Ali Sadpara and Alex Txikon, not taking unnecessary risks at Everest base camp
One of othe biggest news this mountaineering season was that of Ali Sadpara and Alex Txikon attempting to be the first ones to summit the Everest without supplemental oxygen in the winter. The first winter summit of Everest with oxygen was done in 1980 by Andrej Zawada’s team from Poland of mountaineers Leszek Cichy and Krystof Wielicki.
The duo made several acclimatising climbs and made it as far as Camp 3 (7,100m) of the Everest in the bitter cold (it was -35C). Then they announced they were going to Camp 4 on February 23, seemingly to make a summit push. However, they returned with this message from Txikon: “Sometimes life puts you in complicated decisions that you must take in a thousandth of a second and you appreciate all your life and that of all your companions.”
The winds were entirely too strong for them to continue. And according to the forecast, they would not get any better while the ‘official’ season (until the end of February) lasted.
For the world’s elite mountaineers, winter climbing season in the Himalayas and Karakoram is the new frontier in big mountain climbing
Early on February 27, Txikon tweeted a photo from their successful expedition to the Nanga Parbat in 2016, in which he, along with Ali Sadpara and Simone Moro became the first mountaineers to summit the Nanga Parbat in winter. Accompanying the photo was this message: “Two years ago, we did the first winter summit of Nanga Parbat. As then, Ali Sadpara and I are together today. This time, winter has not given us the opportunity, but I’m sure the future will bring us together in a new adventure.”
TRAGEDY AT NANGA PARBAT
Earlier, in January, after becoming the second expedition to successfully summit the Nanga Parbat in winter, things soon turned tragic for the climbing duo of Elisabeth Revol and Tomek Mackiewicz. The weather, unexpectedly, took a turn for the worse and according to Revol, Mackiewicz was exhibiting signs of snow blindness.
They managed to make their way to a crevasse at around 7,200-7,400m where Revol communicated Mackiewicz’s condition to base camp. She was told to leave him behind, as help was on its way, and begin descending. By the time she left Mackiewicz he had already begun exhibiting symptoms of acute mountain sickness — blood was coming out of his mouth, a sign that his body was filling up with fluid — making his chances for survival very slim.
Meanwhile, on January 27, an elite team of mountaineers from a Polish expedition, hoping to do the first winter summit of the K2, was flown in from the base camp to rescue the duo stranded on Nanga Parbat. Adam Bielecki, Denis Urubko, Piotr Tomala and Jarek Botor were acclimatised and ready for the rescue. They arrived quite late, shortly before sunset, and had to do the rest of the rescue in the dark.