29 January, 2004 Lenin Winter: 28 Jan. the team spent night at 3900 m without Mynzhasarov K. and Gia Tortladze )they felt ill). Nickolay Chervonenko was with the group. The team work according to the plan.

29 January, 2004 Ama-Dablam Winter Expedition January, 20-21 the team from Moscow National Technical University leaded by Vladimir Belousov made successful ascent of Ama Dablam (6856m). The team members are: Novikov Alexander, Novikova Natalia, Dobrinskij Pavel Glebov Viatcheslav and Timofeev Serguei. The team is in Kathmandu.

28 January, 2004

Lenin Winter: January 27 the group ascended Puteshestvennikov pass where they stopped for the night. Because of avalanche danger of the slopes they refused to descend via the planned traverse. On January 28 they are descending in a direction of falling of water on a glacier.

26 January, 2004 Lenin Winter: 25 January the team brought equipment from the meteorological station to the "onion field", the temperature was -25C, wind on the valley, deep snow. Today the rest day. The state of group is good.

21 January, 2004

Winter Lenin peak Expedition starts today from Almaty.

21 January, 2004 BASK is happy to announce that it became the official sponsor of the 13th Golden Ice Axe Award, which will take part in Grenoble, France 6th of February 2004. Valery Babnov and Yuri Koshelenko are official nominees for this award for their Nuptse summit. There are 5 more nominees. Valery Babanov can get the Golden Ice Axe second time which wil be the first time in the history of the award.
The sponsorship of this event is a great opportunity for BASK to be promoted in Europe and in the whole world. In the award ceremony organized by Mountain Magazine will take more than 700 people - all leading alpine climbers from all over the world, VIP's, magaizine subscribers, journalists, etc.) Moreover this event will be promoted very widely in the media. Here's the brief list: TV Montain, PlanetMountain.com, Rock'n'roll and Ice, Desnivel, Odyssey, France 3, Release, Released Dauphinй, M6, etc. Everywhere BASK name as an official sponsor and logo will be mentioned.

17 January, 2004 Jenny Paterson and Paul Stoddart: Altay expedition 2002.

15 January, 2004 Denis Urubko: Mountain plots of Kazakhstan-2003

12 January, 2004 VII Festival of Mountain and Adventure Films "Vertical" will take place in Moscow March 26-28.

12 January, 2004 Today's Birthday of Yuri Uteshev (born 1955), Russian climber, who ascended Dhaulagiri in 1995, Makalu in 1996, Lhotse in 1997 and Everest in 2001. Congratulations! Alexander Sheinov was born that day 1958, Russian climber, who ascended Kangchenjunga in 1989. He died in 1992, aged 34.

10 January, 2004 Kazakhstan mountaineers are going to climb Makalu this Spring, via Parago Ridge. 12 sportsmen of Kazakhstan combined team begin today their training course in Tujuk-Su camp near Almaty. The course will be 12 days and inclides climbs, ice climbing and sprints on distance with 250 and 500 m of altitude difference. The coach of the team - Ervand Iljinsky. The team consists of Yuri Gorbunov, Damir Molgachev, Vassily Pivtsov, Maxut Zhumayev, Dmitry Chumakov, Artjom Skopin, Alexander Rudakov, Agey Skopin, Yuri Abakumov, Serguey Brodsky, Artjom Rychkov and Denis Grinevitch.

7 January, 2004 Denis Urubko: Vertical races - the story about Amangeldy speed ascent in the end of 2003

17 January, 2004 Winter Shisha Pangma Expedition: SUMMIT BID REPORT

9:50 a.m. European time:

I’m real sad, but it was to dangerous to continue. I phoned to the Spanish gay who opened this route. They told me, that we have to rappel down about 50 meters to reach the plateau. But the serac was more, about 100 meters and we has not enough rope. So we have to make a lot of difficult traverse instate of the easy ridge. There the terrain was green ice or windblowed snow… It was very dangerous. At 2 p.m. we reached 7700, but Piotr is tired and said me, that we can continue but we have to make one bivy. I think this is too dangerous, because it’s very cold and Piotr lost just some parts last winter in K2…. So I prefer go back. This is of sure the 8000 meter peak I attack better. I’m already powerful. Now I’m waiting Piotr at the col for descending together… Bye and hear us later” Simone

Second call, 7:30 a.m. European time:

“Hi, only now we are out of the channel. I can see Everest and Lhotse. We are now at 7650m and it was very cold in the last hours, about – 40/45 degrees. The last part was harden than I aspect, I had to climb and some times I used dry tooling. It was very difficult and I had to do many work without gloves, fortunately I do not suffer cold too much…. I see also the summit and we will continue, also if now it’s 12 o’clock a.m., but here there is sun till 6 p.m. We hope to reach summit…..

Bye till later…!” Simone

First call von Simone at 3 o’clock a.m. Tibet time (10 o’clock p.m. European time): “Hi, we did start to early… We climbed on the fix rope and than I fixed some more rope, but than it was too cold… We didn’t feel our feet and so we decided to go back to our tend and here we are warming up our feet with our cooker….!”

13 January, 2004 Winter Shisha Pangma Expedition:
Hi friends!! Here again in front of computer to send you this report. Darek Zaluski came back to base camp after his night in C2 and ABC. Yesterday our leader Jan Szulc made a nice joke with us and told us by radio from ABC, that this morning he wanted to try summit using the bottle of oxygen that he decided to carry in ABC for safety. We (I and Piotr) was surprised and a little disappointed about this project because we worked 1 month fixing rope and we hope to have the first attempt..... This morning Jan arrived in base camp smiling and joking with us....... "bastard" !!!! Today we received the weather forecast from Italy where mi girlfriend Barbara contacted Mr. Gabel in Innsbruck. Gabel is really a king of the forecast. No one mistake in 45 days...... Great !!!!!!!! The forecast advised us to wait one day more and try the summit the 17th January. The 19th yaks will start from base camp to go back...
Ciao
Simone, Jan12

12 January, 2003

Israeli-Palestinian Antarctic Expedition 'Breaking the Ice' reaches first summit. Four Israelis and four Palestinians (two women and six men)take part in the expedition. By professional standards it’s really no more than a hill. But, for these newcomers to the world of alpine sport this is a real mountain. For them, standing here, together, is a genuine source of pride and an important step towards climbing the real mountain just days from now.

10 January, 2004 Winter Shisha Pangma Expedition: Simone called by satellite phone -

Hi. Today it was very hard. We left camp 1 at 6100 m very early in the morning and we climbed, as planed, over 7000
meters. There I deposited about 200 meters of rope, then I went back to 7000m to take more ropes and bring them up.
Today our rucksacks were very heavy (about 30 kilos per person) and after all this work we took 2 hours to make a
platform for our second camp at 7100 meters. Darek, who has 2 mattresses, went back down before reaching the second camp. So Piotr is without a mattress and laid on our rucksacks. Fortunately I brought mine by myself. The tent is not flat and we are very tired after this 12 hours of hard work, but we are not able to sleep….! Tomorrow morning we will get up very early, then we have to go down to bring up ropes that we deposited further down. If our bodies allow it, then tomorrow we will fixing till the ridge, hoping that we have enough rope…..
Ciao and follow us also tomorrow. Simone (by satellitephone), January, 9

9 January, 2004 Winter Shisha Pangma Expedition: Simone January 8 called by satellite phone - Piotr, Darek and he reached Camp 1. They were very quick and this means that they're well acclimatized. Today they'll bring up 100 meters of ropes and will climb over 7000 meters. Climbers hope
they can find a small place for tent over 7200 meters and to avoid a bivy in a crevasse at 6700 meters. If they'll climb according to plans, they'll try summit on Sunday. Weather forecast is OK and wind will be not too strong. Next week wind will be very strong (full jet stream), about 100 km/h with maximal points of 150 km/h….”

6 January, 2004 Winter Shisha Pangma Expedition.

Hallo friends!! We are back to base camp after 3 difficult days on the face. We reached 7000 meters and fixed totally1500 meters of fix rope. We didn’t find yet any place to fix our last camp ( C2) and we still continue to climb and fix rope.... We are thinking to do a bivac for the final attempt... The face is totally icy and vertical and we have to climb with helmet and 2 ice axe. From the summit ridge continue to fall stones and ice and we “play” to avoid the impact.... I’m sending you 2 photos to understand our climb Follow us

Simone, December 5.

4 January, 2004 Winter Shisha Pangma Expedition.

Simone Moro wrote December, 31: Here is 19:09 and there's a strong wind which is trying to destroy our dining tent and blowing out everything. I’m writing at the computer but ready to run out from here in case the wind will win his challenge... After few hours we will have New Year and we really hope that it'll bring the good weather again, as at the last days. Three members ( 2 Canadians + the polish leader) are in C1 and tomorrow they will try to jumaring on the rope and carry new ropes till 6700. I attach in this message one photo with the itinerary we climbed and fixed. After the point we reached the inclination of the face will remain high but maybe little less than the first part we climbed. I phoned to the first climbers of the route (Figueras ’95) and he told me that there is no place for high camp on the face and we will have to work hard to make a platform for tent. The face is completly green and hard ice.........
I wish to all of you a nice 2004 with health and smile...