September - December 2010 news

10 december, 2010 Nanga Parbat Winter solo? Who's this Batman?

23 November, 2010 New Snow Leopards. Congratulations to climbers who copleted the program in 2010: Ola (Aleksandra) Dzik (Poland), Boris Prohorov (Russia) and Andrew Chepiga (Ukraine)!

23 November, 2010 Winter Hidden peak. Gerfried Goschl (Austria), Canadians Louis Rousseau and Don Bowie, Alex Chicon are preparing to the expedition. Loads had been carried to BC already. The cargo coming from Canada and Spain did not reach Islamabad before mid-October. So, porters started to BC later, and it caused some problems. A horrific accident happened: While porters crossed one of the landslide areas near Kewa (between Dassu and Askole), a new landslide with big rocks hit the caravan. Fortunately, no porters were seriously hurt but we lost 15 drums of equipment. Now 130 loads reached Base Camp. Luckily, in the accident only the gear from Pakistan (food, cook tent and ropes) was lost and then replaced quickly. THere'll be the support group in the expedition: Jacques Olek, Pierre Masson and Roberto Rojo.

23 November, 2010 First Pakistani women expedition. Winter double-header in Karakorum (Mangligh Sar (6,050m) and Valyoo Sar (6,030m)) is the goal of seven girls team: Dur Begum, Farzana Fasial, Takat Bika, Shakeela Numa, Merah Jabeen, Gohar Nigar and Hafiza Bano are the students of Shimshal Mountaineering School, founded in July 2009 by Qutrat Ali and Shaheen Baig, and supported by Italian Simone Moro.

9 November, 2010 Rescue helicopter crashed on the north side of Ama Dablam Nov, 6. The Firshtail Air chopper was on its way to rescue two Japanese climbers when suddenly fell from high altitude while on its second flight from Lukla. The pilot Captain Sabin Basnet and Engineer Purna Awale lost their lives in the crash. Captain Basnet had performed the highest rescue operation ever: In spring this year, he picked up Spaniards Juan Oiarzabal and Carlos Pauner, and Romanian Horia Colibasanu, from nearly 7,000 meters high on Annapurna. Fishtail pilots also performed amazing rescues on Manaslu, Dhaulagiri and a large number of 7000ers and 6000ers. www.mounteverest.net

9 November, 2010 International Mountain Summit (IMS), "Dolomites - UNESCO world natural heritage",
"Does High Altitude Alpine Rescue Take Away the Spirit of Alpinism?", "Without the competition, I would have never attained my goals”, "IMS Congress “Women and mountaineering” with Oh Eun-Sun
International Mountain Summit 2010: “This is where new impulses will come from”

2 November, 2010 International Mountain Summit (IMS), the platform of alpinism is opening its doors in Brixen / Bressanone. With tonight’s opening celebration, an exciting week all about the world of mountains will be launched. The first congress day is devoted to the issue “The Right to Risk – About Rights and Risks in Mountain Sports”.

18 october, 2010 Eiger. Robert Jasper and Roger Schaeli climbed the famous John Harlin diretissima Sept, 20-23. M8, 7a, E5. The climbers reached the top at 8 pm on the third day, they're happy but exausted, set the bivouac and descended next morning. It wasn't the first difficuct route on Eiger for this duo: the previous was Japanese direct. Robert dreamed 20 years about Harlin's route. He said it was the most emotional climb ever for him - along the climb he thought about John Harlin II, who fell there in 1966.

16 october, 2010 Teng Kangpoche. Valery Shamalo called from Namche Bazar: Helicopter search overflights Oct, 13 showed that there was no one on the north face. The search party found the only things the climbers left the village Thame before leaving for the route. The locals said that much snow fell in early October, and the lot of avalanches came down from the wall.

16 october, 2010 Everest. The first fall season climb in four years done today by American Eric Larsen and his Sherpas Dawa Gylatzen, Tshering Dorje, Pasang Temba and Dawa Tenzing. (info: www.mounteverest.net)

11 october, 2010 SOS! Two Russian climbers Alexey Gorbatenkov and Svetlana Gutsalo were going to climb Teng Kangpoche North Face (6500) in the end of September. This peak is not far from Thame village.
The duo planned to fly home from KTM Oct, 7. No news till today. May be, somebody saw them near the route? on the route? in the village? In Namche? Write, please, to Russianclimb.

8 october, 2010 Himalaya in September-October. Sep, 30 an avalanche hit Japan team on Dhaulagiri. Osamu Tanabe, Toshio Yamamoto, Daisuke Honda and Pasang Gelu Sherpa are missing. Oct, 1 Spanish Carlos Pauner and 70-y.o. Carlos Soria summited Manaslu without suppl. oxygen. This is Pauner's tenth 8000er and Soria's ninth. Two teams reached Manaslu top , and Phurba Tashi Sherpa among them - it's his 23rd 8000+ peak! Brazilian woman Cleo Weidlich also summited Manaslu. Nobuaki Kuwabara (Japan) died on Manaslu BC, on September 24. Italian trio was going to climb new route in alpine style on Cho oyu SW face Walter Nones, Giovanni Macaluso and Manuel Nocker. WAlter took a fatal fall Oct, 4.

7 october, 2010 Nanga Parbat. Polish Rider Marcin Jaskolka safely negotiated a first snowboard descent of a steep, icy passage between approximately 6200M- 4600M on a Jones Flagship. He named the 3 and 1/2 km long line the ‘Death Couloir’. Picture from blog.jonessnowboards.com

28 September, 2010 VI International Elbrus Race. The top results 2005-2010. Statistics by Rodrigo G. Peron (Brazil)

27 September, 2010 VI International Elbrus Race. The results on Extreme and Classic routes. Elbrus in 3 hrs 23 min! Two new World records! Alexandra Dzik and Andrzej Bargiel are Elbrus Race champions! Press release.

23 September, 2010 VI International Elbrus Race. Today start postponed to tomorrow. The weather's bad - snow storm above 3700. 51 athletes participate in this competition. 14 athletes are going to start from Azau to the Western top.

8 September, 2010 Chris Stangl broke down and spilled the truth. He didn't reach K2 top. He confessed on ORF.at earlieryesterday that he faked his feat in a "state of coma due to stress and fear of failure." Bergsteigen.at reported. "During the latest push, I entered a trance-like state in which I was really convinced that I had reached the highest point." He now states the supposed summit pic was taken at C3 (as ExplorersWeb had pointed out to him the previous day) and not on top. The pic. from www.mounteverest.net

7 September, 2010 Cho Oyu: "Ukraine-Himalaya 2010" expedition started Sep, 3 from Kharkov. The members are: Serguey Bublik, Andrew Kyiko, Alexander Zakolodny - experienced climbers, who took part in Makalu expedition last spring. Anl also new members without Himalay experience join the team. The leader - Igor Svergun.

7 September, 2010 VI International Elbrus Race: The Anatoli Boukreev Memorial Fund became the sponsor of the competition.

2 September, 2010 The tragedy on Pobeda peak (7439 m, Tien Shan). Details.

Three climbers died on Pobeda peak during the descent. Info from Andrew Fedorov (Aksay Trevel):
Aug, 23 he (as guide), the client, three Polish climbers (Aleksandra Dzik, Krzysztof Starek, Jakub Hornowski), Efremov and Bainazarov, Maltsev, somebody from Moscow and two climbers from Ufa - about 15 Russians - reached Pobeda top at 2 p.m. The weather was fine, but there're the first signs of storm (cirus clouds) On the top Efremov (60 y.o.) felt bad, heart problem. When the team began to descend, he went by himself, but it's obvious that he had bad coordination.
At 7200 guys began to give him medicines.

About 4p.m. there were poor visibility, and strong wind. At 5-30 the wind became huragane. The group stopped when there were only 800 m (GPS) from Vazha. Polish climbers stopped above, they had the tent. Russians had only two small tents, but all could stay inside. One tent had been broken at night.

Aug, 24 they stayed at the tents. Huragane, snowfall. THey have very few food and gas.
Aug, 25 - they tried to descend, but had to turn back. Yuri Efremov died at 4 p.m. in spite of treatment . Kirill Mokhov was bad too, he was periodically out of counsciousness.

Aug, 26 the weather improved slightly. Kirill Mokhov died at 8 a.m. Other Russians managed to descend to Vazha - there was a cave, where were two climbers from Ufa.

Aug, 27 all Russians were in the cave. Polish climbers descended to the cave too.

Aug, 28 they decided to try to go down to the fixed ropes. THey breaked the trail by shovels.
Some of them descended to 6400, some - to 6100.

Aug, 29 Andrew Bainazarov died on the descent from 6400.

Aug, 30 THe group reached Dikiy pass, and were evaquated from there by heli (two flights)

All of them got frostbites (2-4 degree). Radiocontact Bc - climbers was during all the descent.

2 September, 2010 K7 West. Summit! Oleg Koltunov and Vjacheslav Ivanov fron Saint Petersburg climbed the new route on the West Face. Detailes soon.

2 September, 2010 New Snow Leopards registered in SL statistics. They are: Kilichenko Yuri (UKR), Pjasjatskas Andrjus (LTH), Nikolaev Oleg (RUS), Koval Victor (RUS), Abildaev Roman (RUS), Kalashnikov Vladimir (RUS), Bochkarev Victor (RUS). Also we have messages about those who have completed program but not registered yet: Andrew Chepiga (UKR), Irina Runova (RUS), Pavel Trofimov (RUS), Gennady Durov (KAZ), Anastasia Cheremhykh (KRG) and Natalia Zenina (LTV).

2 September, 2010 The tragedy on Pobeda peak (7439 m, Tien Shan). Today RIA News wrote about three climbers died during the descent Aug, 28. Artur Hajzer gave some detailes: "On 23rd of August at 12.40 o'clock 3 Polish climbers summited Peak Pobeda: Aleksandra Dzik, Krzysztof Starek and Jakub Hornowski. Just after that drama started. They were together with a group of appr. 15 Russians. The weather became very bad. Big snowfall. In BC 1 metre snwo and more. The climbers were stocked on 6900 m for 4 days and 6000 m 2 days. 3 Russian dead - big tragedy. Finally the group consist of 3 Polish and 12 Russian managed to come down to 5800. The resque heli took the group down. Not everybody could manage to come into the heli by his own. Polish members have a frosbides 2nd degree. The group was finally transported to BC and Kazach border on appr. 30.08 and did not come back to Poland yet so I have news from their sat phone only".

2 September, 2010 New hut on the col between Elbrus tops (5300)

1 September, 2010 K2. Official Statement from Christian Stangl:
"Since I have got several blackmails und threats from some people of the Climbers community I hereby state, that I am not willing to discuss and much less defend summiting K2. Furthermore, for me it is of no importance to be on any of the ?summiters? lists. Just want to remind that webplatforms are not considered being in court. If climbing 8000+peaks (and only there) includes experiencing all the bad rumours and threats I had to endure since summiting K2 I don't want to be a member of this "climbing community" any more. I know very well who started spreading the rumors/story - I just refer to the book of Michael Kodas "High Crime". I am not climbing for anybody else but me! "

1 September, 2010 Korean Alpine Federation decided that Miss Oh apparently didn't reach Kangchenjunga summit in 2009, based their doubts on the lack of a proper summit pic, climbing times, contradictions among climbing sherpas. After hearing KAF's conclusion, Eun-sun strongly rejected all accusations, and said that she intends to defend herself in an upcoming press conference."I will continue to collect evidence to prove the ascent and then ask for a review," she stated. Elizabeth Hawley: "I've already been asked whether we will mark her claim as unrecognized instead of disputed, and I've said no. I certainly feel sorry for her, but it would seem her only choice now is to go back and climb it again with lots of clear photos."

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