Cardell climbed their last acclimatization peak near Skardu today, June 11. They summited a 4,560m peak and climbed 4,000 vertical meters in a day. Now, they're moving to Nanga Parbat for their main goal: a new route up the Diamir Face.
The last climbers to attempt a new route on an 8,000m peak in Pakistan were Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima. The Japanese pair targeted a new line on the West Face of K2 last summer, after years of preparation. The veteran pair had previously opened routes on Rakaposhi, Shispare, and Tirich Mir, winning Piolets d'Or for each of them.
In the end, they perished on K2. Before them, the last person to attempt a new route on one of Pakistan's five 8,000'ers was none other than Denis Urubko, when he tried Broad Peak in winter. The last success? None other than Urubko again, on Gasherbrum II.
Off the normal route
Not a first ascent but still impressive is the upcoming attempt by David Goettler, Typhaine Duperier, and Boris Langenstein to climb the 4,600m-high Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat. This is Goettler's fifth attempt on the Rupal Face, as he explained to ExplorersWeb earlier this week. If possible, he will paraglide from the summit, while Duperier and Langenstein want to ski down. The team flew to Skardu today.
Independent climbers
Horia Colibasanu of Romania is trying to carve out some independent space on the increasingly commercialized mountains, as he pursues the 14x8,000'ers in his own style. He uses the Base Camp logistics of the big commercial teams and sticks to the normal routes fixed by Sherpa and Balti climbers. However, he uses no supplementary oxygen, carries his own gear, and climbs on his own and at his own pace.
Today, Colibasanu is on the road to Base Camp and sharing the bus ride with Jorge Egocheaga of Spain. Although he has not shared his plans for Nanga Parbat, he always climbs in a similar style. They should reach Base Camp this week.
Inaki's path
Colibasanu and Egocheaga won't be exploring new ways to climb an 8,000m peak. Both have been climbing this way since they first set foot in the Himalaya 20 years ago. Early in the 21st century, independent climbers from all over the world shared a collective climbing permit. Once in Base Camp, they coordinated informally with other climbers to work on the mountains, fix ropes when needed, and break trail to the summit.
At the time, Sherpa staff were rare beyond Base Camp, and oxygen was mostly used only in emergencies. One of the best-known climbers of that age was the charismatic Inaki Ochoa de Olza of Spain, a regular partner of both Colibasanu and Egocheaga until his death on Annapurna in 2008.
There were a few commercial expeditions in the Karakoram even then. They offered Base Camp crews and guides, but the help in these wild mountains of Pakistan was minimal compared to the fully serviced ventures of recent years.
Nanga's first commercial team
Ralf Dujmovits of Germany led the first commercial expedition to Nanga Parbat in 2001 with his former company, Amical Alpin. It had 13 clients, Hajo Netzer as a second guide, and high-altitude porters Qudrat Ali and Emrodin from Shimshal.
"Qudrat and Emrodin carried part of the group equipment, and the clients and guides carried some...Each carried his own personal equipment...Several of the clients helped to fix ropes and break trail," Dujmovits said in a recent post on social media.
"None of us used oxygen...There was a single bottle of oxygen at each camp for emergencies only," Dujmovits recalled. Nine clients, the two porters, and the two guides summited together during the seven-week expedition.
2025: Purja and Harila's way
Seven weeks for one expedition. Meanwhile, nine weeks is the time that Kathmandu-based 14 Peaks Expeditions considers necessary for clients to summit all five of Pakistan's 8,000m peaks.
The outfitter's plan is to follow the style of Nirmal Purja and Kristin Harila -- use large, oxygen-loaded Sherpa crews to fix the routes well in advance, even in tough conditions. Then the clients use helicopters to hurry from one peak to the next, assisted by further Sherpa guides every step of the way.
In this fashion, Purja and Harila completed the 14 8,000m peaks in record time. In 2023-24, 14 Peaks CEO Tashi Sherpa used this approach with his own son, 18-year-old Nima Rinji Sherpa, who was trying to become the youngest to summit the 8,000m peaks. He succeeded.
It remains to be seen whether any client can keep that crazy pace, and whether the Karakoram's typically unstable weather will cooperate. In addition, helicopters are not as easy to hire in Pakistan as they are in Nepal. The service is extremely pricey -- about $20,000 per flight last year -- and is exclusively managed by the military.
Finally, it remains to be seen how far the expedition leaders will stretch the threshold of risk for both their clients and their staff in order to meet such ambitious deadlines.
David Goettler is on his way to Nanga Parbat with French skiers Tiphaine Duperier and Boris Langenstein. The 43-year-old German is tackling Nanga Parbat for the third spring-summer in a row and his fifth time overall. This week, he spoke to ExplorersWeb about his plans and the changing world of Himalayan climbing.
Last year, Goettler teamed up with Mike Arnold of the U.S., but Arnold decided to abort his attempt. Goettler spontaneously joined with Duperier and Langenstein, who were attempting to ski the mighty Rupal Face. The three launched a single, alpine-style push but didn't succeed.
Twelve months later, Goettler, Duperier, and Langenstein are back to attempt the hardest side of the mountain again. Duperier and Langenstein are world-class alpinists and skiers who are familiar with Nanga Parbat. In 2019, Duperier reached 7,800m while Langenstein summited. He then started skiing down from 50m below the top, the first point at which skiing was possible.
Duperier joined him at 7,800m as he descended, and they skied down the rest of the way together. The pair also skied Laila Peak in 2018 and Gasherbrum II's South Spur in 2021.
Baruntse
The three climbers began their preparations in late spring in Nepal, climbing in Langtang, then on Island Peak. Their prep culminated last week with an after-season ascent of Baruntse in the Khumbu.
"We were just days after the Everest climbers had finished, and the Khumbu was completely empty," said Goettler. "We had such a good time. Climbers complain about the crowding but then insist on climbing only in April and May. We need to spread out the season differently."
Goettler also praised winter as an interesting time to climb lesser peaks in Nepal. "Trekking peaks can be climbed all winter long with good equipment," he said. "During the day, it's often sunny and nice, and you'll have the mountains to yourself."
On Baruntse, they indeed had the peak to themselves, and in fact, theirs were the only summits this year. Conditions were good in base camp, but as the trio set off toward the top from their high camp at 6,400m, they were enveloped in a whiteout. They had to use their GPS devices to ascertain the highest point on the ridge.
The thick fog also thwarted Duperier and Langenstein's plan to ski down, while Goettler had hoped to paraglide down to Base Camp the fast way. On the positive side, the wind was not too strong, unlike most of this climbing season.
Changing conditions
The German noted how the mountain is becoming harder to climb because of climate change.
"The ice is getting more and more tricky, there are two big crevasses that are opening up and getting more difficult to navigate around," he said.
He explained that at a certain point, they had to rappel down and then climb up the other side of a crevasse. They had a 60m rope with them, but commercial teams would need to install ladders across it.
"The conditions on 6,000'ers and 7,000'ers are changing fast because of global warming," said Goettler. "Island Peak, for instance, is now bare of ice on the upper sections, and rockfall is frequent. It can still be done, but climbers need to know that in advance and not underestimate the climb."
Different times
David Goettler visited Nepal for the first time in 2003 and has returned at least once a year ever since. He has seen both the country and the climbing scene change during that time.
Goettler climbed with some of the best-known high-altitude climbers of the early 21st century, from Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and Ralf Dujmovits to Ueli Steck and Simone Moro. He has seen the evolution from small teams to the crowds on Everest. And yet, he climbed Everest without oxygen or Sherpa support in 2022.
"The commercial side of the 8,000'ers has exploded in the last decade, but this is a development that we saw in the Alps years ago and now we see in the Himalaya," he said.
Oxygen is not alpinism
"The issue is that we -- meaning both wide audiences and seasoned climbers -- still confuse the concepts of alpinism and commercial ascents. They are completely separate activities."
Goettler adds:
I have no problem with people climbing Everest in five days with all the help they can get, but their motivations to climb that mountain are totally different from mine. What these express teams are doing cannot be considered an evolution of alpinism but an evolution of a touristic activity that takes place in the mountains.
They have a right to be there, as long as they respect the environment, the local communities, and the safety criteria. People also climb Mont Blanc in the Alps [with a boost from] cable cars, which are even more invasive than helicopters. In some aspects, we should learn from the mistakes we made at home.
The German climber has a similar view about the Xenon therapy used by the British team that climbed Everest in five days.
"For me, Xenon wouldn't be an option because I consider it an external aid, like oxygen, and I do not use oxygen when I climb at altitude. However, there is no big difference between using Xenon and using oxygen, which can be set to flow at up to eight liters per minute," said Goettler. "I don't understand why some are outraged about Xenon but consider using oxygen the most natural thing."
Longing for freedom
In recent times, alpine-style teams seem to focus on lonely peaks less than 8,000m high but which offer isolated locations and options for new routes. Meanwhile, on the 8,000'ers, almost everyone sticks to the normal route. Can guided teams and alpinists coexist on these highest peaks?
Goettler believes they can, but he is concerned about an excess of regulations, such as the ones in Nepal that begin this fall, which practically ban independent climbers.
The concern is we might end up with hyper-regulated expeditions as in Tibet, when you can't just obtain a permit to climb anywhere beyond the normal route or to climb Everest without oxygen. I wish so much to go to Cho Oyu, where there are options to climb new routes from Tibet, or Shisha Pangma, where I retreated some meters below the summit on the South Face! I hope Nepal will not go the same way.
I am happy I had the chance to experience the Himalaya when there were not so many regulations and not so many people.
Goettler also believes that there is potential for new routes on the 8,000'ers, but that sometimes, bureaucracy stands in the way. "As I said, Cho Oyu offers options, but getting a permit now would be much more difficult than the climb itself."
He adds that other 8,000'ers still offer "some crazy-difficult faces that I would never attempt."
The risk debate
In this modern era, Himalayan alpinists are not unanimously admired for their purity of spirit. They sometimes receive criticism for the risk their activity involves. Guide and outfitter Lukas Furtenbach recently compared alpinists to modern gladiators ready to die, and who “eschew safety margins and embrace high personal risk.”
Responds Goettler, a professional mountain guide who has climbed since he was seven years old: "I assure you, I consider what I do very far from suicidal, especially if you bear in mind the huge number of times I have turned around on expeditions. Of course, commercial expeditions must prioritize safety, which is exactly what I do when I am guiding clients, but also when I climb on my own. My own climbing projects might look risky from the outside, but I am very conscious of conditions during every moment of the climb, the equipment I use, my skills, and how to keep within acceptable margins of safety."
Goettler says he has acquired experience and skills in small steps over the years.
"This may not be the norm now, when fewer people are ready to invest time to learn and evolve as climbers," he says. "Instead, they take shortcuts to the summit, by taking oxygen, a guide, etc. Again, I don't judge such choices, and it works for some people, who climb the 14x8,000'ers during their first two years in the mountains. But that does not mean they are capable of making any decision on their own up there. That only comes through knowledge and experience."
Climb up, fly down
Goettler tries to paraglide from his summits. He points out that while ascents are regulated, flights in Nepal are allowed on nearly every mountain. This makes it possible to avoid dangerous descents and even makes new routes safer.
"If conditions permit, flying down from the summit is the safest way I can think of descending a mountain," he said.
Paragliding from summits after fast and light climbs has become a trend among elite climbers, especially in Europe. Last year, Benjamin Vedrines sped up K2, then paraglided down from the summit, doing the round trip in 11 hours. Others on his team also flew from the top that day.
Back to Nanga Parbat
Goettler considers Nanga Parbat a special peak, quite different from Everest on the 8,000m spectrum.
This will be Goettler's fifth attempt on Nanga Parbat via the Schell route on the sheer Rupal Face. He has tried twice in winter, first in 2013-14 and then in 2021-22 with Herve Barmasse and Mike Arnold. He attempted it again with Benjamin Vedrines in 2023 and with Mike Arnold last year.
In addition to being one of the biggest mountain faces in the world (it's nearly 4,600m from base to summit), the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat can be especially dangerous in mild temperatures. That is one of the reasons Goettler attempted it in winter. However, he believes conditions may remain good for a few more weeks.
"The route is risky in summer since a lot of rocks are falling on the lower part, but the last two years, I went there in June, and conditions were okay."
Their plan is to climb the mountain alpine style. If all goes well, he will fly back down to Base Camp, although he admits that the chances for that will be "very slim." His partners will ski.
Goettler, Duperier, and Langenstein move to Nanga Parbat this week, and we may not hear from them in a while. We will update when we do.
Those climbers who didn't cancel their plans when the hostilities erupted between India and Pakistan, or those who made their minds at the last minute, are on their way to Nanga Parbat. Many are seeking to complete their 14x8,000m lists. Others have already done so but are returning to the so-called Killer Mountain.
No-oxygen climbers
Less crowds in key sections as the Kinshoffer Wall will be positive for those attempting the mountain independently, such as Horia Colibasanu of Romania. As usual, he will climb without porters or supplemental oxygen.
Ashraf Sadpara of Pakistan also plans to climb Nanga Parbat without supplementary oxygen, as he previously did on K2, Broad Peak, and the two Gasherbrums. He is the son of Ali Raza, one of the best-known and admired climbers in Pakistan. As one of the country's first climbing instructors, Ali Raza became the mentor for a whole generation. He perished in a rock-climbing accident in 2022.
Alpymon blog reports that Marie Saame of Estonia is on her way to Nanga Parbat as well. She intends to climb the 14x8,000'ers without oxygen, porters, or personal guides. She has previously climbed Gasherbrum II, Broad Peak, and Manaslu. Saame also attempted Annapurna this spring but couldn't summit for health reasons. She is also a professional violinist specializing in the music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
One more time on Nanga
Also in place is 14x8,000'ers summiter Jorge Egocheaga of Spain. Egocheaga claimed to have summited the 14x8,000'ers without supplemental O2 years ago, but his K2 climb was disputed and not accepted by 8,000ers.com. The site also concluded that Egocheaga had not reached the true summits of Manaslu and Annapurna.
Usually quiet about his plans, Egocheaga returned to the Himalaya a couple of years ago to "correct" his resumé, climbing all three peaks. The last of these was Annapurna, which he summited on May 17 this year. Nowadays, he climbs with Seven Summit Treks. As a medical doctor by profession, he often attends to sick climbers in Base Camp.
Dorota Rasinska-Samocko is also about to reach the Base Camp of Nanga Parbat. Last year on Shisha Pangma, she became the first Polish woman to complete the 14x8,000'ers.
A small number of alpine-style teams in Pakistan are currently acclimatizing. The Spantik team has already moved above Base Camp, while Denis Urubko and Maria Cardell are doing their rounds in the lesser ranges near Skardu before attempting a new route on 8,126m Nanga Parbat.
As a pure alpine-style ascent, it makes sense that they acclimatize on different peaks rather than on their targeted route. Urubko also believes that rotations at high altitude cause a climber to lose fitness.
"The climber gains altitude step by step but becomes weaker," he said in an interview with Mountain.ru. "On the contrary, intense hikes or ascents with a large altitude gain [in lesser ranges] allow you to keep your muscles in good shape."
Mid-altitude hikes and climbs
Skardu's new international airport is the gateway for all expeditions to the Karakoram and the Nanga Parbat region. The town lies at 2,228m and features plenty of straightforward peaks of 4,000m to 5,000m nearby. Some are close enough to summit on day trips.
After arriving last weekend, Urubko and Cardell hiked to 3,101m. The following day, they climbed a 4,560m peak.
Urubko's personal project
In a previous email shared by Mountain.ru, Urubko noted the acclimatization phase would take them a couple of weeks. Then they'll move to the northern, Diamir side of Nanga Parbat to attempt a new route the ace Russian climber has been planning for a while.
This is the first time Urubko has returned to the higher mountains after he suffered frostbite after falling in a crevasse on a winter attempt to Gasherbrum I two years ago. Urubko has made it clear that while his wife will start with him, he is also ready to climb it on his own.
"If Masha [Maria Cardell] can’t keep up, I’ll try it solo," Urubko wrote in his email.
Family issues prevented Cardell from joining until last week, but she is at least partly acclimatized, as she worked all winter as a ski patroller at a resort located between 2,200m and 3,300m in Spain's lofty Sierra Nevada. But a new line on Nanga Parbat is a major endeavor, and the Diamir face is huge, from 4,900m of the base of the wall to the summit at 8,126m. In some sections, the avalanche risk is considerable.
Spantik
Further north, in the Shigar area, a French-Pakistani team led by Mathieu Maynadier is ready to start climbing 7,027m Spantik.
They set off from base camp at 4,200m last weekend, after a rather rough approach trek over a glacier, which included some difficult passages among crevasses. It was hard to find a safe passage for the entire convoy, which included the climbers, two cooks, 42 porters, 8 chickens, 1 goat, 17kg of rice, and all the camping and climbing equipment.
Maynadier is teaming up with local climber Muizz Ud Din, as well as fellow Frenchman Loury Lag, and videographer Nathanael Sapey-Triomphe. Drone operator Ozair Khan will film the climbers from base camp.
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Hellias Millerioux of France has also posted some photos from his below-the-radar expedition. He is currently on an approach trek but has not shared details about the peak.
A strong Polish team is preparing to climb Nanga Parbat in the next few weeks. The team believes that climate change is affecting the climbing seasons and hopes they'll find better conditions (and no crowds) on a mountain that is usually climbed in early summer.
The team comprises Artur Malek, Marek Chmielarski, Marek Olczak, Pawel Michalski, Rafal Fronia, and Wojtek Flaczynski.
Adapting to changing climate
"We need to change our habits and evolve in the mountains, just as the whole world is evolving," Fronia wrote on social media. "Climate change is causing the mountains to melt and fall apart. They become extremely dangerous, especially in the summer when the rocks get loose and fall."
Fronia goes on to explain that in this "golden era" of commercial Himalayan climbing there is no room for tents in the higher camps and no silence in the peak season.
A previous off-season attempt failed
The Polish climbers will have plenty of silence and the mountain to themselves. However, good conditions are not guaranteed. The Polish climbers are not the first to come up with the idea of climbing Nanga Parbat in autumn.
In August 2022, Mingma G of Imagine Nepal also placed his bets on an off-season attempt. The climb didn't go as planned. On the Kinshoffer route, the team was pushed back by rockfall below Camp 2. They switched to the Messner route but, once again, constant avalanches prevented the team from launching a summit push. Eventually, Mingma G aborted the expedition.
The Polish team will reach Base Camp later than Imagine Nepal's 2022 expedition. Perhaps they'll find better conditions.
Jousaf Khawaja of Pakistan and his 15-year-old daughter Selena have been descending from a failed summit attempt on Nanga Parbat for the last three days, exhausted and in bad weather. All the summiters from previous days have already left Base Camp. The Khawajas finally reached Base Camp today, but their attempt has raised concern among the international climbing community and reopened the debate about responsibility and age limits on the 8,000ers.
The pair left Camp 3 (6,850m) at 9 pm local time on July 10 and climbed through July 11 in worsening weather. Finally, they turned around at about 7,525m at 4:15 pm -- after nearly 19 hours! -- and retreated back to Camp 3.
One day earlier, a group of climbers reached the summit, but others, such as skiers Anna Tybor and Tom Lafaille, turned around when the weather worsened, as they considered conditions unsafe.
On Friday, the Khawajas were reportedly too tired to move from Camp 3. They spent the day and the following night there. They finally moved to Camp 2 yesterday and continued to Camp 1, according to sources in Base Camp. Finally, the pair, who climb with supplementary O2 and two high-altitude porters, made it to Base Camp earlier today.
'Harrowing' summit push
Apparently, Selena's summit push was also harrowing between Camp 1 and Camp 2, which they climbed two days before retreating. That section includes the vertical section known as the Kinshofer Wall, and the young Khawaja wrote a dramatic Facebook post that was deleted shortly afterward. Here it is:
If this is confirmed, it is not surprising that she was exhausted before setting off from Camp 3.
Age limits
The Khawajas also raised concerns on Broad Peak in 2021 when the father became sick in Base Camp and left his daughter, then 13, alone with two porters and with instructions to climb the mountain by herself.
Last year, they attempted Nanga Parbat.
Minors who have not yet turned 16 are banned from climbing 8,000'ers Nepal. The minimum age in Tibet, at least for Everest, is 18.
Going without bottled oxygen, Vadim Druelle of France climbed Nanga Parbat fast. Faster than anyone, it turns out.
Druelle did it in a mind-blowing 15 hours and 15 minutes from Base Camp to summit. This smashes Francois Cazzanelli's previous record of 20 hours and 22 minutes that he set in 2022.
The climb was a promising feat for an athlete who is only 22 years old. It was particularly impressive because Nanga Parbat has one of the highest elevation gains of all the 8,000'ers: some 3,900 vertical meters in 20 kilometers between Base Camp and summit.
Druelle, who was supported by Seven Summit Climbs, had the trail broken by other climbers. Still, his time is remarkable.
Speed and no oxygen have been Druelle's specialty on the 8,000'ers. He summited his first one, Manaslu, in that style at only 19 years old. Then he did Kangchenjunga in less than 19 hours in 2023. Earlier this year, Druelle planned a FKT on Annapurna but had to abort the climb because of food poisoning.
Anna Tybor of Poland and Tom Lafaille of France were not among the group of climbers who summited Nanga Parbat yesterday. They turned around 100 meters below the summit, as they considered conditions too dangerous to proceed.
Tybor and Lafaille went from Base Camp to Camp 2 on Monday and Camp 4 (at 7,400m) on Tuesday. They launched their summit push on Wednesday.
They reported that the weather quickly worsened, and they finally decided to retreat at an altitude of 8,050m. The pair returned to Camp 3, where they spent yesterday night resting. They are expected back in Base Camp today.
News should come soon from the climbers who summited yesterday, following the Sherpa rope fixers. Vibeke Andre Sefland of Norway, one of yesterday's summiters, was just below Camp 1 when reporting this story, according to her tracker, so she will likely be back in Base Camp today.
The commercial climbing season in Pakistan has kicked off with the first summits of 8,126m Nanga Parbat.
Rope fixers Lakpa Temba Sherpa and Pemba Sherpa of Nepal and Dilawar Sadpara and Fida Ali of Pakistan reached the top of the world's ninth-highest mountain yesterday evening. The rest of climbers, who had meanwhile proceeded to Camp 4, followed this morning.
Seven Summit Treks' list of summiters includes two climbers who went without oxygen. Vadim Druelle of France, who usually does fast, one-push ascents, and Israfil Ashurli of Azerbajan, who sacrificed his Nanga Parbat summit last year to help a Pakistani climber in trouble. While unconfirmed, both were likely climbing without personal sherpa support.
The rest of the summit group comprised three clients and four sherpa guides: Al Harthy Nadhira Ahmed Abdullah of Oman, Viveke A. Sefland of Norway (doing the 14x8,000'ers), and Thomas Ntavarinos of Greece. Ngima Wangdak Sherpa, Ngima Dorchi Sherpa, and Phubadhile Sherpa accompanied them.
We expect to hear this week from skimo runners Anny Tybor of Poland and Tom Lafaille of France. The young climbers intended to summit without oxygen and ski down, using a technical variation near Camp 2 to avoid stepping off their skis on the Kinshofer Wall. When they left Base Camp, the pair said they aimed to summit tomorrow. The skiers published this short video on social media:
Relentless bad weather has caused some climbers to abandon Nanga Parbat, while others, including skiers Anna Tybor and Tom Lafaille, continue to stick it out, hoping for a change.
"The forecasts indicate an improvement over the weekend, with the possibility of a weather window lasting a few days," Tybor wrote.
Chhang Dawa Sherpa, climbing director of Seven Summit Treks, confirms that the ropes are fixed until Camp 4, the highest on the normal Kinshofer Route of the Diamir Face. Factoring in the weather, conditions, and climbing times, Chhang Dawa estimates July 10 as the most suitable summit day.
Even in the best case, it will not be easy or free of risk. Some climbers follow their guides' advice, but others have a different opinion about how much risk is acceptable. Klara Kolouchova passed the infamous Kinshofer Wall to reach 6,100m, but that was as far as she went.
"After evaluating the snow conditions and the weather forecast, I made the more difficult decision," she said. She returned home on June 30.
Familiar faces
Climber and journalist Monika Witkowska of Poland led a trekking group to Nanga Parbat and reached the Diamir side Base Camp on July 1. Back in town, she offered some interesting insights from the field.
At the time, she counted 14 climbers remaining on the mountain, including some familiar names, such as Israfil Ashurli of Azerbaijan. Ashurli sacrificed his summit attempt last year to aid a Pakistani climber in trouble and also helped many others. As a reward, local authorities gave him a free climbing permit this year.
Trifish Chang of Taiwan, Santiago Quintero of Ecuador, and the previously mentioned Tybor and Lafaille are also ready to go for the summit as soon as the weather clears. Other waiting climbers come from Oman, Romania, Japan, Norway, Greece, and Pakistan. Seven Summit treks had six sherpas in place, fixing the ropes.
Local climbers include the controversially young Selena Khawaja and her father. They first appeared at Broad Peak in 2021 when the so-called Mountain Princess was only 12 years old. She was attempting to break a risky age record.
The situation worsened when Khawaja's father got sick and was evacuated from the mountain but left the child there, accompanied only by porters, to continue. She eventually did not go up the mountain. Read more about the controversy here. Khawaja is now 15 years old.
Report from the field
"People have just started climbing; they only reached Camp 1 on July 1," Witkowska wrote. (Tybor and Lafaille had already rotated higher up). Climbers on oxygen have to reach at least Camp 2 before attempting the summit. Those going without need to get to Camp 3 to fully acclimatize.
Witkowska describes the current situation [edited for clarity]:
The atmosphere in BC is on one hand very nice and friendly (people meeting, chats etc.) but on the other hand, I felt the frustration surrounding the poor prospects of a summit push. The problem is the weather and conditions. There's too much snow, the weather forecasts have been wrong, and there is not a clear window in sight.
People have no access to internet in Base Camp, and the only contact with their families is via InReach. When I was in Base Camp, they discussed a date for the summit push. Some talked about July 3 as a good day, but it was impossible because they had to wait for the sherpas to fix the ropes to Camp 4. Some climbers are in a hurry because they have more than one peak in mind.
After a long silence, news finally came from the Rupal side of Nanga Parbat.
David Goettler, Tiphaine Duperier, and Boris Langenstein had launched a single summit push with no oxygen or external support up the Schell route on the Rupal Face. As Goettler sees it, climbing in pure alpine style is worth more than reaching a summit.
In the end, the summit eluded them. We don't have details, but Goettler and the French skiers will post soon.
Benjamin Vedrines has had time to acclimatize with a "run" to Camp 2 on a deserted K2. He then paraglided back down to Base Camp. Summits on Nanga Parbat might start soon from both sides of the mountain. And French alpinists Yanick Graziani and Helias Millerioux will attempt a 7,000m peak in the Shimshal but haven't yet revealed which one.
K2 before the crowds
Guided climbers are landing in Skardu this week. Meanwhile, local porters have been carrying supplies and oxygen and pitching tents, but K2 Base Camp remains almost empty. Note that helicopters are not an option in Pakistan; everyone still treks in.
Benjamin Vedrines and photographer Seb Montaz reached K2 Base Camp last week and immediately set off to Camp 1 for two days to acclimatize. Vedrines also made a quick run up to Camp 2 and paraglided down. He aims to do a one-day speed ascent of K2 without bottled oxygen, then paraglide back to Base Camp.
Japanese Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima are on the first stage of their new route up the West Face. They say they have spotted a good line for their attempt.
French pair leave clues
Yanick Graziani and Helias Millerioux of France are not ready to reveal their goal, but they left some clues. A map, actually.
Their goal is one of the 7,000'ers in Pakistan's Shimshal -- possibly Distaghil Sar (also written Disteghil Sar), the nearest summit to their base camp. At 7,885m, it's the seventh-highest peak in Pakistan and has just a handful of ascents. The north face remains unclimbed.
Both Graziani and Millerioux have impressive climbing resumés. In 2008, Graziani bagged the first ascent of the southeast point of Pumari Chhish with Christian Trommsdorff, alpine style. The peak is not far from the climbers' current location. In 2021, the pair climbed the north ridge of Diran Peak and then Rakaposhi, both alpine style. In the fall of 2022, Millerioux attempted the west side of Manaslu.
Millerioux won a Piolet d'Or in 2017 after a new route, alpine style, on the South Face of Nuptse, with Frederic Degoulet and Nicois Benjamin Guigonnet.
Nanga Parbat
We are awaiting news from the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat, where David Goettler, Boris Langenstein, and Tiphaine Duperier were ready to push for the summit as soon as the weather permitted. The French pair intend to ski down from the summit; Goettler might paraglide down. Climbers on the normal route confirm the weather has improved.
On the Diamir side, Anna Tybor and Tom Lafaille spent the night in Camp 2 on their second acclimatization trip up Nanga Parbat. Tomorrow, the Polish-French couple will continue to Camp 3.
"Conditions are still quite difficult," Tybor wrote. "There is really a lot of snow after the recent snowfall, and breaking trail is very time-consuming. Fortunately, a lot of people are heading up from C2 tomorrow."
David Goettler is still waiting for good weather on Nanga Parbat for his alpine-style push up the Rupal Face. However, partner Mike Arnold ran out of time and had to leave. Goettler has now paired up with Boris Langenstein and Tiphaine Duperier of France.
Nanga Parbat veterans
Neither Langenstein nor Duperier is new to Nanga Parbat. Back in 2019, Duperier reached 7,800m while Langenstein summited. He then started skiing down from 50m below the top, at the first point where skiing was possible. Duperier joined him at 7,800m as he descended, and they skied down the rest of the way together.
At the time, the French skiers were competing to complete the first ski descent of Nanga Parbat. They were vying with Russians Vitaly Lazo and Anton Pugovkin (who were in the midst of their Death Zone Freeride project) and their Italian partner Cala Cimenti.
On their first summit push, the Russian-Italian trio turned around at 8,000m and skied down overnight by the light of their headlamps. Lazo and Cimenti summited on a second try and skied down but also began a little below the summit.
Langenstein and Duperier skied Gasherbrum II in 2021, with teammates Guillaume Pierrel and Aurelia Lanoe. Check the video below:
First ski descent of the Rupal Face?
On Nanga Parbat, the French skiers have kept quiet about their plans, while Goettler shares only partial information. In 2019, Duperier and Langenstein climbed the normal Kinshoffer Route on the Diamir side of the mountain. During their descent, they used a steep variation (previously opened by German Luis Stitzinger) to avoid the vertical sections of the Kinshoffer Wall.
Mike Arnold has confirmed that, like on all his previous attempts, Goettler will try to climb Nanga Parbat from the Rupal side, up the Schell route. So will Duperier and Langenstein.
"This face is hard to see in one glance. You have to stop and spend some time, east to west, scanning its monstrosity," said Arnold, himself a skier, about the Rupal Face. "This mountain demands everything and a window of four to five days...to ascend and descend, alpine style, skiing/flying, and without supplemental O2."
Arnold added that if Goettler and the French pair get the long weather window they're waiting for, "I believe they have a great chance!"
While Duperier and Langenstein intend to ski down the face, Arnold's words suggest that Goettler might try to paraglide.
Nanga Parbat has never had even a partial ski descent down its mighty Rupal Face. Previous skiers Hans Kammerlander and Diego Wellig in 1990 and Luis Stitzinger in 2008 used the Kinshoffer Route.
Meanwhile, on the Diamir side
Two more skiers are currently on Nanga Parbat. Anna Tybor of Poland and Tom Lafaille of France want to ski down the Kinshoffer Route, although conditions are not helping.
"The current conditions on Nanga Parbat are not easy," Tybor wrote on Friday. "Securing the route to the second camp took much more time than we expected. But...we managed to reach C2 at 5,900m, where we spent the night."
Now, the couple is back in Base Camp, awaiting good weather before their next acclimatization climb to C3. "If everything goes well, we plan the summit attack at the end of the month," said Tybor.
Tybor has previously skied Manaslu and Broad Peak. He teamed up with Tom Lafaille, his current partner, on the Broad Peak venture.
David Goettler has returned to Pakistan's Nanga Parbat with partner Mike Arnold of the U.S. They are ready to attempt the summit alpine style -- no supplementary oxygen, no support beyond Base Camp -- as soon as weather allows. Forecasts show poor weather on Nanga Parbat for the rest of the week.
The climbers started acclimatizing in Nepal last month, with three weeks of hiking, climbing, skiing, and paragliding in the Khumbu. This culminated with an ascent of Baruntse. Arnold skied down from the summit while Goettler paraglided, as the video below shows.
Then they moved to Pakistan and drove directly to Base Camp, where they have been completing their preparations.
"Now (we're) just hoping for more favorable and consistent weather for a summit attempt," Goettler wrote yesterday.
The climbers have not specified their route, although they note that they will not use fixed ropes. This suggests they are not doing the normal route on the Diamir side, which already has several commercial climbers.
Previously, Goettler has always attempted Nanga Parbat via the Schell route on the Rupal Face. He tried twice in winter, first in 2013-14 and then in 2021-22 with Herve Barmasse and Arnold. He attempted it again last summer with Benjamin Vedrines.
Anna Tybor and Tom Lafaille are currently the only climbers on Nanga Parbat, but their solitude will not last much longer.
The Polish-French duo are progressing independently and have had a taste of the mountain.
"At the beginning of the week, we reached Camp 1, where we left depots for [future]," Tybor reported today from Base Camp. "Unfortunately, the weather is quite poor."
Forecasts are optimistic this week, and the climbers planned to move up again yesterday. They hope to tag Camp 2 on the next phase of their acclimatization, then return to Base Camp.
"Around Wednesday-Thursday, we’ll move on to Camp 3," Tybor told her home team.
Tybor and Lafaille climb without supplementary oxygen or sherpa support. They intend to ski down from the summit.
More climbers coming
Communication from Nanga Parbat is not easy. With no cell or wifi connection, climbers rely on satellite phones or, more often, texts sent through their InReach trackers.
Klara Kolouchova of the Czech Republic reported today from Chilas. Outfitted by Seven Summit Treks and likely with other climbers, she reached the town after a rough drive along the Karakoram Highway. Kolouchova summited Annapurna earlier this spring and is now a two-day hike away from Nanga Parbat's Base Camp, "and milder temperatures."
Pakistan is currently experiencing a hot spell. Luckily, the climbers were not in the country on May 28, when thermometers soared to 52ºC (126˚F) in the southern province of Sindh.
The spring season in Nepal has just ended, but early-summer climbs in Pakistan are already about to begin. Anna Tybor and Paul Lafaille should reach Base Camp at Nanga Parbat today.
Tybor of Poland and Lafaille of France were not lucky in the first half of their climb+ski project. They spent over a month on Dhaulagiri but never had a chance to summit. No one did, including the rope-fixing team, which could not even reach Camp 3.
No luck on Dhaulagiri
Tybor and Lafaille aborted their Dhaulagiri attempt on May 15. After trekking out and resting for just one day in Kathmandu, they flew to Pakistan. Then ensued a long drive on bumpy roads to Chilas. After a two-day trek, they have arrived at Nanga Parbat's Base Camp.
As on Dhaulagiri, their plan is to climb the mountain and ski down. Jasiek Korlatowicz, a photographer and mountain rescuer, has joined the team to document the expedition.
Nanga Parbat is the only 8,000'er in Pakistan not located in the Karakoram. It is part of Pakistan's Himalaya. The monsoon hits it later than other Himalayan peaks, so nowadays, commercial teams typically try it in June and then head for the Karakoram in July.
Tybor and Lafaille are skimo racers and ski alpinists. Tybor has skied down Broad Peak and Manaslu. Lafaille, a regular skiing partner, has done many impressive ski descents in the Alps.
Reinhold Messner has finally received the second boot of his younger brother Gunther, who controversially died in 1970 on Nanga Parbat. For most, it is a reminder of one life lost on the so-called Killer Mountain. For Reinhold, it is a message Gunther sent from beyond the grave to confirm his innocence.
The boot was found and retrieved from the glacier on the Diamir side of the mountain in June 2022, 52 years after Gunther Messner's death. Last week, Pakistani climber Liver Khan traveled to the South Tyrol and gave the boot to Messner, Barrabes reported.
The boot is important because it corroborates Reinhold Messner's side of the story about the tragedy on Nanga Parbat.
The 1970 tragedy
In 1970, the Messner brothers, part of a big expedition led by Karl Herrligkoffer, launched a summit push on the still-unclimbed Rupal side of Nanga Parbat. (Check the last videos of the two brothers on Messner's Instagram below.) Only the elder brother returned, days later, badly frostbitten and almost dead from exhaustion, on the Diamir side of the mountain.
Reinhold explained that after the two of them had summited at 5 pm, Gunther was too exhausted to retrace his steps down the difficult sections of the Rupal face without a rope. They then decided to go down the milder Diamir side. Reinhold went first. At one point, on the lower part of the mountain, he lost sight of his brother. He looked for him but only found the signs of a recent avalanche.
Decades of accusations
However, some of the expedition members didn't believe him. Hans Saler and Max von Kienlin deemed Reinhold an overambitious climber who didn't want the weaker, less experienced Gunther along.
According to Herligkoffer's orders, Gunther was not supposed to go with Reinhold on the summit push. But when Reinhold set off from the high camp, Gunther followed him nevertheless. Saler and Kienlin openly accused Messner of abandoning his brother to his death during the ascent, before reaching the summit.
The controversy has pursued Messner for 34 years. In 2004, the first boot and some bones surfaced on the Diamir Glacier. A climber who was looking for minerals for his children stumbled upon the remains. Hearing word of the find, Messner traveled to Nanga Parbat's Base Camp and burned the remains at a small ceremony on the spot. However, he took a few samples for genetic identification. The remains were indeed Gunther's. The controversy was settled, and the boot was exhibited in one of Messner's museums.
The second boot was not necessary proof, but for Reinhold Messner, it was a kind of confirmation that "disprove[d] the conspiracy theories about Gunther and the Nanga Parbat tragedy," he wrote. "Gunther, thank you and I am thinking of you."
Eight years ago today, Muhammad Ali Sadpara, Alex Txikon, and Simone Moro stood on the top of Nanga Parbat. It marked the first winter ascent of the ninth-highest mountain in the world. Five years ago, also on Nanga Parbat, Daniele Nardi and Tom Ballard of the UK disappeared on the dangerous Mummery Spur. They were never seen alive again.
Troubled season
In January 2016, Sadpara and Txikon, along with Adam Bielecki and Jacek Czech of Poland and Daniele Nardi of Italy, began work on the Kinshofer route, according to the AAJ report. Italians Moro and Tamara Lunger were also on the mountain, attempting the Messner-Eisendle-Tomaseth line. However, dangerous conditions prompted them to join the Kinshofer team, who by that time had fixed rope to 6,700m.
Although climbers were willing to join forces on the normal route before that final summit push, disagreements and colliding egos were an issue. The Poles quit after Bielecki suffered an ugly 80m fall that he blamed on the Spaniard's poor-quality rope.
Nardi also had arguments in Base Camp, and when Moro, Txikon, and Lunger agreed to climb together, he felt abandoned. He either had to make a solo attempt or go home. He went home. Bernadette McDonald's book, Winter 8000, features a detailed account of this.
When a summit window opened, the remaining climbers went up to the top of the fixed ropes, and then continued unroped. No one used oxygen. Lunger retreated 100m from the summit and made it down on her own. Sadpara summited shortly after 3 pm on Feb. 26, 2016. Txikon and Moro quickly followed, in a rather strong wind.
Moro thus became the first climber with four winter firsts on 8,000m peaks. (The others were Shisha Pangma, Makalu, and Gasherbrum II). Meanwhile, Ali Sadpara became the first Pakistani to summit a winter 8,000'er. Unfortunately, Sadpara is not around to celebrate their success. He perished on Winter K2 in 2021.
Nanga Parbat was the 13th 8,000'er to be climbed in winter. Only K2 remained.
Nardi's obsession
Daniele Nardi attempted Nanga Parbat's Mummery Spur for the first time in 2013 with Elisabeth Revol of France (see the video below). He then returned for the three following winters, without success. The 2016 attempt, when others summited and he felt shunted aside, was particularly bitter.
In 2019, he was again determined to climb the ominous couloir, which goes up to 6,700m, then continue to the summit.
On each attempt, Nardi had different partners. Only he seemed ready to repeat the Mummery Spur experience. On the 2019 try, his fifth, he teamed up with Tom Ballard. Ballard, a young Briton, was making a name for himself in the European climbing community. The son of UK legend Alison Hargreaves, he had done some impressive climbs of his own. This included soloing the six major North Faces of the Alps in a single winter.
Local climbers Karim Hayat and Ramat Ullah Baig joined them for the adventure. But it was hard to stay motivated through weeks of bad weather, which buried higher camps under avalanches. The Pakistanis eventually left, but Ballard and Nardi refused to quit, even as the end of winter approached. Finally, on Feb. 22, 2019, the weather improved. It seemed like the answer to their prayers. But it was a trap.
They reached Camp 2 that day and continued up the following morning. They checked in from Camp 3, but didn't stop there. Instead, they pitched a fourth camp at 6,000m.
On Feb. 24, they continued, but at around 6,300m, they radioed their cook in Base Camp that they were going to retreat to Camp 4. It was already 7 pm and the weather was bad. That was the last news anyone had from them.
Two days later, the cook and the liaison officer in Base Camp raised the alarm. There was no one else on the mountain, but Karim Hayat and Ullah Baig came back from home to help, and Alex Txikon's team flew there from K2. In an interview with ExplorersWeb, Txikon recalled the nerve-wracking flight. It included a very tense moment between India and Pakistan at the border.
Txikon's team scouted the route on foot as high up as the severe avalanche risk allowed. They were among the first teams to use drones at high altitude. Thanks to these, they were able to scout the rest of the Spur. They confirmed that the silhouettes they had seen through a telescope from Base Camp were indeed the lifeless bodies of the two climbers.
They observed that an avalanche had not swept them down. "We could see that the rope above them was tight," Txikon said. "I can’t tell for sure, but I believe that either they fell, or possibly they were too cold and tired during their descent and they froze when the temperature dropped at sunset."
Nardi and Ballard were the 84th and 85th victims on Nanga Parbat.
Foto made with a telescope by @AlexTxikon and his team on the #NangaParbat. @NardiDaniele is on the center left (orange vest) Tom Ballard at the center (blu vest) and their tent is visible next to Tom. Foto property of @AlexTxikon. pic.twitter.com/TvOSYwbS2L
— Stefano Pontecorvo (@pontecorvoste) March 9, 2019
"Nardi was obsessed with Nanga Parbat and he was stubborn," Txikon told ExplorersWeb. "At the same time, he was no newbie or irresponsible. He knew perfectly well what he was doing. I saw his higher camps: They were neat, perfectly equipped, and ready for a well-planned climb."
The good weather settling in today or tomorrow coincides with the arrival of dozens or hundreds of climbers to the Baltoro area Base Camps.
However, after a long, stormy spell, it will take time for the mountains to shed their excess snow. Yet acceptable conditions may depend on how much in a hurry the individual climbers are. Some are willing to spare no expense to speed up their expeditions.
New regulations
A set of new regulations in Pakistan may lower the number of serial summiters. This season, international climbers cannot apply ahead of time for permits to several peaks. Instead, once they finish with one, they need to apply for the next and repeat the process for every mountain they want to climb.
Mingma G of Imagine Nepal also told ExplorersWeb that he is having some trouble with visas. Apparently, some members of his team entered Pakistan with a tourist visa but they apparently need a "mountaineering categorized visa" to climb in Pakistan. They have applied for new visas, but the process is taking long.
Why trek when you can fly?
Once again, the peak collectors will lead the way, and at least some of them will be well-rested, after flying to Base Camp. While helicopter taxis are normal in Nepal, they are rare in Pakistan. Here, the Pakistan army operates all the helicopters, which fly in pairs for safety reasons.
The Karakoram lies near the Chinese-Indian border and has a history of military tension. Helicopters were traditionally deployed only in case of emergency -- mainly for rescues or to evacuate sick or injured climbers.
But very recently, some wealthy clients have agreed to pay $20,000 for a comfortable 40-minute trip to or from Base Camp. Viridiana Alvarez pointed out yesterday that helicopters also give a great view of the Baltoro Glacier from above:
Alvarez is part of a Seven Summit Treks group that also includes Kristin Harila and her sherpa team. Both Harila and Alvarez summited Nanga Parbat on June 26. They had plenty of time to return to Skardu and trek to the Gasherbrums, so saving time was no reason to fly. Nor was, apparently, saving money or reducing one's carbon footprint. However, the Baltoro trek is demanding, the weather was bad, and the women had already acclimatized.
With the weather now expected to improve, they are rested and ready to move to Camp 1, where many climbers have already settled in. Like Base Camp, C1 is common to both Gasherbrums. It is not on the mountain itself but at 6,000m on the Gasherbrum Glacier.
Above-average teams
This season features some of the highest numbers of commercial clients ever seen on the Gasherbrums (no figures available yet). But the Gasherbrums will also host the two most interesting 8,000m climbs of the summer: Denis Urubko and Pipi Cardell's attempted new alpine-style route on GII and Andrzej Bargiel's ski expedition on both peaks.
Urubko and Cardell have been waiting at the foot of the mountain for some time, while Bargiel reached Pakistan last week. After a first acclimatization trip up 6,400m Koshar Gang near Skardu, he and his team set off toward the Baltoro.
The Gasherbrums are also the next destination for the recent Nanga Parbat climbers. At least, for those who didn't sustain frostbite during the exhausting summit push without a Camp 4.
None of them, as far as we know, are paying for an airlift. Some reported delays on their way to Skardu because of landslides on the Karakoram Highway. A big group including Saulius Damulevicius of Lithuania and others from Lela Peak Expedition reached Urdukas today, according to Damulevicius' tracker.
Recently, the monsoon is becoming more active and affects larger areas of the country, sometimes precipitating catastrophic floods. This year, the Punjab is the most affected region.
Patience needed on K2
The more vigorous monsoon also seems to be responsible for the bad weather that has shut down the Karakoram lately. K2 teams started arriving in Base Camp two weeks ago but have been on hold since then. The relentless bad weather has barely allowed a first acclimatization round to Camp 1. Ropes have not been fixed beyond Camp 2.
EliteExped used the time to do some cleanup on the lower parts of the Abruzzi Spur route. The operation, led by Mingma David Sherpa, retrieved 200kg of trash, mainly old ropes, they reported.
Sajid Sadpara of Pakistan also announced a cleanup campaign of his own on K2. It will start soon, in cooperation with Seven Summit Treks. Sadpara's team noted that Pakistan is one of the 10 countries most affected by climate change.
Broad Peak
On Broad Peak, Furtenbach Adventures has started working well ahead of everyone else and launched a summit push last week. But the forecast on which they were relying proved wrong. Unexpected 100kph winds stopped them as soon as they reached the ridge. Out of time for further attempts, lead guide Ulises Corvalan called off the expedition.
The expedition sherpas and one guide then went to K2 to meet the K2 Flash team. This group has already acclimatized at home using the hypoxic tents provided by Furtenbach. Weather permitting, they are able to go to K2, climb it, and return home in three or four weeks total.
Other teams are trying to get some altitude despite the conditions. Horia Colibasanu of Romania has managed at least one rotation in snowy weather. Today, he took advantage of better weather to climb 1,400 vertical meters and pitch his small tent at Camp 2 (6,200m).
Shortly after we published our latest story about Nanga Parbat, Mario Vielmo posted his Italian team's summit report. In it, he detailed the group's push and the long, difficult descent that took several days.
His home team also contacted us to clear up certain points, since Vielmo is still in Pakistan and his internet connection remains spotty. We have also spoken to Juan Pablo Toro, who has just returned to Buenos Aires. They shared their take on some unanswered questions: What did the Italians do when they heard the call for help from Damulevicius? Why was a porter with no tent in Camp 3, and why did Pawel never receive oxygen from Camp 3?
The answers clear up some questions, but as usual, raise others. As became clear as long ago as the abundantly reported Everest 1996 disaster, climbers' memories never tell the whole story. Rather, they are pieces of a mosaic that only together provide a complete image of those first days of July on Nanga Parbat.
Mario Vielmo's report
The Italian team, as it was known in Base Camp, included several climbers from various countries sharing the same permit. Vielmo, however, teamed up with Nicola Bonaiti, Tarcisio Bello, Valerio Annovazzi, and Argentinean Juan Pablo Toro. They had two high-altitude porters.
On July 2, Vielmo set off from Camp 3 with two tents. He planned to pitch a fourth camp on the way to the summit. It was the best strategy, since Vielmo was not fully recovered from some health problems, and the summit push without O2 from Camp 3 would otherwise have been too long.
HAP Muhammed Hussein went with them. Tarcisio Bello didn't feel well when he arrived the previous day at Camp 3. He decided to stay there while his partners went up on a summit attempt.
Crowded tent
As they reached Camp 4's location in the afternoon, one of the tents broke as they tried to pitch it in high winds. In the end, the five of them had to jam into a three-person tent. Following is Mario Vielmo's testimony:
Throughout the night, the wind reaches 45kph with gusts of at least 70kph. We are stuck inside the tent, unable to move or melt snow to make water for everyone. We are scared, dehydrated, and some of us have cold feet.
At one point, a Pole approaches our tent telling us that Pawel, still descending from the summit, feels bad and needs help, since he is suffering from AMS. We offer him dexamethasone, but they tell us they have already administered it. He would need oxygen, but none of us have it. Later they ask us to go and help carry Pawel to the tent. We have no place in the tent but we still prepare with difficulty to go out. But it is too late. The first to leave is Muhammed, who returns shortly after. Pawel didn't make it.
Then they will tell us that Pawel was already sick with edema when he reached the summit. The only thing that could, perhaps, have saved him would have been some supplemental oxygen that only the sherpas at Camp 3 had.
The Italian team leader remarks that, at dawn, they needed two hours to get dressed and prepare to leave the crowded tent. That explained why they had no time to help Pawel Kopec, his home team told ExplorersWeb.
"Mario has a history of helping other climbers in trouble, such as Don Bowie when he broke a leg on K2 in 2007, and on GI, where Mario helped a German climber who had fallen in a crevasse," they noted.
As the Italian team leader wrote, other climbers on the mountain agreed that only supplementary oxygen could have saved him. Saulius Damulevicius confirmed that Kopec was in a serious state.
"Pawel was semi-conscious, and apathetic when we were with him," he told ExplorersWeb. "We talked to him to encourage him, but he was not talking back."
O2 available but was there anyone to carry it?
None of the climbers in Camp 4 that night (the Italians, Damulevicius, Lanko, and Ashurli) had any O2 on hand. But oxygen was available in Camp 3.
"Piotr Krzyzowski (the leader of the Polish team) was asking everyone to send oxygen to Camp 4, offering to pay for it," Naila Kiani, who at the time was in Camp 3 after her summit, told ExplorersWeb. "Dawa Tenjen Sherpa from Imagine Nepal told Piotr that we could have one or two bottles if Piotr found someone fit enough and willing to take them from Camp 3 to the sick climber."
But finding volunteers was not easy.
"The problem is that everyone was so exhausted after the summit push, no matter whether they had used supplementary O2 or not," Kiani explained. "Half of the teams left C2 on July 1, rested a few hours at C3, then left for the summit."
This involved a 1,300-vertical-meter climb in each direction.
Kiani went on: "The sherpas, the HAPs, the foreign climbers, we were all exhausted. I remember I thought I wanted to go, but then I would surely need someone to rescue me."
Camp 3's mystery porter solved
The Italian team also wanted to clarify some points about Akhbar, the Pakistani HAP whom Flor Cuenca found wandering around the previous day in Camp 3.
"At first, Victor Rimac and I thought he was Marco Confortola's porter," Cuenca told Explorersweb. It seemed to make sense, as Akhbar's surname is Durrani. He was the brother of Ali Durrani, Marco Confortola's personal HAP. Akhbar, however, worked for Juan Pablo Toro and Valerio Annovazzi.
"Only Muhammed Hussein went on from Camp 3 to the summit with the group," Vielmo's home team told ExplorersWeb. "He was working as a porter for Vielmo, Bello, and Bonaiti.
Juan Pablo Toro explained the situation with Akhbar in a phone interview with Explorersweb from Buenos Aires.
"We were not aware that Akhbar was out in the open at Camp 3, " Toro said.
The porter had worked with them during the acclimatization process. But on June 26, while the climbers were on their last rotation, Akhbar said he wanted to go to the summit, as his brother Ali had.
Porter summited on his own
"At that moment, we told him the summit was not an option for us, since we climbed without oxygen and were not yet prepared," Toro explained. "In the end, he wanted to go to the summit so badly that we agreed to separate. We stayed in Camp 3 and he went up with his brother and some others. He topped out and returned exhausted and with a painful foot because of problems with his boot."
Toro continued:
After 3-4 days, the day came for us to attempt the summit ourselves, but Akhbar was too tired and in pain to go all the way with us. Finally, he agreed to support us only until Camp 3. We had a tent in Camp 2 and another in Camp 3, so we told him he could use the Camp 2 tent and bring it up to Camp 3 with him. He said he didn't need it, because he would stay with some other porters. "Don't worry about me," he said. We left for Camp 3 while Akhbar remained behind, still tired and with some foot pain. When we arrived in Camp 3, we spent some time looking for our gear cache, which was buried in fresh snow. Then we pitched the tent and got inside. At no time did we see Akhbar. He didn't come to us and never asked for help. We would have found a solution for him if he had. We only knew he had no agreed place to stay. After Akhbar returned to Base Camp days later, he himself told us that he had gone up to Camp 3 without our tent and without a place to stay. But he trusted that he could use any of the tents left empty after the climbers set off for the summit.
Toro said he is sure Flor Cuenca had no ill intentions when she recalled her experience in Camp 3. As for Akhbar, Toro believes that the Pakistani simply didn't want to carry the weight of the tent from C2. But his plan to find an empty tent failed when he reached Camp 3.
"We had a tent for him, we insisted he carry it up, and he didn't want to," Toro said. "Moreover, he didn't tell us the truth because he claimed he had agreed to stay in someone else's tent. Otherwise, we wouldn't have let him go."
Building a mosaic
The story of what happened on Nanga Parbat between July 1 and 6 remains incomplete. Every testimony is part of a mosaic that only makes sense as a whole. We still hope to hear from others, to add more pieces to the puzzle. Yet every point of view, even with contradictions and gaps, is worth sharing, especially if it helps avoid unnecessary loss of life in the future.
Last week's rescue of Azif Bhatti by Israfil Ashurli on Nanga Parbat ended happily for both Bhatti and Ashurli, sort of. Both are frostbitten and in the hospital, Ashurli told ExplorersWeb today.
Pawel Kopec was not so lucky. He died helpless, barely 200 meters away from a tent. Worst of all, he might be still alive if some other climbers had shown the generosity that Ashurli and partners Saulius Damulevicius of Lithuania and Volodymyr Lanko of Ukraine displayed toward Bhatti.
Climbers point fingers
"I have a lot to say about starting the summit push from C3 [and] not helping climbers 200m away," Damulevicius told ExplorersWeb from Chilas, a city in Gilgit-Baltistan.
We also spoke with Flor Cuenca of Peru. Although she passes almost unnoticed, Cuenca is one of the most interesting figures around 8,000m peaks these days. On July 2, she summited Nanga Parbat from Camp 3. It was her 8th 8,000'er without oxygen or sherpa support.
In both directions, she passed others, climbing with and without oxygen. "Either I was very well acclimatized, or people were shockingly slow," she said.
As she reached Camp 3, she left behind the drama unfolding above her. But in an interview with ExplorersWeb, she gave valuable information about what she saw that day and the day before.
Too long from Camp 3 for no-O2 climbers
Cuenca was strong enough to manage the push from Camp 3 and back again. But for most of those heading to the summit of Nanga Parbat without O2, skipping Camp 4 was a serious mistake, Damulevicius pointed out.
This year, commercial teams didn't try to set up a fourth camp, which typically lies around 7,400m. Instead, they launched their summit pushes from Camp 3 at 6,800m. This might be okay for many climbers on supplementary O2, but it is a long haul for those without extra gas -- and there were a number of them. Damulevicius, Ashurli, and the Italian team led by Mario Vielmo were the only ones who pitched tents at Camp 4.
The Lithuanian remarks that they acclimatized well and set up camp at 7,350m. He believes that they would have summited if their tent had not become a de facto first-aid station for climbers coming from down the summit in a poor state.
Cuenca confirms that most of those who summited without oxygen were in trouble on the way down. She noted that the Lithuanian-Ukrainian-Azerbaijani team helped these too-ambitious climbers at the cost of their own attempt. The weather became stormy after they got into the tent. Damulevicius recalls what happened next:
Almost at the same time, the radio station starts shouting ominous messages from the base [BC]: "Valdi [Waldemar Kowalewski] is no longer oriented, he needs help descending," "Pawel [Kopec] has altitude sickness, he no longer knows his name," "Mariusz [Szczechowicz ] is delirious from hallucinations," "Csaba [Varga, from Hungary] is frozen, lost gloves," "...a lot of frostbite"... [Damulevicius also radioed for someone to bring oxygen for a climber in trouble near Camp 4. It never arrived.]
Soon, frozen climbers begin to pour into the vestibule of our tent. A raging blizzard fills the tent with snow. We serve everyone tea and try to get a handle on the situation by asking for information. Around midnight, we already understand that it was not Valdi [Kowalewski], but Csaba who needed help going down, and that Pawel is probably still in the greatest danger. Around one o'clock in the morning, when we were supposed to leave for the summit (a long-forgotten plan), we hear Valdi near the tent. He announces that Pawel, who is already near C4, needs help. Then he continues the descent to C3.
Give advice or mind your own business?
Cuenca saw Mariusz Szczechowicz on her way down from the summit. He was sitting in the snow. She asked how was he doing. He looked normal but strangely, he asked Cuenca if she was doing an acclimatization rotation. She thought at first that she had misunderstood him, but looking back now, the Polish climber might have been already hallucinating.
"I have always believed that everyone on the mountain knows how they feel and what they have to do," Cuenca said. "I am not keen on giving advice if not asked. But perhaps I have been wrong all this time."
Cuenca also crossed paths with Asif Bhatti, well below Camp 4. "He was extremely slow, extremely late, and definitely not doing well," she recalled. "I should have told him to stop and turn around."
Finally, Cuenca also saw Santiago Quintero of Ecuador. He had turned around at some point and was slowly descending. Cuenca continued to a relatively sheltered spot, where the wind was not so strong, and waited for him for about half an hour.
"Then my fingers started aching from the cold," she said. "I was tired, and with frostbite beginning, I started moving again until I reached Camp 3. There, I drank a cola and got into the sleeping bag."
Porter left outside at 6,800m
Cuenca let two people use her tent. One was fellow Peruvian Victor Rimac. The other one was a high-altitude porter whom she found abandoned outside the previous night.
His name was Akhbar. On July 1, people started preparing for the summit push in Camp 3 from 5 pm. Some had trouble finding their tents, which had been covered in fresh snow. I saw this guy by the door of a tent, then walking up and down, then standing in front of another tent... Eventually, I asked him. Shivering, he said he was waiting for his clients to leave the tent [on their summit push] because, he said, there was no room for him.
It was already 7:30 pm. He had no high-altitude gear. My tent was small and Victor was already inside, but I told him to get inside and use my fuel [to melt water]. I was shocked and angry. Treating local climbers like animals is unacceptable, it makes me so furious!
The porter told Cuenca that he was working for Juan Pablo Toro of Argentina and Valerio Annovazzi of Italy (teammates of Mario Vielmo, Nicola Bonaiti, and Tarcisio Bello). We asked Juan Pablo Toro for comments but have not heard back by the time of posting.
Victor Rimac finally gave up his summit attempt because of health reasons and returned to Base Camp. He is now on his way to the Gasherbrums.
Kowalewski's take on the story
As for Waldemar Kowalewski, in a report posted on social media, he confirms that he set off without oxygen from Camp 3 toward the summit at midnight. He reached the top at 5:20 pm and returned to his tent in Camp 3 at 3:30 am on July 3.
About the descent, he only notes he "towed" Pawel Kopec for five hours over a short section above Camp 4 and that, unfortunately, Kopec finally couldn't make it.
In the video below, Kowalewski recorded his encounter with other Polish climbers [Szczechowicz and Kopec?]. They were on their way down from the summit (having reached the top at around 3:00 pm) while he was still going up.
Interestingly, most summiters posted about their success, but none mentioned that they were in trouble and got help -- mainly with hot tea and shelter -- from those with a tent in Camp 4.
Damulevicius noted that Csaba Varga of Hungary, Anja Blacha of Germany, Israfil Ashurli of Azerbaijan, and members of the Polish team were in their tent at some point in the night. He also mentioned that an abnormally high number of summiters suffered from frostbite (degree unknown), even those on supplementary O2.
The longest night in Camp 4
When they heard Kowalewski's call for help, first Lanko and then Damulevicius went out of their tent and tried to help Pawel Kopec. He was at 7,400m, some 200 meters away from the tent, looking bad. They tried to help him to his feet but his legs "didn't work."
Damulevicius went to look for help. On the way, he found a "puzzled" Mariusz Szczechowicz trying to dig a platform for a tent. He took him to Ashurli's tent nearby, where he would be taken care of. Then he went to the other tent, "occupied by three experienced climbers from Italy, one Argentinian, and a Pakistani HAP,"* Damulevicius said.
He told them he needed physical help dragging Kopec. Then he went to his own tent to gather items to tow the sick climber (a rope, a mat, and a Thermos with hot water from Ashurli). It took him some 40 minutes to get back to Volodymyr and Kopec.
*Note: The Italian-Argentinean team comprised Mario Vielmo, Nicola Bonaiti, Tarcisio Bello, Valerio Annovazzi, and Argentinean Juan Pablo Toro. It is unclear who was the HAP (High Altitude Porter) but it was not Akhbar, whom Flor Cuenca met in Camp 3 the previous day.
Cuenca said that the HAP who was with the Italians in Camp 4 was not supposed to attempt the summit either, but for some reason, he finally did. "He went up, summited, and descended -- and he didn't have a down suit!" Cuenca said. "He returned to Base Camp all right, but I told him he had been a fool."
No one came as Pawel Kopec died
Damulevicius wrote:
Pawel is lying peacefully in the arms of Volodymyr [Lanko], who is sitting next to him. Both are breathing normally. I pour Pavel a cup of hot water. Volodymyr asks if he wants more, and with his approval, he pours another half cup. We constantly talk to Pavel, encouraging him and telling him that it is necessary to reach the tent.
Realizing that we may not get any help, we try to lift Pavel again and pull him down. Volodymyr and I immediately look at each other, because we both sense at the same time that something is wrong. Pavel is not breathing. We try to shake him and revive him, but in vain. Pawel Kopec died in my arms on July 3 at 3:19 am. Assistance from C4 and the requested oxygen cylinder from C3 never arrived.
An exhausted Damulevicius headed back to his tent after five hours of trying to help others. "Before I fell asleep, I heard the guys in the other tent prepare and leave for the summit," he wrote on Facebook.
The Italian-Argentinian team summited on July 3 but separated on the descent. Mario Vielmo and Nicola Bonaiti made it back to Base Camp, Valerio Annovazzi and Juan Pablo Toro stopped for the night in Camp 3, and Tarcisio Bello waited for them in Camp 2. Finally, all made it safely back to Base Camp. We have asked Mario Vielmo for his take on what happened, and we are awaiting an answer.
We have also asked the leader of the Polish team, Piotr Krzyzowski, for comments about the Polish climbers' final push, the events leading to Pawel Kopec's death, and the failed attempts to get help from teams who were at Camp 3 at the time. It is unclear if he will be able to answer our questions any time soon. Today at 4 am, he left Skardu for the Baltoro, on his way to the Gasherbrums.
Israfil Ashurli will also provide some comments about the events shortly.
Some reflection needed
Overall, the high-altitude climbing community needs to reflect on how to prevent avoidable deaths. This includes:
- a sensible assessment of one's skills, strength, and experience before (and while) tackling ambitious goals.
- actual protocols in case of problems, rather than leaving it all to the luck of finding climbers like Ashurli, Damulevicius, and Lanko, ready to sacrifice their dreams and even their safety in order to help.
Not all climbers act like they did. In these times of industrialized climbing, individualism, and crowded base camps where climbers don't know each other, it may be necessary to review the (maybe old-fashioned?) values of mountaineering and the overall moral duty to help fellow humans in need. Bright social media posts can't hide the darkness of a fellow climber dying on the snow some meters away.
Good news from Nanga Parbat. Asif Bhatti, stranded and snowblind on the upper slopes of the mountain since Monday, is finally safely in Base Camp.
Today, assisted by Mohammed Younis and Fazal Ali, Bhatti went through the technical sections below Camp 2 and reached Camp 1. After a break, he continued toward Base Camp, where he has just arrived.
The mountain is deserted, except for one of the Italian climbers and Juan del Toro, who made it back to Base Camp yesterday, and Santiago Quintero of Chile.
"Everyone else has left," Kiani said. She did not reach Base Camp as planned because of the continued bad weather. In the end, the further assistance of Sajid Sadpara and Hugo Ayaviri was not needed.
Meanwhile, earlier today, Israfil Ashurli from Azerbaijan was descending from Camp 2. Ashurli stood by Asif Bhatti since he found him snowblind in Camp 4 on Monday. He helped him down to lower camps and surely saved his life as the weather deteriorated. Younis and Fazal Ali went up and met the descending climbers between Camp 3 and Camp 2 last night.
Badly in need of rest after three sleepless nights, Ashurli remained in Camp 2 a bit longer this morning than the others. He then proceeded down on his own. We have just received word that Ashurli reached Base Camp.
Despite bad weather, rescuers are trying everything to rescue Asif Bhatti. Bhatti has been stranded on Nanga Parbat since Monday and Israfil Ashurli of Azerbaijan has been helping him to descend. Ashurli aborted his summit bid to help sick climbers in Camp 4 and refused to leave Bhatti behind, despite a coming storm.
On Wednesday, Ashurli dragged Bhatti from Camp 4 to Camp 3. Yesterday, he managed to make Camp 2 with his charge. Mohammed Yunis and Fazal Ali, members of Bhatti's outfitter Bluesky, left Base Camp with oxygen and supplies. Previously, other porters had stopped in Camp 1 because of bad conditions. In the night, rescuers managed to reach Bhatti and Ashurli somewhere above Camp 2 and helped them into camp.
The hardest sections lie ahead
Today, the Pakistani climbers are slowly bringing Bhatti down from Camp 2. He has been put on oxygen but has frostbitten hands and the weather is bad. Ahead, they face some of the most technical sections of the route: the Kinshoffer wall (a rocky, vertical section) and a long, icy couloir right below it.
"It's definitely the most difficult area to descend," Naila Kiani, who summited on June 26, told ExplorersWeb. "There are steep ice walls and the rope is too tight for rappelling."
Bhatti and the porters started their descent some hours ago while Ashurli stopped at Camp 2 for some rest. He has not slept in three days.
Kiani is with Sajid Sadpara of Pakistan and Hugo Ayaviri of Bolivia at the Skardu airport. They are waiting to fly to Nanga Parbat as soon as conditions allow.
"We will go to Base Camp as part of a backup plan," Kiani said. "If Asif Bhatti gets stuck and the two rescuers struggle to bring him down from the ice walls, then Hugo [Ayaviri] and Sajid [Sadpara] will go up. Hugo [Ayaviri] is very experienced with such rescues."
Ayaviri is an IFMGA-certified rescuer. "Hugo [Ayaviri] helped me retrieve the body of my father on K2," Sadpara noted.
Meanwhile, Kiani will remain in Base Camp coordinating communications. She is in contact with Ashurli.
Even if conditions improve significantly, they could not be dropped any higher than Camp 1 because of the steep terrain. Currently, the weather makes a long-line operation impossible.
Other climbers safely down
The Polish climbers on Nanga Parbat managed to reach Base Camp last night. Ali Olszanski, Piotr Krzyzowski, Waldemar Kowalewski, Jarosław Lukaszewski, and Mariusz Szczechowicz are all safe.
Lukaszewski and Szczechowicz are suffering from frostbite, but the entire team has been able to leave Base Camp this morning. They could not retrieve the body of their deceased companion, Pawel Kopec, who perished in Camp 4 on Monday.
Tarcisio Bello, Valerio Annovazzi, and Juan Pablo Toro of Argentina are also back, Carlos Garranzo told ExplorersWeb.
It is already dark on Nanga Parbat and there is still no confirmation of the whereabouts of Israfil Ashurli of Azerbaijan and stricken climber Asif Bhatti of Pakistan. They planned to try and descend from Camp 3 to Camp 2, but the weather is very bad and so is Bhatti's condition.
Yet further help is on the way: Fazal Ali and Mohammed Yunus have set off from Base Camp. Fazal Ali is in Camp 2, waiting for them, and Yunus is already above Camp 2, on his way to meet them.
Also, weather permitting, Sajid Sadpara and Hugo Ayaviri, who summited Nanga Parbat on June 26, will fly to Base Camp tomorrow. They are ready to go up on foot and help in the rescue. Recent summiter Naila Kiani will coordinate with them.
"They will go to Base Camp as backup because both of them are experienced rescuers," Kiani told ExplorersWeb. "But it will only be possible if the weather allows the helicopters to fly."
Nanga Parbat's Base Camp is rather low so the helicopters might be able to fly at that altitude, but conditions are unstable.
Ashurli: rescue instead of summit
Meanwhile, we know more about what happened on July 3 at Camp 4 on Nanga Parbat, thanks to Russian climber Sergey Kofanov. He is a friend of Ashurli (they climbed Everest together in 2007) and is in contact with him via InReach.
"Israfil decided to cancel his climb and rescue others instead," Kofanov told ExplorersWeb. "He planned his summit push on the 3rd of July, but as he reached Camp 4, he found two climbers in need of help."
Kofanov said that one of the climbers was in a very bad condition: it was Pawel Kopec of Poland. "He literally died in Israfil’s hands."
Dragging Bhatti down
"The other [Asif Bhatti] was snowblind. Israfil dragged him down to Camp 3, where they both got stuck due to bad weather," Kofanov added.
Kofanov also asked Ashurli about the Italians who, according to preliminary reports, could have helped in the rescue as well. Ashurli's reply text was: "Nope, they left us and descended to Base Camp."
"Israfil Ashurli is a hero," Naila Kiani said, echoing the feeling of all those involved. "He didn’t leave Asif behind, risking his own life with it."
A new Inreach message came from Ashurli, shortly before midnight: "We are almost done with the most dangerous sections before Camp 2. Two Pakistani came to help us. Working on!"
A little later, word came that they reached Camp 2.
Waiting for news about other climbers
There is no news about the Polish, Italian and Argentinean climbers still on the mountain. Kiani said that according to her latest news, Tarsizio Bello was in Camp 2 waiting for climbing partners Valerio Annovazzi and Argentinean Juan Pablo Toro to go down from Camp 3.
Meanwhile, a Polish climber (named Mariusz, no surname provided) was sick in Camp 1. Late today, he made it back to Base Camp. She was waiting for news whether any of them had returned to Base Camp.
Find a way to descend or die. Unless there is a miracle, that is now the only choice for Asif Bhatti of Pakistan and Israfil Ashurli of Azerbaijan. This morning, the pair were still in Camp 3 on Nanga Parbat.
The weather has turned from bad to worse, preventing helicopters from flying, let alone performing long-line rescue operations. The ground team who left Base Camp yesterday stopped at Camp 1 and is unlikely to move any higher in the short term.
"The two volunteer climbers who went for the upper slopes of Nanga Parbat last night couldn't go any further than Camp 1 because of rockfall which started on the mountain last night," The Karakorum Club wrote.
Naila Kiani, coordinating rescue efforts, left Base Camp yesterday evening but is still in contact with the climbers in Camp 3 via SMS, her mentor Samson S. Saraf told ExplorersWeb. Saraf says that Ashurli is trying to persuade Bhatti to descend to Camp 2, but Bhatti may have some "limitations." (They mentioned frostbitten hands.)
Meanwhile, a member of Ashurli's home team told ExplorersWeb that the pair will try to reach Camp 2 today. "Yesterday he [Ashurli] couldn’t drag the Pakistani climber to Camp 2 because of bad weather, they had to spend all day in Camp 3," Ashurli's home team member Sergey Kofanov said. "Today [Ashurli] is trying to reach Camp 2 and hoping that the helicopter will be able to pick up them from there."
More stranded climbers?
To make matters worse, there might be other climbers still on the mountain. Ali Olszanski of Poland said there are members of a Polish team high on the mountain with frostbite. A Polish team pushed for Nanga Parbat's summit on Sunday. At least Piotr Krzyzowski, Pawel Kopec, and Waldemar Kowalewski reached the top at various times, rather late in the day. On descent, Kopec fell sick with AMS and died that night. The others may have made it back to Base Camp but we have been unable to confirm their number and whereabouts.
Yesterday, Mario Vielmo and Nicola Bonaiti made it back to Base Camp at 3 am. By SMS, Vielmo told his wife that the climb and descent had been extremely tough. The fixed ropes were iced up and useless. He also noted that Tarcisio Bello was in Camp 2, while Valerio Annovazzi and Argentinean Juan Pablo Toro (who summited with Vielmo on Monday) wanted to rest in Camp 3. You can read the messages (in Italian) here.
Most, if not all, of the climbers who are still on the mountain use no supplementary O2, and presumably they have no masks and bottles at hand.
Here is a brief update about the situation on Nanga Parbat. Sick climber Asif Bhatti reached Camp 3 late in the evening, assisted by Israfil Ashurli of Azerbaijan, after slowly descending through the day. So far, we don't know whether other climbers are with Bhatti.
Karakorum Expeditions has also sent up a ground rescue team from Base Camp. They have reached Camp 1 and expect to reach Bhatti and Ashurli tomorrow, The Karakorum Club noted.
As we previously wrote, bad weather prevented the helicopters from airlifting rescuers to higher camps. Forecasts are calling for high winds tomorrow.
A fresh update from Nanga Parbat shows the situation is not improving. While the helicopter pilots obtained permission to perform long-line operations and drop rescuers, bad weather settled in. The helicopters will not fly anywhere today.
Asif Bhatti's life is now entirely dependent on his own strength and a group of climbers who went up from Camp 3 to help him. Israfil Ashurli of Azerbaijan and a group of unidentified climbers reached Bhatti in Camp 4 yesterday. This morning, they started to descend.
Sources have mentioned that at least some of the climbers helping Bhatti are Italian. There is an Italian team on the mountain, led by IFMGA guide Mario Vielmo, who summited yesterday.
According to Vielmo's home team, Nicola Bonaiti, Valerio Annovazzi, Juan Pablo Toro of Argentina, and Muhammed Hussein of Pakistan summited late in the day and intended to rest at a higher camp before descending today.
False alarm
Yesterday, there was some concern for Fazal Ali. With no recent news, Ali's daughter raised the alarm. Thankfully, it was later confirmed that Ali was back in Base Camp. The family's worries were justified: Bad weather stranded Ali on Nanga Parbat last year as he descended from the summit with Shehroze Kashif.
Ghulam Abbas from Hushe summited Nanga Parbat on Sunday but his name was not included on any of the published summit lists. "The absence of news/updates caused a panic situation for his family and friends," The Karakoram Club blog reported. Finally, he checked in safe and sound from Base Camp.
The drama is ramping up on Nanga Parbat, where Polish climber Pawel Kopec died yesterday and Asif Bhatti is snowblind and unable to move under his own power. Despite unstable weather, helicopters have made it to Base Camp and are waiting for permission to drop climbers as high on the mountain as possible. Yet Bhatti's best hope may be Israfil Ashurli of Azerbaijan and a group of Italian climbers. That group rushed to help yesterday and joined the sick climber in Camp 4. Today they will help him down as far as possible.
Sources have not yet named the Italians but an Italian group on the mountain included Marco Conrfortola and Mario Vielmo. Confortola's home team reported that he attempted to reach the summit on Sunday but high winds forced him to turn around near the top and return to Camp 3. He hoped to launch a new summit attempt yesterday. It is likely that at least part of the Italian team had the same idea.
The rescue plan
The plan is to airlift climbers from Base Camp with a sling and drop them as high as possible. The original plan was to get them to Camp 2, but the terrain there is dangerous for long-line operations, Samson S. Sharaf (helping to coordinate the rescue) told ExplorersWeb. The best drop-off point might be Camp 3, but the operation is not without risk. At the time of writing, helicopter pilots just obtained permission to proceed.
Meanwhile, the climbers assisting Bhatti have left Camp 4 and are slowly descending. All going well, they will meet the rescue team dropped by the helicopters as they descend. The main obstacle, in addition to Bhatti's sickness and the extended time at altitude, will be the weather; forecasts predict high winds.
Sharaf listed a couple of climbers planning to be airlifted up from Base Camp, Shah Daulat (part of Karakorum Expeditions' rope-fixing team, who summited without supplementary O2 on June 26) and Mohammed Younus. Karakorum Expedition's leader, Mirza Ali, is in Base Camp coordinating efforts and several other teams are willing to collaborate too.
Asif Bhatti (45), a professor at Islamabad University, was part of a five-member team. However, his climbing partners halted at Camp 1 and he proceeded alone, following climbers from other groups, Dawn reports.
Bhatti showed symptoms of snowblindness on the descent from the summit and waited in Camp 4, where there is at least a tent pitched. The bigger teams have not set up Camp 4 this year and have launched their summit pushes from Camp 3, Mingma G told ExplorersWeb yesterday. From Camp 4, Bhatti asked for help by radio.
The weather turned for the worse yesterday, creating a dire situation on Nanga Parbat. Polish climber Pawel Kopec has died of Acute Mountain Sickness at Camp 4, according to Polish media.
Yesterday, three Polish climbers summited Nanga Parbat, according to Wspinanie.pl: Piotr Krzyzowski, Pawel Kopec, and Waldemar Kowalewski. All climbed independently and without supplementary oxygen. They all reached the summit at different times of the afternoon. Krzyzowski reported high winds and rain at the summit. He made it back to Camp 3 at nearly midnight. Kowalewski reached the summit very late, past 2:30 pm, around the same time as Kopec.
Kocek climbed separately during the summit push. He and Waldemar Kowalewski descended from the summit together. Problems arose at 7,300m. Exhausted and dehydrated, Kopek eventually died.
Kowalewski was a regular client with Seven Summit Treks, so he was probably with the same outfitter on Nanga Parbat. SST led the largest summit group yesterday. One of its members, Uta Ibrahimi of Albania-Kosovo, was still descending today. Her tracker located her 500 meters above Base Camp at the time of posting this story.
Snowblind and stranded in bad weather
All pushes started from Camp 3 at 6,800m, which is a long way from the 8,126m summit. The worsening weather didn't help. Reports suggest that Asif Bhatti is snowblind and stranded at 7,300m at Camp 4, the same place where Pawel Kopec died.
A rescue helicopter was unable to take off because of poor weather. Pilots will try again to reach Bhatti first thing tomorrow.
Asif Bhatti is a professor at Islamabad University and climbed Nanga Parbat in a local team led by Jabbar Bhatti. The team included Dr. Naveed, Saad Muhammad, and Faheem Pasha, The Frontier Post reported. Asif Bhatti attempted Broad Peak in 2021.
Others safely back down
Several teams are already back in Base Camp. 8K/Summit Karakoram team members Chris Warner, Chhiring Sherpa, and Pemba Sherpa made it back to Base Camp yesterday at 8 pm. Naila Kiani, climbing with Imagine Nepal, is also safely back after descending from Camp 3 today.
Marco Confortola and another Italian climber tried to top out yesterday but turned around short of the summit because of high winds. They retreated to Camp 3. Confortola told his home team he might try again today, depending on the weather. There have been no further updates since then.
A second group of climbers summited Nanga Parbat today, following up on the earlier successful push on June 26. This time, climbers topped out later in the day. They mentioned the lack of visibility and no ropes fixed previously after 7,300m.
Members of Seven Summit Treks began to reach the summit at 11 am and Karakorum Expeditions around noon. (Most of their local climbers went without bottled oxygen.)
8K/Summit Karakoram, Pioneer Expeditions, Imagine Nepal, and EliteExped also reached the top. Anja Blacha of Germany and Csaba Varga of Hungary summited without oxygen or personal sherpa support. Varga reported summiting very late, at 3 pm.
Most of today's climbers are pursuing the 14x8000'ers so will head to the Gasherbrums next week. Among them are Naila Kiani and Samina Baig of Pakistan, Uta Ibraini of Albania-Kosovo, Josette Valloton of Switzerland, and Chris Warner of the U.S.
Tunc Findik (already back in Islamabad) told ExplorersWeb that the sherpas fixed ropes up to 7,500m during the previous summit push. "The weather was snowy between us and them, so the ropes were probably buried today," Findik noted.
There are no summit pictures yet, but Hugo Ayaviri posted a video on June 26:
There is no news about summits on Broad Peak, but climbers on neighboring K2 report rough weather, so everyone may be waiting. On K2, 8K's rope-fixing team completed the route to Camp 2, despite snow and high winds.
A second wave of climbers is between Camp 2 and Camp 3, moving to the summit of Nanga Parbat. Meanwhile, on Broad Peak, Furtenbach Adventures has chosen an early-bird strategy. Their team, guided by Argentina's Ulises Corbalan, reached the mountain before everyone else. They fixed the ropes themselves and now are ready to go for the top once the weather allows.
Hard terrain on Nanga Parbat
Nanga Parbat climbers are reporting sections of hard ice and a sustainably steep climb. A rock struck skier Ali Olszanski yesterday. He retreated to Base Camp but still hopes to launch a fresh attempt soon, the Alpymon blog reported.
A significant number of climbers are in Camp 3, ready to set off for the top tonight. This year, there is no Camp 4, but a higher percentage of clients are using supplementary O2 and so are able to tackle a longer summit day. As on all "lower" 8,000'ers, the widespread use of supplementary oxygen on 8,126m Nanga Parbat is quite recent.
Imagine Nepal and EliteExped teams are once again climbing at the same pace, with their members in Camp 2.
Broad Peak for just one team
On Broad Peak, the Furtenbach Adventures team has set their camps and fixed ropes up to the col at 7,800m. Climbers are preparing to set off toward higher camps and attempt to summit from Camp 3 sometime next week, once the weather cooperates.
The guides and high-altitude porters will fix ropes on the ridge sections as they proceed to the top. Crowding will not be a problem. They are currently the only team positioned for a summit push. Many other climbers are currently on the way, and some of them, such as a Czech expedition, plan to reach Base Camp tomorrow. They are not acclimatized enough to consider summiting yet.
K2's Base Camp is also filling up quickly, and the rope fixing has started. Summit Karakoram/8K Expeditions have already roped the way to Camp 1.
David Goettler and Benjamin Vedrines describe their recent attempt -- and near success -- on Nanga Parbat's Rupal Face. Meanwhile, Nanga's normal route summiters are finally back in Base Camp after a long, windy climb and descent.
The brotherhood of the rope
Benjamin Vendrines explained that weather and conditions were good when they launched their alpine-style push on Nanga Parbat. They went up the Rupal Face, bivouacked, then traversed to the Diamir side of the mountain -- possibly via the Schell route, although they didn't say.
However, Goettler didn't feel well overnight. Eventually, they had to make some tough decisions. it was especially tough for Vedrines. He felt good, and the two of them were just 600m from the top, in good conditions.
Yet, like all alpine-style teams, they were subject to the brotherhood of the rope and depended on each other.
So instead, they retreated from 7,500m. Further down, Vedrines considered a solo attempt on the following day, but ultimately refused to leave his companion. "I can neither hide my pain nor blame David," he admitted, "[But] emotions felt made my mountaineering values tremble."
The beauty and the cruelty
Goettler explained that they only had one 60m rope, needed for both the climb and the descent. "The descent is not straight down," Goettler explained. "There’s a long up and down traverse first, and there were no fixed ropes, of course. That’s the beauty of climbing a route like this in a style like this. The beauty and the cruelty of it."
"As my great friend Ueli Steck once said, “Don’t epic”. I thought of his words. I knew if we continued I’d unleash an epic. So we turned around," said Goettler.
Tough summit day for Kinshoffer climbers
Harila and her sherpa team, led by Tenjen Sherpa, endured an extremely long journey on June 25-26. They went from Camp 3 to the summit, then all the way down to Base Camp. The rest of Nanga Parbat summiters returned on June 27, after spending a night after their summit in either Camp 3 or Camp 2. They all climbed the normal Kinshoffer route.
One of them, Tunk Findik of Turkey, told ExplorersWeb that June 26 was a marginal summit day. "[It was] very windy, with a 50km wind and the windchill factor down to -45˚C, but that is somewhat normal for an 8,000'er. It was also a dull gray, sunless morning."
Despite his original plan to do the climb without supplementary oxygen, Findik switched on his single bottle at 7,400m. "And I am glad I did," he said.
Findik climbed with Sophie Lavaud's group. Like for her, Nanga was the last peak on his 14x8,000m quest. Or was it?
A summit is a summit, but
Some ExWeb commenters have pointed out that, according to 8000ers.com, Findik previously did not reach the true summit of Manaslu. Sophie Lavaud, on the other hand, summited it last fall, after the true summit had become clear through Jackson Groves's images. Ropes were fixed all the way to the top, and her Manaslu summit is not disputed.
As we explained when 8000ers.com's conclusions first became public, while we do agree that any mountain has only one summit, several climbers told ExplorersWeb that they reached what they were convinced was the highest point on Manaslu. Many pointed out that their summit lay beyond the end of the ropes fixed by commercial teams.
We asked Tunc Findik about Manaslu. He answered in the same vein.
"When I was there on that summit, there was nothing higher," he said. "If I had seen a higher point anywhere, I would for sure have gone there. But there simply wasn't. The snowy ridge ended maybe six to eight meters away from me and no higher in altitude than I was. At least, that was how the final section looked that year."
Findik added that he has taken his 14x8,000m project seriously at every stage. "If I didn't care, I wouldn't have returned to Nanga Parbat four times, especially after the terrorist attack in 2013."
Findik was in Camp 2 when armed terrorists stormed Base Camp and killed 11 people.
Other climbers await their chance
Most Nanga Parbat summiters head next to Broad Peak, the Gasherbrums, or home. Others remain in Base Camp, still waiting for a summit chance. Earlier this week, it seemed that a second push might start tomorrow, Friday, but conditions don't look promising. Findik told ExplorersWeb that the weather is bad and it is currently raining in Base Camp.
Most of the roughly 25 climbers who summited Nanga Parbat this morning have made it back to Base Camp. But not all. Viridiana Alvarez, Sophie Lavaud's group, plus no-O2 climbers Sajid Sadpara and Hugo Ayaviri are still in Camp 3. In a few hours, they will have to undertake the long, technical descent in worsening weather.
Sajid Sadpara climbed with his good friend Hugo Ayaviri of Bolivia. Ayaviri helped the young Pakistani on K2 last year when Sajid stopped on the way down from the summit to bury his father Ali. Ali Sadpara had perished above Camp 4 the previous winter.
The climbers have kept in touch since then. After Sajid returned from climbing Annapurna, Everest, and Lhotse in Nepal this spring, the two joined forces for Nanga Parbat.
A long time in thin air
Sadpara and Ayaviri are spending the night in Camp 3 and will need all their skill and strength to return to Base Camp tomorrow. The weather has turned for the worse, and the pair have been at altitude since the weekend.
"On June 25, we decided to remain in Camp 3 with some climbers from the Seven Summit Treks group," Ayaviri reported. "Many preferred to go back down. The conditions were too uncertain, [rope fixing was not complete], and bad weather was coming."
Ayaviri and Sajid Sadpara started their summit push straight from Camp 3 (6,800m) at 10 pm on Sunday.
"From 7,600m, the route was no longer equipped with a fixed rope," he noted. Therefore, there was no Camp 4 either.
"We arrived at the summit around 8:00 am on Monday, June 26," Avaviri said. "The strong winds left us no respite. We went down very quickly to safety at Camp 3."
Meanwhile, Viridiana Alvarez came to Nanga Parbat only recently, but with the acclimatization she'd acquired on Shishapangma and Cho Oyu in the spring. Her tracker shows she summited, then returned to Camp 3. She climbed with Lakpa Temba Sherpa, as part of Seven Summit Treks' group.
First French 14x8,000m climber
Sophie Lavaud is also in Camp 3 with Sangay Sherpa, Francois Damilano, and Ulysse Lefebvre (and possibly other sherpas), AlpineMag reports. Lavaud has just finished her 14x8,000m quest and thus becomes the first French climber, male or female, to climb all 14 8,000m peaks.
This is notable, considering that French climbers were the first ever to summit an 8,000m peak (Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal climbed Annapurna in 1950.) As Lavaud also holds Swiss and Canadian nationalities, she has several national "firsts" to celebrate.
We are waiting for confirmation of the whereabouts of two further summiters, who planned to go all the way without oxygen: Tunc Findik of Turkey and Shah Daulat of Pakistan.
Kristin Harila and her powerful Sherpa team made it back to Base Camp at dawn. Seven Summit Trek's expedition leader Chhang Dawa Sherpa confirmed the speedy Norwegian's success on social media:
With them was Nima Rinji Sherpa, the 17 year-old-son of Seven Summit Trek's CEO Tashi Lakpa Sherpa. Rinji summited Everest and now is the latest who wants to become the youngest 14x8,000'er summiter ever.
Pemba Sherpa of the 8K Expeditions' office in Kathmandu, told ExplorersWeb that 8K team members (Pasdawa Sherpa, Nawang Sherpa, and Gina Marie Han-lee) were safe and "getting back to BC."
Other climbers from Seven Summit Treks and Imagine Nepal are currently waiting in Base Camp for a second summit window.
Climbers summited Nanga Parbat today. The summit group was larger than expected, thanks to a few last-minute additions, namely, Kristin Harila and her sherpa team, and Mexico's Viridiana Alvarez.
Nanga Parbat is the 10th peak for Harila and Tenjen Sherpa in their 14x8,000'er race. Tenjen Sherpa has led Harila's sherpa team on all her 8,000m summits so far this year.
Coincidentally, Pasdawa Sherpa was also on the summit today. Last year, Pasdawa was one of two Nepalese climbers who supported Harila on her first attempt to summit the 14x8,000'ers in six months. Pasdawa, working with 8K Expeditions, topped out on Nanga Parbat with American Gina Marie Han-Lee and Nawang Sherpa.
More 14x8,000m finishers
Sophie Lavaud, climbing with Dawa Sangay, Francois Damilano, and Ulysse Lefebvre, completed her 14x8,000'ers quest today. So did Tunc Findik of Turkey, who was climbing without oxygen. (It is not yet confirmed whether he completed the full ascent that way.)
Sajid Sadpara of Pakistan also summited without oxygen.
Most of today's summiters were outfitted by Seven Summit Treks (SST). SST submitted a list of 20 confirmed names:
1. Kristin Harila (Norway)
2. Tenjen Sherpa "Lama" (Nepal)
3. Pasang Nurbu Sherpa (Nepal)
4. Nima Rinji Sherpa (Nepal)
5. Sophie Lavaud (holds French, Swiss, and Canadian nationalities)
6. Dawa Sangay Sherpa (Nepal)
7. Dendi Sherpa (Nepal)
8. Pasang Tenji Sherpa (Nepal)
9. Alina Pekova (Russia)
10. Sajid Ali Dadpara (Pakistan)
11. Tunc findik (Turkey)
12. Nima Dorje Sherpa (Nepal)
13. Viridiana Alvarez (Mexico)
14. Lakpa Temba Sherpa (Nepal)
15. Yousuf Ali (Pakistan)
16. Imtiaz Ali Sadpara (Pakistan)
17. Francois Damilano (France)
18. Ulysse Lefevre (France)
19. Ming Temba Sherpa (Nepal)
20. Lakpa Temba Sherpa (Nepal)
Another 10 climbers could summit later today.
Reports from Base Camp note that the weather is worsening, but another window in early July could permit more summits. Meanwhile, a large number of climbers are starting the approach trek to K2 and Broad Peak from Skardu. They aim to reach Base Camp by the end of the week.
A summit push has begun on Nanga Parbat. It includes Kristin Harila and the five sherpas supporting her. Some members of Seven Summit Treks and 8K Expeditions are also involved. Yet the push is surprisingly secretive: There is none of the usual coordination or open planning among teams.
"No one tells the truth here, everyone hides [their goals]," said a climber currently on the mountain, according to the Alpymon blog. "It's like playing chess, although we all pursue the same goal."
Luckily, some climbers have their trackers on. Harila's tracker locates her on the way to Camp 4. From there, she could summit tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Seven Summit Treks' Chhang Dawa Sherpa confirms that his first summit group hopes to top out tomorrow, while his second group will await the next weather window.
The first team includes Viridiana Alvarez, whose tracker places her at 6,970m, and Marco Confortola, who is in Camp 3 at 6,800m. Chhang Dawa also notes that ropes are fixed up to Camp 4.
Pakistani clients
A significant number of Pakistani climbers are on the mountain. Sajid Sadpara is again helping fix ropes for Seven Summit Treks. Wajid Ullah Nagri (rescued from Rakaposhi two years ago) and female climbers Samina Baig (with her brother's company, Karakoram Expeditions) and Naila Kiani (with Mingma G's Imagine Nepal) are also there.
Both Baig and Kiani summited K2 last year. Kiani has also bagged Annapurna, Everest, and Lhotse this past spring. While there is no news on Baig's progress, Kiani is currently in Base Camp, waiting for better weather. Forecasts suggest a turn for the worse starting tomorrow, but conditions should improve again by July 1.
According to Kiani, Sadpara, Shah Daulat, and a few other Pakistanis will be joining the summit push.
On Nanga Parbat, the rope fixers have laid ropes up to Camp 3. Most of the climbers sitting in Base Camp for much of the past two weeks have reached Camp 2 by now. This is enough acclimatization for those using supplementary oxygen, which is almost everyone.
The weather is finally improving, at least for the next two days. Teams are preparing for the first summit push on Pakistan's 8,000'ers this year.
But will snow conditions cooperate? There is still a long way from Camp 3 (below 7,000m) to the 8,125m summit. Teams typically pitch a fourth camp before the final ramps.
Harila back - on foot
Kristin Harila of Norway is expected to reach Base Camp today, Carlos Garranzo reported on social media, in time to join the push. As usual, she will rely on her strong sherpa team, led by Tenjen "Lama" Sherpa. He has joined Harila on all nine summits this year.
Helicopters are not the same cheap and easy option in Pakistan as they are in Nepal. The military manages Pakistan's helicopters, which are used almost exclusively for search and rescue. Occasionally, climbers willing to pay huge sums of money to skip the long return trek down the Baltoro Valley after K2 can cop a ride. But this is not common practice.
The rope fixing on Nanga Parbat has proceeded comparatively slowly. This year, Mirza Ali's Karakorum Expedition team is doing the work, according to the Alpymon Blog. Lots of snow on the mountain has delayed them. Samina Baig, the sister of Mirza Ali, will join others on the mountain, as she did last year on K2.
Little info from the field
Information from Nanga Parbat has been hard to come by. Tunc Findik of Turkey, who is hoping to climb without supplementary oxygen, noted that they have no wifi in Base Camp. Findik is attempting Nanga Parbat for the third time. It is the last mountain in his 14x8,000m quest.
Sophie Lavaud is likewise hoping to finish her 8,000m list on Nanga Parbat. She was one of the lucky few allowed into China to climb Shishapangma this past spring. Her partner, Dawa Sangay Sherpa, could not accompany her then, but he will support her on their second attempt on Nanga Parbat.
"I have bad memories [of last year's attempt]," Lavaud said. "The couloir [between Camp 1 and Camp 2] is terribly long, 1,000m without respite to the foot of the Kinshofer Wall."
Csaba Varga of Hungary is also attempting the mountain no-O2. It would be his 6th 8,000'er.
Broad Peak is nearly ready
Furtenbach Adventures has led the rope fixing on Broad Peak, and they have reached Camp 3. This is the last camp usually set up on the normal route. After Nanga Parbat, most climbers' focus will turn here. Many K2 hopefuls also get a permit for Broad Peak. It serves for their acclimatization and allows them to add a second 8,000'er to their resumés.
Here are the latest updates from some interesting expeditions in Pakistan.
On 7,403m Istor-O-Nal, David Klein and Bence Kerekes are progressing along their route. These two Hungarians, plus the Japanese pair of Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima, are currently the only teams climbing this summer in the Hindu Kush.
Kharut II ends
U.S. climber and skier Luke Smithwick has ended his expedition on unclimbed 6,824m Kharut II. Dangerous avalanche conditions kept his team from summiting.
"This was not due to the strength or ability of any team member, but because of my own decision making," Smithwick wrote on social media. He said that the snowpack was unsafe, and the instability wouldn't fix itself until the summer heat removed the layers he observed.
"I have zero regrets about my decision; however, it's frustrating," he said.
Next week, Smithwick will begin an expedition on an unspecified 8,000m peak.
Spantik before Muchu Chhish
The Czech team of Pavel Bem, Pavel Korinek, Tomas Petrecek, and Radoslav Groh will shortly start their climb of the southeast ridge (normal route) of 7,027m Spantik. They are acclimatizing in preparation for their attempt on unclimbed Muchu Chhish.
The team has already crossed the Chogo Lungma Glacier and established a base camp at 4,400m. Here, their porters returned home. As the weather forecast is good, they decided to pack for six days and set off up Spantik. They want to spend at least two nights above 6,300m for acclimatization. Some members of the team want to summit Spantik and ski down if conditions are right.
"We'll see [how far] we can get," they said yesterday. "The season hasn't started yet, so we're the first ones here."
This morning, June 19, the Czechs left base camp and trekked up to about 4,900m in beautiful weather. Here, they set up Camp 1, although they didn't find the usual tent site.
"Everything is under snow," they admitted. They pitched two tents under a relatively safe serac. They will continue tomorrow morning.
There is still no news from David Goettler and Benjamin Vedrines, who are planning an alpine-style ascent of the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat.
Broad Peak and Nanga Parbat
On 8,126m Nanga Parbat, the all-Pakistani team has fixed the ropes up to Camp 3. Nanga Parbat started earlier so the progress is more advanced than on Broad Peak, where the rope fixing has just begun. Some groups have already started their acclimatization, while others are just approaching the peaks.
Karakoram paragliding
The duo of Antoine Girard and Veso Ovcharov are currently paragliding over the Karakoram. Girard's last track on June 11 showed them in the Rakaposhi and Diran areas. Four days ago, Girard wrote that they finished the first part of the acclimatization. They were awaiting the right weather window "to start serious things." He noted that heavy snow still blanketed the mountains.
Their upcoming plans are unclear, but in 2017 Girard and then-partner Julien Dusserre attempted an alpine-style climb of the virgin east face of 7,227m Langtang Lirung in Nepal. They approached the dangerous and almost inaccessible starting point of that face by paragliding. In the end, dangerous conditions on the mountain stopped their ascent.
Paragliding over hazards, then landing at a safe site to begin a climb is a new way to approach some otherwise inaccessible mountains. Last year, Fabian Buhl and Will Sim managed the first ascent of 5,810m Gulmit Tower in the Karakoram, after paragliding to its base.
Approaching Gulmit Tower on foot is almost impossible. They pair climbed the tower, then paraglided back to Karimabad.
As the first commercial teams head for Nanga Parbat, David Goettler and Benjamin Vedrines are already quietly engaged in an alpine-style ascent.
Elsewhere, in the Karakoram, a team of five climbers led by American Luke Smithwick arrived in Skardu today to attempt the unclimbed 6,824m Kharut II.
Smithwick's long-term project is to ski the best 500 lines in the Himalaya. But he organized this current expedition through his own agency Himalaya Alpine Guides, Ali Porik of Jasmine Tours told ExplorersWeb. It is not clear if Smithwick intends to ski down on Kharut II.
The team is preparing to head into the lonely and still wintery Baltoro. Kharut II is very close to K2, where expeditions do not start arriving until July.
At least two of the commercial Nanga Parbat climbers are hoping to tick off the last peak on their 14x8,000m list. Earlier this spring, Sophie Lavaud climbed Shishapangma in Tibet, her 13th. Turkey's Tunc Findic has also completed 13 8,000'ers. Bad weather and heavy snow thwarted their previous attempt on Nanga Parbat last June.
After two winter attempts, David Goettler is ready to try Nanga Parbat alpine style in a warmer season, and in great company. He is climbing with speedster Benjamin Vedrines.
As usual, Goettler just posted a brief note before disconnecting from the internet on his way to Pakistan. "I'll look forward to sharing thoughts and images when we are back online in a few weeks," he wrote.
He has not shared information about their route or strategy. All we know is that the climbers will reach Nanga Parbat before most commercial teams get there in June. They will also stay loyal to the "pure and light" criteria.
Powerful partnerships
Goettler usually engages in cutting-edge projects with excellent partners, such as Kilian Jornet, with whom he attempted the Everest-Lhotse traverse, and Herve Barmasse, his partner on the winter attempts on Nanga Parbat and Dhaulagiri. Last year, Goettler found no partner and climbed Everest on his own without oxygen or Sherpa support.
As far as we know, this is the first time that Goettler has paired with Vedrines, one of the younger generation of outstanding climbers. Born and raised in the Alps, he is now turning to pure alpine-style ascents in the Himalaya.
Vedrines is also one of the fastest climbers around. He climbed Broad Peak in an astonishing 7 hours 28 minutes last year. He also smashed records, both climbing and on skis, at home in the French Alps all last winter. In the Himalaya, besides climbing Broad Peak and K2, he opened a new route on Chamlang with Charles Dubouloz in 2021.
Vedrines confirmed that they are already on their way and wrote about his motivations in his usual poetic style.
"I feel weak but I give myself the strength to believe in powerful dreams, so powerful that they sometimes make me think I am capable of great things," he wrote. "I want to feel my flaws, to be at the foot of giants, to feel tiny and vulnerable...I want to give myself the means to deserve the goal, and to return to the world below, invigorated."
Check his post (in French) and a short video of Nanga Parbat here:
David Goettler is currently in Nepal, preparing to tackle a winter 8,000'er in alpine style with Herve Barmasse. It's been a busy and fulfilling year for the German athlete. Last May 21, he stood alone on the summit Everest, which he had just climbed without supplementary O2. He describes it as the fulfillment of one of his biggest dreams.
Shortly after that climb, Goettler spoke to ExplorersWeb about his achievement. He was already thinking ahead to winter. Below, some of the highlights of that conversation.
First, recall that when Goettler posted about his Everest summit, he quickly noted he had used the fixed ropes and also the ladders across the Khumbu Icefall. He even confessed that he had used an abandoned tent platform on his summit push and accepted a handful of Haribo gummy bears from another climber.
"As I see it, this is how mountaineering achievements must be reported," he explained. "We need to be totally transparent, and at the same time do our best to educate the audiences so that they can tell one climb from another."
Everybody knows the tricks
"Of course, being on a fixed route with 500 other people walking on it every day makes a huge difference, and everyone who climbs high mountains knows that perfectly well," Goettler added. "So we should be clear enough to point out if/when we take easier ways to achieve our goals. Not mentioning this is not so different from lying.
"This is why, when I see no mention of whether a person has used O2 or not, I take for granted that they did, even if they made a great effort to conceal their masks on their summit pictures."
"I don’t think my style is superior to others," he said. "You may solo a wall or just pull out the quickdraws. You can ride the Tour de France or spend a Sunday on your e-bike, and all of them can be amazing experiences. We just need to be honest about how much it takes to do each activity, especially those advertising themselves as 'athletes doing some out-of-the-norm' -- who know very well what a difference some factors make in the difficulty and results of the activity.”
"As long as they're clear about it, everyone can climb however they please. That's the allure of mountaineering -- that we do not have rules."
Winter, Goettler-style
Goettler applies the same criteria to winter climbing.
"Again, it is so much about style," he says."If you change suddenly the style [in which winter 8000ers were climbed so far], as we saw on K2, the options for success increase."
Goettler wants to do this upcoming winter climb in his own way, which is alpine style.
His climbing partner Herve Barmasse shares his ideals. The pair will soon reveal whether they are heading to Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, or back to Nanga Parbat.
"We want to return to Nanga Parbat, for sure," Goettler told ExplorersWeb in that interview earlier this year. "We feel it can be done as long as we get a long enough windless window."
Goettler also explained why the pair chose the huge Rupal Face last winter. "For us, it is the easiest route to climb Nanga Parbat in winter," he said. "It is long but well-sheltered from the wind until the Mazeno Col. And it's in the sun, unlike the Diamir side in winter, which is like a freezer."
Denis Urubko and Pipi Cardell are in Pakistan to climb 7,070m Rakhiot Peak, part of the Nanga Parbat massif.
A third person, Urubko's good friend Maksim Berngard of Russia, rounds out the team. Urubko and Berngard climbed Koshar Gang together last winter.
The trio reached base camp yesterday, according to Carlos Garranzo's blog. Although November is typically the off-season between fall and winter for high-altitude climbers, Urubko and company have no time to waste. Their permit expires on November 26. They plan to acclimatize by summiting an unclimbed 6,000m peak nearby.
Rakhiot Peak stands along one of the ridges issuing from Nanga's main summit, about four kilometres northeast of the central peak. (In the opposite direction, to the southwest, is the Mazeno Ridge).
Rakhiot Peak, which also gives its name to the Rakhiot Face on the north side if the mountain, was first climbed in 1932 by a team led by Willi Merkl. Their initial goal was Nanga Parbat. The climbers made it to the top of Rakhiot Peak, but bad conditions pushed them back when they tried to follow the ridge to the main summit.
In September 2020, a Pakistani team attempted the peak, but bad conditions pushed them back from Camp 2. Before retreating, climber Asiff Bhati shot this video.
An unusual summer
Urubko spent what was, for him, a different type of summer. Instead of new routes, Urubko took a sporting approach to Broad Peak, Gasherbrum II, and K2 in Pakistan's Karakoram. He climbed fast and on his own, but followed the normal, fixed routes. He hoped to beat Juanito Oiarzabal's record for the most 8,000m summits without supplemental O2. In the end, he equaled Oiarzabal's number. Both now stand at 26.
Now he has returned to Pakistan with his wife Pipi Cardell for a quiet climb. Last June, the pair climbed a reportedly virgin peak in a little-known area of 5,000 to 6,000m peaks a couple of days from Skardu.
Conditions in Pakistan's mountains in November are typically unstable. However, Urubko's group is climbing southwest of the Karakoram's best-known peaks, K2, Broad Peak, and the Gasherbrums. Nanga Parbat actually lies in the Himalaya, and its weather differs slightly from that in the Karakoram. But Himalaya or Karakoram, the climbers should expect some very cold days ahead.
On Saturday, Mingma G decided to call his Nanga Parbat expedition off because of the high risk of further avalanches and rockfall. As Tsering Sherpa demonstrated on Instagram, it's clear he was not exaggerating.
At least three major avalanches swept the team's planned route. One of them nearly caught Tsering and Mingma G. The Imagine Nepal pair had gone ahead to check the state of the ropes and the camps. Needless to say, they found no trace of either.
Before the avalanches, everything was primed for a summit push. “The rope was fixed, we had dropped oxygen at Camp II, we had planned for the summit push on September 2," Tsering told Everest Chronicle.
But clouds had enveloped Nanga Parbat lately, and frequent rain had destabilized the entire Kinshoffer Face. Constant avalanches fell from the Mazeno Ridge, and rocks plummeted right across the route.
IFMGA guide Tsering (sometimes spelled Chhiring) Sherpa made headlines some weeks ago after summiting K2 in 12 hours and 20 minutes (with supplementary O2). He is one of Imagine Nepal's head guides.
Pakistan's climate dystopia
Meanwhile, the death toll from flooding across Pakistan continues to rise. The official tally is now 1,061 victims. The rain and flooding are the worst in the last 30 years, Pakistan's Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, said today.
"This is very far from a normal monsoon -- it is climate dystopia at our doorstep," Climate Minister Sherry Rehman told AFP.
The damage could get even worse as the Indus river, the largest in the country, is threatening to burst its banks.
Despite conditions, at least one team is determined to climb in Pakistan within the next few days. Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima of Japan are traveling to Gilgit today to begin their approach trek to Karun Koh.
Yesterday, the Imagine Nepal team was preparing to leave Nanga Parbat Base Camp for the summit, Mingma G told ExplorersWeb. But Pakistan is suffering the worst monsoon in years, and yesterday, avalanches from the heavier-than-normal snowfall roared down the Kinshoffer Face of Nanga Parbat.
Naila Kiani, currently in Nanga's Base Camp after summiting K2 and Gasherbrum I this season, first reported that an avalanche had swept their chosen route. It was a close call: They were having a final night's rest before leaving for the summit.
Avalanches and rockfall
Later, Mingma G told ExplorersWeb that in fact, three avalanches hit their chosen line. "This morning Chiriring and I went to check our route and gear," the expedition leader said. "We found nothing."
Mingma G went on: "There's constant rockfall on the Kinshoffer Wall, and our planned new route is directly exposed to avalanches falling from the Mazeno Ridge."
After weighing the risks, Mingma G made a tough decision. "I can’t risk the life of my team...so we have decided to stop and go back home safely."
The entire team agreed that calling the expedition off was the only option.
Bad timing
Mingma G had gambled by going to Nanga Parbat at an unusual time, two months later than the typical early July. He hoped to find early post-monsoon conditions, but the current monsoon has lasted much longer than usual. This is also the strongest monsoon in decades, aid agencies told the BBC.
As a result, rain has flooded low-lying areas, destroyed roads and bridges, and exacted a terrible toll on human life. The death toll approaches 1,000, and around 33 million people have been displaced. Thousands more must evacuate, as the rivers keep rising. Pakistan has declared a national emergency.
So Mingma's G's idea might still work in a typical season, but not in this one.
On Nanga Parbat's Kinshoffer route, rocks continue to rain down between Camp 2 and the foot of the mountain. For Imagine Nepal leader Mingma G, the choice was clear -- change the route.
The climbers reached Base Camp a week ago. After a rest day, staff fixed ropes to 700m above Camp 1. Because of the flying rocks, however, they eventually retreated to Base Camp to discuss their options.
"We decided not to climb the Kingshoffer Wall," said Mingma G. "So on August 17, three team members climbed up and brought down all the rope previously fixed.
"On August 18, we fixed our [new] Camp 1 at 5,100m following approximately Messner’s route. One day later, we fixed Camp 2 at 6,359m after climbing up the Couloir."
Everyone is currently back at Base Camp for a short rest but they will go back up to fix Camp 3 as soon as possible. Mingma G says that conditions are good on this new route. They plan to follow it to the summit.
Which Messner route?
The Messner route on Nanga Parbat's Diamir Face usually refers to the route he climbed on his solo 1978 ascent. Yet strictly speaking, there is more than one Messner route. Check the topo below by Irena Mrak in the American Alpine Journal.
High temperatures on Nanga Parbat have made conditions too dangerous for the mostly no-O2 climbers remaining.
During the latest summit attempt, some aborted as early as Camp 1. Others, such as Juan Pablo Toro and Matoco Erroz of Argentina, risked pushing further up but had to dodge constantly falling rocks. In the end, they made Camp 3 safely.
There, a team of four Sherpas and a client, all on oxygen, also gave up their summit attempt because of bare rock and hard, old ice on the upper sections. Then it started snowing heavily.
"The decision was easy to make," Toro concluded. "We are back in Base Camp after an epic descent with rocks rocketing down around us and three snow stakes coming loose as we rappelled down [because of the soft, wet snow]."
Marco Confortola and Tunc Findik had a similar experience. The Turkish climber cited the arrival of the monsoon as partly responsible. Although it barely affects the Karakoram, it does impact Nanga Parbat. He had wanted to start his expedition earlier, but visa problems delayed his arrival in Pakistan.
Khoo Swee Chiow of Singapore is also back in Base Camp after a failed summit attempt and is possibly heading home. News is expected soon about Sophie Lavaud and Sengay Sherpa. It is unclear whether any climbers remain willing to attempt Nanga Parbat. If not, the next group heading for the mountain will be Mingma G's Imagine Nepal team, in August.
High temperatures have also made conditions harder on Broad Peak and may have contributed to the accident that took the life of Sharif Sadpara.
Summit pushes ahead on GII and K2
On Gasherbrum II, some climbers started a summit push two days ago, but have not updated since then. The weather in the Karakoram is currently poor. Denis Urubko also intended to launch a summit push on GII but shared no details.
While Gasherbrum II is not as crowded as K2 and Broad Peak, there are several teams, including Jagged Globe from UK, Kobler & Partner from Switzerland, and Alpenglow, with Topo Mena leading the way. Also on GII is Denali speed climber and skier Caroline Gleich, who hopes to ski down the mountain.
Finally, expectation grows on K2, as most O2-supported teams may be ready for a summit push. Chhang Dawa Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks has confirmed that his large team is ready and that the Sherpas have suppled Camp 3 with oxygen. They only need a good weather window to proceed.
On Wednesday, six days after summiting Nanga Parbat, Kristin Harila was still in Skardu. Since she is aiming to climb all five of Pakistan's 8,000m peaks this season, every day counts. But unexpected problems delayed the Norwegian climber and the 8k Expedition team. The weather was bad earlier this week but most of all, she needed recovery time after a big rock struck her leg as she was descending from Nanga Parbat.
"It happened nearly at the end when I was approaching Base Camp," she told ExplorersWeb. Luckily, the blow was just painful; no bones were broken. "I am fine, but I needed a couple of days to rest and recover."
Going up better than going down
As with other recent Nanga Parbat climbers, Harila's ascent went well despite the lack of ropes. But the descent was "scary due to ice and rock fall."
"The mountain is quite technical, especially between Camps 1 and 2," Harila said. "On the summit push, we took 11.5 hours from a higher Camp 3 to the summit.
"At first, we advanced slowly because Pasdawa, Dawa Ongchu, and Chhiring fixed some ropes to Camp 4. From that point, there were no ropes at all and we climbed short-roped, but otherwise, I saw no big problem on the final sections."
The leg injury has encouraged Harila to avoid the five-day trek up the Baltoro. Instead, she has paid the "very expensive" fee for a helicopter flight to K2 Base Camp. That was scheduled for July 7, weather permitting.
During her time in Skardu, Harila also kept tabs on her friend, Shehroze Kashif, who was stranded on Nanga Parbat until yesterday.
From K2 Base Camp, Harila and her team will decide which mountain to attempt first, K2 or Broad Peak. "It will depend on conditions, weather, and also on the situation on the mountains," she said.
