The fall climbing season in Nepal continues unabated with more updates from the Himalaya. While there is no new news from Lhotse, there is plenty of other things to talk about from the big mountains.
We’ll start with an update on German climber Kobusch Jost summit of Nagpai Gosum, which we first mentioned on Monday. At that time there were few details available, other than that the 25-year old alpinist had managed to summit the previous unclimbed peak, which is 7296 meters (23,397 ft) in altitude. Before Jost topped out last week, it was the fourth highest unclimbed mountain in the world.
The Himalayan Times has shared more information about the expedition, which began way back on August 14 when Jost set out from Lukla with two teammates – fellow German Schardt Raphael Rene and a Sherpa support person. The trio went to Nagpai Gosum and set up camp there, then proceeded to acclimatize over the following weeks. When it came time to make their summit push, neither Rene or the Sherpa were able to climb higher than C2, so Jost set out on a solo attempt. He reached the top at 10:25 AM local time on October 3.
The Nepali government hadn’t opened Nagpai Gosum to climbers until 2014, but due to its unclimbed status and height, it was seen as a great challenge. The route to the summit is reportedly highly technical, increasing the level of difficulty significantly. With the first ascent now claimed, it’ll be interesting to see how long it takes before someone else goes there to repeat the climb.
Meanwhile, there are two more summits on Dhaulagiri to report this season as well. Alan Arnette shared the news that both Italian climber Carlo Alberto Cimenti and Swiss alpinist Mathias König made solo ascents of that mountain. Both men were in Camp 3 together, with Cimenti setting out first, while König waited two extra hours before setting out. The Italian reached the top first and was already on his descent when he met his teammate, who was able to safely continue up and back down.
Reportedly the route to the summit had no trail to follow, with wind and snow covering the tracks of previous teams. On top of that, there were no fixed ropes, but both men were able to safely summit and descend back to C3, before dropping to Base Camp yesterday. Presumably they are wrapping up the expedition and getting ready to head for home as well.
As Alan reports, the original plan was to make a ski descent of Dhaulagiri, but conditions weren’t safe to do so. The men did ski some parts of the mountain, but not the full route.
That’s all for today. As more news becomes available, I’ll be sure to share it.
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