{"id":48756,"date":"2025-10-20T18:13:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T00:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/?p=48756"},"modified":"2025-10-28T13:09:56","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T19:09:56","slug":"autumn-2025-everest-nf-ski-descent-everest-legend-death-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/20\/autumn-2025-everest-nf-ski-descent-everest-legend-death-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Autumn 2025: Everest NF Ski Descent, Everest Legend Death and More"},"content":{"rendered":"
While teams summited Cho Oyu, the world’s sixth-highest peak, a fifty-year-old American skied down the North Face of Mt. Everest. An Everest 1953 legend has passed away.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
The recent heavy snowfall across both sides of Everest created a host of false, poorly written, and poorly researched articles about “stranded climbers on Everest.” The only climbers on Everest were the NatGeo ski team, and they were never stranded. Many teams of seasonal trekkers were stranded in Tibet’s Kama (or Karma) Valley, east of Mount Everest, but all were rescued by local villagers and SAR teams. Bottom line: There was drama, but nothing to get seriously worked up over.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
As the Himalayan season winds down, climbing action picks up on Puncak Jaya or Carstensz Pyramid on the island of New Guinea, Kilimanjaro, Antarctica’s Vinson Massif and, around New Year’s, Argentina’s Aconcagua.<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Everest – Successful Ski Descent<\/b><\/p>\n

Jim Morrison, 50, successfully skied from the summit down the Hornbein Couloir on the north face of Everest. This had been a long-time dream for Morrison, but also to honor his late partner, Hilaree Nelson, who died tragically in 2022 on Nepal\u2019s Manaslu after they summited together. Morrison dedicated the record-breaking achievement to her.<\/p>\n

He was supported by a massive team including Erich Roepke, Pemba Sharwa Sherpa, Esteban \u201cTopo\u201d Mena, Carla Perez, Roberto \u201cTico\u201d Morales, Pur Bahadur \u201cYukta\u201d Gurung, Ngima Tenjing Sherpa, Pemba Gelje Sherpa, Tenging Gyaljen Sherpa and Pasang Sona Sherpa.<\/p>\n

Sponsored by The North Face and National Geographic<\/a>, filmmaker Jimmy Chin, with others on the team, documented the descent and will release a documentary. NatGeo<\/a> has a long, detailed article on the descent.<\/p>\n

\"Kancha<\/a>
Kancha Shepra<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A Legend Dies<\/b><\/p>\n

Kancha Sherpa, 92, the last surviving member of the historic 1953 expedition that first summited Everest, passed away on Thursday at his home in Kapan, Kathmandu. Pattie Moon wrote an excellent book on Kanchha, Tough and Cheerful: The Life and Times of Kanchha Sherpa, Last Living Member from the First Ascent of Mount Everest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Manaslu – ~400 Summits, Almost Over<\/b><\/p>\n

It looks like the primary Manaslu season ended with around 400 summits, clients and support climbers. Nepal issued permits to 457 climbers from 47 expedition teams, including 347 men and 110 women. At least 192 members, supported by 195 Sherpas, reached what they claimed was the true summit. The five Sherpa rope team reached the summit on September 20, 2025.<\/p>\n

One last team is attempting what they claim is a new route on Manaslu’s Southwest Face. The Russian team has four climbers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cho Oyu – ~25+ Summits<\/b><\/p>\n

Two more teams summit Cho Oyu last week: Adventure Consultants and Madison Mountaineering. IFMGA guide Chhiring Sherpa finished his 8000ers on Cho Oyu with a speed climb from Base Camp to the summit.<\/p>\n

Makalu – Over (Deep Snow) – No Summits<\/b><\/p>\n

Russian climbers Denis Aleksenko of Russia and Artem Tsentsevitsky ended their attempt at 7867 meters on the 8485m peak, thwarted by deep snow.<\/p>\n

Dhaulagiri – 33+ Summits<\/b><\/p>\n

After the initial 25 summits (11 clients, 14 support climbers), more summits were reported: Spanish Jorge Egocheaga, Chinese climber Ping Lu, French climber Catherine Bury with Nurbu Sherpa, Taraman Tamang, and Pemba Tasi Sherpa. Pavlo Sydorenko summited with Ashok Lama.<\/p>\n

Ama Dablam – Climbing<\/b><\/p>\n

There is also activity on the popular pointy peak, Ama Dablam, at 6812 meters. The ropes reached the summit on October 12, 2025, with commercial summits immediately following. I expect a similar number to last year, when 578 people summited (321 clients, 257 support climbers) for a 57% summit rate.<\/p>\n

Shishapangma – Closed<\/b><\/p>\n

No climbers are scheduled to climb the only 8000er entirely within Tibet this autumn.<\/p>\n

Next Up<\/h3>\n

The climbing activity moves to Puncak Jaya or Carstensz Pyramid on the island of New Guinea, with an elevation of 4,884 m (16,024 ft). Madison Mountaineering is there with Art Muir, who is the oldest American to summit Mount Everest, at age 75, on May 23, 2021. Carstensz will be the last of his Seven Summits. By the way, Norwegian climbing legend Kristin Harlia\u00a0is part of the Madison team. Kristin is known for climbing all fourteen 8000ers in 92 days in 2023.<\/p>\n

Also on the climbing agenda are Kilimanjaro, Antarctica’s Vinson Massif and, around New Year’s, Argentina’s Aconcagua.<\/p>\n

Safe climbing to all.<\/p>\n

Climb On!
\nAlan,
\nMemories are Everything<\/p>\n

The Podcast on alanarnette.com<\/h2>\n

You can listen to my podcasts<\/strong> on Spotify<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Breaker<\/a>, Pocket Casts<\/a>, RadioPublic<\/a>, Anchor<\/a>, and more. Just search for “alan arnette” on your favorite podcast platform.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While teams summited Cho Oyu, the world’s sixth-highest peak, a fifty-year-old American skied down the North Face of Mt. Everest. An Everest 1953 legend has passed away.<\/p>\n

The recent heavy snowfall across both sides of Everest created a host of false and poorly written and researched articles about “stranded climbers on Everest.”\u00a0The only climbers on Everest were the NatGeo ski team and they were never stranded. Many teams of seasonal trekkers were stranded in Tibet’s Kama (or Karma) Valley, east of Mount Everest, but all were rescued by local villagers and SARs teams. Bottom line is there was drama but nothing to get seriously worked up over.<\/p>\n

As the Himalayan season winds down climbing action picks up on Puncak Jaya or\u00a0Carstensz Pyramid\u00a0on the island of New Guinea, Kilimanjaro, Antartica’s Vinson Massif and around the New Years, Argentina’s Aconcagua.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":33810,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[7,767,821,824],"tags":[432,498],"class_list":["post-48756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climbing-news","category-himalaya","category-manaslu","category-nepal-2","tag-climbing-news","tag-nepal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Bildschirmfoto-2019-05-06-um-06.11.38.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}