Simone Moro and Denis Urubko are two of the strongest mountaineers in the world, and their resumes are filled with impressive summits on mountains all over the planet. Now, according to ExWeb, they’re joining forces once again to go for a challenging and ambitious double header in the Himalaya this spring.
If everything goes according to plan, the duo will be putting up a completely new route on Everest’s companion, Lhotse in a few months time. They plan to climb without supplemental oxygen, fixed ropes, or Sherpa support as well, making this a true alpine style ascent. They haven’t revealed many details of their plan just yet, but they do note that there are fewer routes to the top of Lhotse, which stands at 8516 meters (27,940 feet) than any other eight-thousander. One gets the feeling that they’ll be exploring much of the new route as they go.
Before challenging the 4th tallest mountain in the world however, they’ll warm up on Everest first. Italian Simone will go to the summit without oxygen, while guiding a friend to the top. If successful, it’ll be his third time up the Big Hill. Meanwhile, Kazakh Denis doesn’t have a summit permit, but will still go as high as Camp 4 as he acclimatizes for the action on Lhotse.
The two have teamed up in the past, most notably when they became the first to summit the 8463 meter (27,766 feet) Makalu during the winter last February. They’re hoping for a similar success when they leave for Kathmandu on March 20th.
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Hahah – I love it. They're going to "warm up" on Everest first.
Yep! Everest is going to be the "easy" part of their climb. A new route on Lhotse, in alpine style, will be quite the challenge.