Mountaineering, climbing. January - February 2005 news

Back to the latest news

January- February 2005 news

28 February, 2006 Juri Koshelenko and Iljas Tuhvatullin: Gaurishankar or Menlungtse North Face

26 February, 2005 Jannu North Face team was awarded by Piolet D'Or in Grenoble yesterday. Congratulations! About the project

25 February, 2005 Denis Urubko: interview for ExplorersWeb.com

24 February, 2005 Ural region team: Yerydag, 6B Grade. Yesterday team reached Yerydag plateau, the wall is climbed! It's the first Winter climb of Efimov's route. Congratulations!

23 February, 2005 Ural region team is climbing Yerydag in Dagestan. (Efimov route, 6B Russian grade) - they started Feb., 10.

22 February, 2005 Alexander Odintsov and Pavel Shabaline returned from Tokio where they presented in Japanese Mountaineering Association last Spring Himalaya expeditions

22 February, 2005

Everest party took place in Moscow last Friday. Members of three expeditions met there - Everest 1982 (South-West Face Expedition) - Soviet Union National team, Kangchenjunga 1989 (traverse all summits) - Soviet Union National team, Everest North Face 2004 - Russian National team. The presentation of the film by VIctor Kozlov about Everest NOrth FAce climb, photo gallery by Gleb Sokolov, slide-show by V. Kuptsov and others.

31 January, 2005

Bouldering in Valle di Daone: Harald Berger and Ines Papert are the World and European Ice Boulder Champions. In the Super Final the Austrian and German beat Herbert Klammer from Italy and Natalia Koulikova from Russia, who placed second. Simon Wandeler from Switzerland and Jenny Lavarda from Italy placed third.

31 January, 2005 Krasnoyarsk region team in Kodar: January, 29 at 9 a.m. all the team reacched the top. Temperature was -43C, without wind. They descended to BC in evening - safe and sound. Congratulations!

28 January, 2005 Krasnoyarsk region team in Kodar: 2 more pitches in two next days. Yesterday they stopped under vertical bastion. The weather's extremal - temperature is -40C with the strong wind. Probably, they'll attempt to reach the top tomorrow.

28 January, 2005

Photo by Giulio Malfer

Bouldering. The women’s qualification in Valle di Daone: the field is provisionally led by the Russian team, comprised of Natalia Koulikova, Maria Shabalina and Ksenia Sdobnikova. All three topped out twice, and are divided only by the number of zones reached on the final problem.

Open men results: 4 Italians in the lead: Prinoth, Astner, Bole and Mabboni all top out on all three problems

27 January, 2005 Reclaiming: Vassily Yelagin haven't accomplished "7 summits", as we wrote below according Adventure Team of Alpindustria - he didn't climb Kilimanjaro and Kosciuszko.

27 January, 2005

:

Photo by Giulio Malfer

Bouldering. Today is qualification day: male (24) and female (12) athletes climb simultaneously on the three flash routes in Semifinal. The start couldn't be better: -5C and a fantastic competition structure. Athlets have to climb across ceiling i36 square meters ) with ice axes and crampons, to reach the dry tooling panels at the end. But the other two boulders will not be a walkover either: the ultra overhanging columns on the central problem lead to obstacles. Yesterday the Ice Master was officially inaugurated.

26 January, 2005 Jannu North Face climb became the winner of the National competition "The Top", organized by Russian Mountaineering Federation. Other nomenees were Everest North Face, AkSy Winter climb, Amin Brakk, Kongur (Saint Petersburg team), Gorkogo Peak, Kongur (Moscow team), Yerygag, Gordelan.

26 January, 2005 Krasnoyarsk region team in Kodar: the team climbed half of the wall (13 pitches) The temperature reached -40C.

26 January, 2005

The Austrian Harry Berger and Petra Muller from Switzerland won the World Championship Ice Difficulty, while the Speed event was won by Evgeny Kryvosheytsev from the Ukraine and Natalia Koulikova from Russia.

24 January, 2005 Krasnoyarsk region team in Kodar: the team climbed 7 pitches till Jan. 22. Now's warm: -20C only. Guys did the snow cave in BC. The wall is covered by ice and snow.

24 January, 2005

Serguey Borissov from Yekaterinburg died Jan, 22 in car accident. He summited Jannu North Face last Spring and was going to Everest North Face this Spring...

Our condolences to relatives and friends...

20 January, 2005 Vassily Yelagin and Dmitry Moskaljov climbed Aconcagua Jan, 16

18 January, 2005 Krasnoyarsk region team started to Kodar mountains (not far from Chita town) to climb the nameless peak, North-East wall, which high difference is about 1000 m, average steepness is 70 degree. The temperature there yesterday was -40C. Nickolay Zakharov is the leader of the team, Valery Balezin - the coach. Some of members were participated in previous Kodar expeditions (2001, 2003) when the temperatures were till -50C. They climbed Tsar's Throne new routes (6B Russian Grade)

2001 route

Vladimir Arkhipov

Arkhipov and Balezin

Valery Balezin

Camp

route 2003

hat at bottom

way to wall

at the top

2003

12 January, 2005 Everest North Face 2005 Kazbek Hamitsaev - the expedition leader - resume.

4 January, 2005 Dmitry Moskalev and Vassily Yelagin climbed Peak Vinson (Antarctica) Dec, 26.

Mountaineering
World's news

23 February, 2005 Ralf Dujmovits, Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, and Hirotaka Takeuchi : Himalaya doubleheader - Shisha SF/ Everest NF (Japanese/Hornbein qouloir)

22 February, 2005 Situation in Nepal.

24 January, 2005 Shisha Pangma Winter: Details of expedition finish.

18 January, 2005 Antarctica: Chinese expedition members are the first humans to reach the peak of Dome A Icecap 4,039 meters above sea level, located at 80:22:00 degrees south latitude and 77:21:11 degrees east longitude.

18 January, 2005 Shisha Pangma Winter: Bad weather. Since 3 days is snowing and obviously the yak can not start from Nyalam and come to BC to take our equipment and transport to the village which is 25 km from here. In the meantime we celebrate the success play cart, or chess, reading books and also waiting boring for the sun....

17 January, 2005 Shisha Pangma First Winter ascent: January, 14 at 13-15 Simone Moro and Piotr Morawski summited via the Yugoslavian route (south face) The wind reached 35 m/s. Photo Gallery The previuos First Winter 8000 ascent was in 1988 (31.12. 1988 r. LHOTSE (8511 m) - Krzysztof Wielicki reached the summit alone on a night of New Year's Eve; the Belgian-Polish expedition was headed by Andrzej Zawada.)

13 January, 2005 On 1 January 2005 Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, the President of the Italian Republic, named Lino Lacedelli "Cavaliere di Gran Croce" Knight of the Great Cross of the Italian Republic. Рното (July 2004) Giuseppe Ghedina. Source: Planetmountain.com

12 January, 2005 Shisha Pangma Winter: 11-12 Jan diary

11 January, 2005 Shisha Pangma Winter: The wind continues to be strong and forecast for the next weekend promises the speed could reach 180 km/h!!!!

10 January, 2005 Shisha Pangma Winter: diary from 6-7 January. All are in BC.

6 January, 2005 Shisha Pangma Winter: strong wind began. Darek and Jacek work above Camp 1.

4 January, 2005 The World and European Ice Boulder Championships 2005 will be held in the Italian Valle di Daone from 26-29 January
2005.

4 January, 2005 Shisha Pangma Winter, Last week diary. Canp 1 at 6550 m.

23 February, 2005 German climber Ralf Dujmovits, his wife: Austrian Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, and Japanese climber Hirotaka Takeuchi are rejoining forces this spring for some doubleheader action in the Himalayas. Interview to ExplorersWeb.com

They’ll attempt an alpine style Shisha South Face and Everest North Face, The trio will start climbing Shisha Pangma’s South Face to complete the route they left undone last year. “Last year, we had to turn around after we had climbed more than half of the wall, when a rock hit my left leg,” Ralf told ExWeb. ‘We felt really sorry not having climbed the whole face. The Scott-McInyre route is such a nice, direct line that we finally decided to return to it this spring”

Climbing in alpine style, without setting ropes or higher camps before the summit bid, they’ll need to acclimatize on surrounding peaks. “Last year, we acclimatized on Xifeng Peak, an unclimbed 7000er close to Shisha Pangma North side. This year, we plan to acclimatize close to Shisha’s South Face, on Ice Tooth and Pungpa Ri. Afterwards, we will go for Shisha Pangma in pure alpine style.”

“After Shisha Pangma, we plan to go to Everest,” says Ralf. “We want to establish our Base Camp on Central Rongbuk Glacier. We are looking forward to attempting Everest North face in alpine style as well. On the lower part of the face - conditions permitting - we will follow the Japanese Couloir, to switch afterwards to the Hornbein Couloir on the upper slopes. The last time this route was repeated was in 1991 by Lars Cronlund from Sweden.”

The Japanese Couloir/Hornbein Couloir combination route is one of the most difficult and dangerous routes on Everest. Few have attempted it, and fewer succeeded. Only Erhard Loteran and Jean Troillet summited without O2 in 1986. The last attempt took place in 2004, by an American climbing/snowboarding expedition led by Stephen Koch, but they had to retreat without launching a summit bid

Ace female climber, Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner has summited Cho Oyu, Makalu, Manaslu, Nanga Parbat, Annapurna and most recently Gasherbrum I. She has also summited Shisha Pangma Central and Broad Peak.

Ralf Dujmovits is the leader of Amical Alpine and has summited Dhaulagiri, Everest, K2, Cho Oyu twice, Shisha Pangma, Broad Peak, Gasherbrum II, Nanga Parbat , Annapurna, and GI. He now has ten 8,000ers.

Japanese climber Hirotaka has summited Makalu, Everest, K2, Nanga Parbat, and in 2004, he summited Annapurna and GI. He summited Everest and K2 back to back in 1996 and, at the age of 25, became the youngest climber to summit the world's two highest mountains. He now has six 8,000ers

Photo: Ralf, Gerlinde and Hirotaka back from the summit of GI last year, courtesy of Ralf Dujmovits.

Source: www.ExplorersWeb.com

22 February, 2005 Now Kathmandu valley is quite. Traffic and schools are running smoothly. Domestic and international flights are flying as usual. Nightlife is slowly returning to normal. The police have recorded low crime rate. Vehicle traffic to and from Kathmandu valley has returned to normal though still in some parts like Jiri and eastern Nepal it is yet to become normal. Latest report says part of the road to Mugling that goes to Pokhara and Chitwan
have been disrupted due to Maoist arsonist attack on vehicles plying on this part of the road. Air China has announced their new summer schedule. They will be operating 4 flight a week between Lhasa and Kathmandu. Ministry of Tourism, Mountaineering section announced that there would be more than 12 expedition parties to climb Mt. Everest this spring. And they said all work in their office will be handled efficiently wthin a day or two including climbing permit. The Tribhuvan International Airport authority have made press release saying that now onward public just have to dial a number and they can get arrival and departure flight time and detail. At the airport tourists arrivial have started increasing day by day. Slowly Thamel and other touristic places are returning to its normal beat.

The weather has changed since Sunday February 13. This is the day Nepal celebrated \"Basantas Panchami\" festival like always. This is the day in the calendar that heralds the beginning of spring. Now the sky is getting clear blue colour and the temperature is becoming warmer. The view of the Himalayas appears magnificent. Tourism enterprenuers are breathing sigh of relief from the tension that used to be created by the political demonstrations. Hopefully such demonstration made in the name of democracy and human right is kept at bay without too much of international fuss.
>
> A major political parity had called for passive resistance to start on February 18 against the king\'s decision but there was no apparent participation on the street. The security personnel are seen on the street but they looked relaxed. Though there is \"Emergency\" in Nepal but there is no significant presence of military anywhere. There are no military or security forces anywhere in the government except in the use of security matter. There are reports of Maoist and military clashes far away in the south eastern part of Nepal. There was a report that in one of the area in Lumbini people of the villages attacked and killed about 20 rebellious Maoist terrorist in their own turf. Looks like people in the villages are getting bold now.

22 February, 2005 Yesterday Alexander Odintsov and Pavel Shabaline have arrived to Moscow from Japan. JMA - Japan Mountaineering Association - has invited them to report about "star" Russian projects - Jannu and Everest North Face climbs. Odintsov has shown the film " Jannu Symphony" and has told about the project " Big Walls - Russian routes". Pavel Shabaline has presented the slide-show (authors he and Vladimir Kuptsov, and Gleb Sokolov.) He also told and showed slides about the climb to Changabang (1998, the Indian Himalaya, the Russian- American expedition, Members: Pavel Shabaline, Andrey Volkov, Ivan Dusharin, Andrey Mariev and Karlos Buhler), and about Ak Su - region climbing history, Peak Slesov, 4810, etc.

Japanese ice-climers have suggested Pavel to organize a stage of the Ice climbing World Cup in Japan .the next year

26 January, 2005 Karasnoyarsk region team in Kodar: Half of wall (13 pitches) has been already climbed, according the schedule. JAN, 24 they climbed 3 pitches - it is a record. Yesterday guys climbed one rope. Today Dmitrienko and Tsyganov work. Yesterday all the team has passed to live at the wall. They found the tiny rocky niche on 12-th pitch, where it was possible to set on the tent. Fixed ropes were not removed, in case of extreme weather - the team can descend to the base camp. Today is -34C, but the temperature already reached -38C and - 40 C.

It's extremely cold at the wall, covered by ice. It's exposition and the closest slopes are those, that any sun beam couldn't reach it during the day. Huge monolithic blocks, internal corners, chimneys - that's the the character of the relief here. It's difficult to climb safety. Guys overcome plates on skyhooks, but granite's very strong. The steepness rises up to 80 degrees, and the upper part of a route is steeper than bottom part. in average.

In base camp they live in Rock Pillars tent - it's good and warm, especially when the furnace is working- there's +20C inside. Guys send theit thanks to company. There's good cave for 6 person at the wall's bottom.

Area's very interesting, wild: habitateless, no hanters human's traces. Loginov and Sikilinda climbed beautiful route on the neighbour (left) top. 2 days of preparing and a day of ascent. Good 5B-grade winter climb! Free members did some easy climbs (1-2 grade). Climbers are filming at the wall, and in spite of the fact that the camera is frequently freezes, they have filmed already hour and a half. Mikhail Vershinin filmes actively. Now's a full moon, and he works even under the moon. Unfortunately, there is no opportunity to send photos. It is not possible to send also SMS-answers. But they get SMS-messages.

24 January, 2005 Shisha Pangma Winter. Simone Moro wrote:
Till the end this expedition was very hard. After the summit and the attempt form Jacek and Darek, they braked for the horrible wind and temperature (more than - 40 degree) it begins to snow and bad weather continue. We decided to try to go to Nyalam, the first village, where we started our trek a month ago. There we will take the jeeps to Kathmandu.

The day before we start our descent adventure we lost our Kitchenboy Chiring, who went to ABC to take down the last things... In the evening he didn't come back to BC and we was very worry.. All together we went in the darkness and the storm, looking for him. We thought about the worst, because the temperature was very low and it had snow a lot. Luckily Chiring organised by himself bivac 2 ours far from BC, when he understood the difficulty of the situation. But we pasted a very bad night..

The they after we Chiring arrived in BC and we all were very happy to see him. But one other dramatic adventure was starting. At 12:30 we started from BC at 5200 meters to Nyalam at 3750 and 25 km far. Nobody from us thought, that only after some ours we would find storm, - 30 C, fog and snow sometimes till our waist!!! We needed 14 ours without stop, fighting with the elements and in the darkness, before we arrived with totally cold in Nyalam. My small finger is black and all the other fingers I have only partially sensibility. The others are only tired from the exhausting work and some small frostbite in the face (also I have..). More than one time we finished in the icy water from the river, because he was covert by thin ice and snow, that broken when we passed over. Other times the snow was so deep and powdery near to impossible to go on. At 3:30 Peking time Piotr and I reached the place where we slept when we did go up. The others came a little later and at last Jan after some ours. I think our looks were not so nice, because the people observed us long...

The day after we droved by the jeep to Zangmu, the boarder to Nepal. There we take showers and
sauna for 3 ours non-stop!!! Today we arrived at Kathmandu. On more shower and now we are preparing to go out from our Hotel and I want to eat a big beef and make party for be back to the normality.

P.S. Today, the 20th of January the CTMA certificated our summit with the sentence "first winter Summit" as the first winter summit from Shisha Pangma, maked by Simone Moro ITA and Piotr Morawski POL at the 14th of Januray

18 January, 2005 Chinese expedition reaches Antarctic icecap peak

JAN, 18 12-man Chinese expedition surmounted the highest icecap peak in Antarctica at 3:16 a.m. Tuesday, according to the polar expedition office of the State Oceanic Administration (SOA). They are the first humans to reach the peak of Dome A Icecap 4,039 meters above sea level, located at 80:22:00 degrees south latitude and 77:21:11 degrees east longitude. The team planned to establish an interim scientific observationstation at the spot to monitor the climatic environment, measure the depth of the icecap and obtain ice sample from a depth 150 meters to 200 meters below the surface, the SOA said.

The team will also look for the right location for the third Chinese scientific research station at Antarctica, which together with the existing Changcheng (Great Wall) and Zhongshan stations will form a regional climatic environment monitoring system, fulfilling China's mission in an international Antarctic research program.

So far, the team has obtained a nearly 100-meter long ice sample from a section some 300 meters below the icecap peak, the first that humans have got at the highest icecap peak in Antarctica and a crucial clue to climatic and environmental changes in this area. The Chinese scientists have also set up an automatic weather observation system at the peak that may function at minus 90 degree Centigrade. The system, jointly developed by China and Australia, sends out real-time information about local temperature,moisture, solar radiation, wind power and direction, atmospheric pressure and temperature through satellite. The team is scheduled to withdraw Thursday but leave a commemorative mark formed by 13 empty oil casks and a national flag at the peak.

The Antarctic icecap, the largest continental glacier on the surface of the earth, accounts for 70 percent of the earth's freshwater resources. The icecap has an average thickness of around 2,450 meters and more than 4,000 meters in certain spots.

Climate-induced change in the bulk of the Antarctic glaciers will noticeably affect the sea level. According to scientists worldwide, the Antarctic glaciers can provide high-quality, high fidelity and abundant information for their research into global climatic changes. Enditem

17 January, 2005 Shisha Pangma Winter. Simone Moro wrote:

14 JAN Summit! Simone Moro and Piotr Morawski summited today at 13.15. We followed the Yugoslavian route on the south face of Shisha Pangma. Yesterday we fixed ropes to the col, set up the Camp II, and today we decided for a summit push. The wind was strong, reaching 30-35 m/s. After 5 hours of fast climbing we summited.
This is first winter ascent on Shisha Pangma in history (callendar winter started 21st December) and we can truly say that in typical winter conditions (strong wind, no snow, a lot of ice). Now only six 8000 meters peaks are waiting for its first winter ascents... Full story in Polish tomorrow on www.wyprawa.pl
13 JAN Simone and Piotr reached the col and put up Camp 2 on 7400!
Today morning we took the tent (heavy but we wanted C2 to be comfortable), sleeping bags and food. We climbed very fast because we wanted to reach the col. On 7300 we started also to fix. Most of today climbing was on the rocky part, not difficult, but dangerous (moving stones and not solid rock). When we reached the col it was already in shadow, and it was extremely cold. During setting up the tent we observed that a part of the ridge is little protected from this terrible, strong and freezing wind. A big part of the ridge is of course not protected, but... So we decided to try summit tomorrow! Cross fingers! And follow us on www.simonemoro.com or www.wyprawa.pl

12 January, 2005 Shisha Pangma Winter. Simone Moro wrote:

12 JAN All the night the wind shook the tents and it was difficult to sleep. Also the mountain was
very loud, showing what the hell is going up. In the morning we wait for the sun and then we
crowed from our sleepingbags. Today the sky was with no clouds, but cold wind was stopping us,
especially on plateau. Now we are sitting in the tent of Camp 1 and prepare for tomorrow: very
important and also exhausting day. We wish the wind let us through the col...
Simone and Piotr Polish website: www.wyprawa.pl
11 JAN Going up! The next attack to the mountain has just begun. We're sitting (Simone and Piotr) already in
ABC (5600). After a few days rest Darek and Jacek are also going up. The wind is still blowing
with terrible force. But we'd like to reach the col (about 7300) and hope to set up Camp 2
behind the col. Today, during the way to the ABC we were watching a wind smoke on the summit
ridge, and we didn't want even to think what was up there... Also the south wall of Shisha has
totally changed character comparing to that 2 weeks ago: instead of snow we could see big
fields of pure ice!

10 January, 2005 Shisha Pangma Winter. Simone Moro wrote:

6 JAN Once again we (Simone and Piotr) are lying in sleeping bags full of ice, in the tent, full of ice and snow, and the wind is shaking our tent from Camp 1 (6550). Last night past very uneasy. The wind was so strong that a few times we were thinking that it would blow away our small tent. You can get used to a snow falling down on your face, but it is very difficult to sleep with the loudly wind shaking your home. We almost didn't slept this night. We were waiting with starting till 9 o'clock - time when in C1 the sun is appearing. But today the sun was covered with clouds and the wind was really strong. When we arrived to the end of ropes fixed last day, fixed another rope, the steepest part, till 7200. Now we can almost see the exit to the col. This winter, which just begins, seems to be colder than last year.
7 JAN Wind, strong wind. Today it's force is extremely high. We decided to reinforce with ropes and big stones the dining tent and kitchen tent. The store tend was broken this morning by the strong wind. The birds already broke many tents (also in C1) looking for food. At 10 am we got radio contact with Darek and Jacek that still were in C1. Yesterday they did a really hard job in difficult conditions and this morning they took the decision to left for BC. Jan also started to come down from ABC to BC and this evening we will be all together at 5200 m.

6 January, 2005 Shisha Pangma Winter:

5 DEC In the morning temperature in ABC at 5600 was about -30 C. Darek and Jacek were working all the day above the C1 (6550). They probably reached 6800, foot of the last few hundreds meters of couloir. Today Simone and Piotr carried equipment to C1, also the tent for Camp 2, which should stand on the col. Our route occured longer than we expected and with ropes we already have up, it will be difficult to reach the col. But we will do our best.

4 DEC The good weather returned. After 4 days of storm and cold, today we saw the sun again. It was a cold night but in the morning sun gave us the possibility to continue to work on the mountain. Unfortunately the strong wind began to blow at high altitude and it's speed will reach 40 m/sec soon (160 km/h). Today Darek and Jacek went to ABC and tomorrow they'll reach the tent at 6600 m. They' ll spend night and the day after will try to climb higher. Piotr and I will follow them tomorrow and for the week end we hope to reach the end of the face and set the tent on the ridge at 7200 m. Yesterday we had the first technical problem. Our generator refused to work because of "frostbite". Piotr and Jan today made a surgery and they obtain to get 12 volt power from it. Adding my solar pannel we should continue to give enough energy to our camp...
ciao Simone, Jan 4

4 January, 2005 Shisha Pangma Winter, the diary:
- 26 DEC Today last day of relax and tomorrow will start the works... Today we made Pusha and prying god to protect us. The flags with the prayers now stand over our tends Tomorrow we will go to our deposit at 5700 meter and we will look for a place to set the ABC. The biggest problem in that days is the wind. It is extremly strong and on the face and the ridge of Shisha is like a uragan. Our idea is to continue to work in the next days to fix rope on the yugoslavian route till the pass between Pungpa Ri and Shisha. This route will be our descent route after the summit attempt and we need to have safe way because we will be tired. Ciao
- 27 DEC Today we went (Simone, Darek, Jacek and Piotrek) to our deposit. We found the place for the ABC 100 meters below. We found also that from that place will be easy to enter into yugoslavian route. So we set our advanced base camp in stony, but nice place close to a frozen lake. From here there is about half an hour to the glacier.
  Tomorrow Simone and Piotr are going up to start fixing ropes. We have already more than 700 meters of ropes in the ABC. Wind is still freezing but today was not so strong, we will see tomorrow during work.
- 28 DEC Today was the first day of our work in the face. Simone and Piotrek started work with 500 meters of ropes. They started fixing quite high, but the main aim was to get to big (and we hope easy) plateau through the difficult area. After few hours they fixed all the ropes they have and they finished just on the beginning of plateau (probably 6200-6300). The plateau seems to be quite easy, and after it starts difficulties until the Pungpa Ri col (about 7200). Tomorrow Darek and Jacek start with new ropes.
- 29 DEC Today Darek and Jacek fixed the part of wall below yesterday fixed ropes. It will be useful during descending. After they carry equipment up to the end of the plateau. The plateau seems quite easy and ropes were not fixed. Above the point reached by Darek and Jacek we will put up our Camp I (about 6300-6400). Tomorrow the first team is going up again.
- 30 DEC We (Simone and Piotr) started today early. In our rucksacks we had ropes, climbing equipment, tent, sleeping bags, food and all what is necessary for setting a camp. The wind came and the weather is changing. After a few hours we reached the point which Darek and Jacek left depot in. We took also those things and heavy loaded we came under the big serac, below huge crevasse where we found a good place for our Camp I. The altitude is about 6550. Tomorrow we'd like to work higher. Now the weather is quite good, a lot of clouds, sometimes sun and the wind is shaking our tent, but not blowing us out from the wall.
  Ciao Simone
- 31 DEC After 4 days climbing along the Jugoslavian route on Shisha Pangma, we came back to Base Camp. Storm and bad weather obliged us to turn back. I and Piotr spent nigh at 6550 and today we planned to go near 7000 meters but this was impossible. So from 6550 we came directly back to 5200 meters of base camp (log way....)
  Last night the wind and the cold had been a good test for our capacities. The bad weather should persist for the next 3/4 days and we will take a good rest and "charge our motivations and determination". Tonight we will celebrate the new year and we wish to all of you a 2005 in health and without any polemic...
  Have a nice 2005!! and I hope you will continue to follow the adventures from me and my friends also in 2005.
  Simone
- 1 JAN Is arrived also here at base camp the midnight but nobody was in the dining tend waiting for it. We was too tired and was to cold and we decided to go in our warm sleeping bags and sleep deeply. Also today the weather is bad with wind and snow and it should be the same also for the next 2 days. Karl Gabl (our Austrian Guru for the weahter forecast) said to be patient and to call him Monday in Innsbruck. We will have our next weather forecast and we hope to have good news...
  We wish again a nice 2005 full of smiling moments...
  Simone and Polish team

Back to the latest news