No progress on Everest or Broad Peak due to poor weather but plans to reach Camp 2 on K2. Monday, Jan 28 Update: Jost back on the move to the Lho La and Denis Urubko with Don Bowie are starting their summit push.
Everest – Climbing
Jost on West Ridge
German alpinist Jost Kobusch, age 27, is stuck at base camp due to poor weather Monday, Jan 28 Update: on the move to the Lho La at 5681 m | 18638 ft according to his tracker. His high thus far was 6146 meters / 20164 feet on the Lho La Pass where he planned to establish his Camps 1 and 2. You can track his location on this excellent map from 3D Reality Maps. He gave this recent update on Facebook:
Back at base camp! In the night from 20.01 to 21.01 the weather conditions in camp one on Lho la had deteriorated seriously. Although my tent was tied with six lines in each direction, it could hardly withstand the estimated wind speed of 100kmh. With split bamboo I tried to anchor the lines deep in the snow. Nevertheless, a hole in the flysheet was teared and since the weather conditions did not really improve, I started my way back to the base camp on 22.01. During the descent from the glacier to the cliff, I had to realize that the whole route section had collapsed. This did not necessarily make the descent any easier and made sure that I only felt really recovered today, 4 days after the descent. I am no longer so short of breath and my resting pulse rate has dropped back to normal levels. Will i go up again? I am just waiting for the next fair-weather window!
In review, he plans on a winter, solo Everest climb without supplemental oxygen and no Sherpa support. This exact style has never been attempted or accomplished. Jost had acclimatized on other peaks including Amotsang (6,393m), Island Peak (6,186 meters) and Pachermo Peak (6,259 meters).
Txikon on Southeast Ridge
Alex Txikon and the team summited Ama Dablam and now gave an update on how they powered their electronics. They will now move to Everest for an attempt on the standard SE Ridge route. His team includes Spaniard Oscar Cardo, Jonatan García and Nepalese Sherpas Chhiji Nurbu Sherpa, Pechhumbe Sherpa, and Tenjen Sherpa. Txikon posted on Instagram:
Thanks to EVE we’ve been able to avoid using 100 litres of fossil fuel to cover Base Camp’s energy needs. We’ve installed three 100w solar pannels! We support solar energy. Welcome Ekian and kudos to our friends at Basque’s organization for Energy!
They should be moving to EBC soon.
K2 – No Os – Cold!!
Mingma Gyalje Sherpa‘s Imagine Nepal team arrived at Broad Peak Base Camp in deep snow and have started carrying loads as high as 19,187.01 ft【5.848 m】according to John Snorri’s tracker. Mingma posted on Facebook:
K2 in winter is not like what we expected. It is extremely cold and windy. Our sleeping bags are frozen, clothes are not dried. Tomorrow some of us will sleep in camp1 and try to set up route to camp2.
Snorri added:
We are back in BC after long 16 hour day in the mountain. The mountain it self is covered in blue ice. It was difficult and the cold was our worst enemy. Our GPS froze and just turned of, but still we managed to port 250 kg of equipments to C1. We are exhausted and will use tomorrow to rest and gather strength. Now in BC it’s -24 celcius and everything is frozen but beautiful wether.
Broad Peak – Beginning the Summit Push
Broad Peak First then Maybe K2
The team wanted to overnight at 7,000 meters to complete their acclimatization before their summit push but now are forging the extra rotation aiming to summit on February 1, within Urubko’s definition of winter which ends on February 29, 2020. Denis Urubko’s goal is to complete, what he considers, the first true winter ascent of Broad Peak and then, perhaps, go to K2 within his “winter.” He is teaming with Don Bowie and Lotta Hintsa. Denis gave this brief update on Monday:
“I am preparing the equipment for the summit. I am ready to work and get to the top ”
Batura Sar – At Base Camp
In preparing for a 2020/21 K2 winter attempt, Piotr Tomala,Rafał Fronia, Wojciech Flaczyński, Filip Babicz, Mariusz Hatala, Kacper Kłoda, Marco Schwidergall and Oswald Rodrigo will try the first winter at Batura Sar, an impressive 7,795 meter peak, located in the western Karakoram Pakistan. They are at Batura’s base camp now. The latest from their site:
The climbers covered a total of 30 kilometers for four days. On the fourth day, he was a little over a kilometer in a straight line. However, the route led through a very hard terrain, after a glacier buried up to the waist in the snow and densely dotted with crevasses. A local guide lost his way, and porters twice refused to continue working. The first time, they managed to persuade them to continue in exchange for financial gratification, the second they left the cargo and set off back. This forced the expedition to spend two nights on the glacier at an altitude of 4000 meters.
Eventually, the participants of the expedition opened the road to the Base on their own on January 25 (4,100 m). The next day, after difficult negotiations, we managed to convince another group of local porters to bring most of the cargo to the Base.
The expedition now has two organizational days, and then the mountain action – Batura Winter 2020.
Winter 2019/20
Everest At 6000 meters
- Jost Kobusch – at EBC
- Alex Txikon – Ama Dablam summit, now Everest
K2
- Mingma Gyalje Sherpa – At BC
Broad Peak, then K2?
- Denis Urubko – Tagged 7000m, At BC
Gasherbrum I/II
- Simone Moro and Tamara Lunger – Over. Due to injury
Ama Dablam
- Zoltán Szlankó, Alex Goldfarb
Climb On!
Alan
Memories are Everything
