Spring 2019: More summits continue on Everest, Lhotse and Makalu

Dream Wanderlust | May 17 , 2019

We reported earlier about the summit push on Everest by British alpinist Kenton Cool. He, alongside Machel Lavelle, finally stood tall on the summit point for the 14th time (highest by any British climber so far) yesterday at 3:15am, shattering his own previous record. This year, he is on a mission to summit three highest mountains on earth - Everest (8848m), Kangchenjunga (8586m) and K2 (8611m) - only three months. Having climbed Everest 13 times already along with many other mountain peaks around the globe, this IFMGA guide is also the only British adventurer to ski down two 8000m peaks. He reportedly had set out for the final summit push later in the evening yesterday with a goal to touch the summit point early in the morning on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Spanish alpinist Sergi Mingote stood atop Lhotse at 12:23pm (Nepal time) while his expedition partner, Juan Pablo Mohr Prieto, had also reportedly reached the summit of Lhotse earlier yesterday at 3:45am (Chilean time) without any conventional Sherpa support and supplemental oxygen. They reached at Lhotse Camp-4 (7900m) at 1pm on May 15, alongside Carlos Garranzo, and Brazilian mountaineer Moeses Fiamoncini. This non-Sherpa-supported all-alpinist-team had started for the summit bid from 2am onwards on May 16 leaving Camp-4. After this successful summit on Lhotse, Sergi is now one step closer to his ambitious project to conquer five more eight-thousander peaks by July without supplementary oxygen. Pakistani climber Muhammad Ali Sadpara also summited Lhotse yesterday.

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Above and beyond, Dorji Gyaljen, Kam Dorchi and Tenji, three Sherpas from Nepal also have successfully reached the summit of Everest. Amongst them, Dorji Gyaljen made two successful ascents of Everest in two consecutive days, who was one of the rope-fixing team, opening the summit route on Tuesday this season.

A black-African female mountaineer Saray N'kusi Khumalo reached the summit of Everest yesterday. She was part of a team, consisting 2 Irish climbers – Jenifer Sherley Copeland and Seamus Sean Lawless, led by another notable Irish alpinist Noel Richmond Hanna who previously climbed Everest 8 times along with K2 and Kangchenjunga to name a few. Later, while descending from the summit, Seamus reportedly went missing near Balcony.

Kangchenjunga

Nirmal Purja, ex-Gurkha soldier, in his ambitious mission – "Project Possible" is all set to summit all eight-thousander peaks in seven months. After his heroic climb on Annapurna, being the first summit of the season as one of the 14 eight-thousander, he and his team reportedly scaled Dhaulagiri on 12th May, followed by another summit to Kangchenjunga on 15th May at 11:19am. Also, on his way down from the summit of Kangchenjunga, he led a valiant rescue operation from above 8300m to save two climbers – Biplab Baidya and Kuntal Karar from West Bengal, who apparently were critically wounded, not much away from the summit bid.

Makalu witnessed another successful expedition early in the morning yesterday by a 16-member team from Indian Army. Name of the Expedition members are as follows:

Pankaj Gaur, Mjigmat Namgail, Sunil Kumar Rai, Balwant Singh, Ram Bahadur Mall, Ankur Rawat, Dhane Karki, Devendra Singh, Indar Singh Adhikari, Dinesh Kumar, Narayan Singh, Sanjay Kumar Chaudhary, Jaypal Singh, Deepak Kumar, Harjas Singh Gill, Maha Mehta.

Sherpas who supported this coveted expedition, have an exceptional record of multiple ascents to Makalu previously. Details are as follows:

Nurbu Sherpa - Makalu-04, Sankhuwasabha
Ang Temba Sherpa - Makalu-09, Sankhuwasabha
Tashi Sherpa - Makalu-09, Sankhuwasabha
Lakpa Sherpa - Makalu-05, Sankhuwasabha
Ngima Sherpa - Makalu-05, Sankhuwasabha
Mingma Dorchi Sherpa - Makalu-09, Sankhuwasabha
Pem Lakpa Sherpa - Makalu-02, Sankhuwasabha
Lakpa Sherpa - Makalu-05, Sankhuwasabha
Pemba Sherpa - Makalu-05, Sankhuwasabha
Fur Temba Sherpa - Makalu-09, Sankhuwasabha
Tenjing Sherpa - Makalu-09, Sankhuwasabha
Mingma Temba Sherpa - Makalu-05, Sankhuwasabha
Tashi Sherpa - Makalu-01, Sankhuwasabha

Indian-origin Canadian climber Dalip Singh Shekhawat, Ravi Thakar, alongside two other Americans – Mark Robert Parella and Yaser Mohammad Khan have also made it to the summit of Everest, as per as the report received from the base camp until yesterday afternoon.

Polish Adam Bielecki with German Felix Berg, aiming to summit Annapurna via new route on the NW Face, returned back from 6100m of the summit of Langtang Lirung (7227m) due to constant snow fall and high wind on 13th May. They choose the peak to summit for acclimatization for main goal i.e. Annapurna.

Romanian alpinist Horia Colibasanu with his country mate Marius Gane and Slovak Peter Hámor, aiming to summit Dhaulagiri via a new route without supplemental oxygen and Sherpa support, are now at Base Camp. They are waiting for favourable weather to start climbing again.

South Korean mountaineer, Hong Sung Taek, aiming to climb Lhotse South Face again, for the 6th time. Hong with his fellow teamates had already reached 7800m previously. We are yet to receive further updates from the team.

Photo Courtesy: Saray N'kusi Khumalo

This news was revised on 23-05-2019