Makalu & Everest mountaineering news

Makalu & Everest mountaineering news

The Mountain Company Summer Newsletter

Makalu
Makalu was very popular this season with the highest number of mountaineers ever seen on the mountain.

The first summit of the season came on May 5th from the British Navy expedition by Flight Lieutenant Jonathon Percival and Dawa. On May 11th Ralf Dujmovits made the summit making it his 13th 8000m peak summit. On May 12th Juanito Oiarzabal also summitted along with Pasang Nuru Sherpa and Roberto Rojo.

This was an incredible achievement for Juanito as Makalu was the 22nd 8000m peak that he has climbed! Spanish Carlos Soria and a Sherpa; Romanian Alex Gavan as well as Argentinean Carlos Hernan Wilke also summitted on May 12th.

On May 13th Russians Denis Urubko, Eugeny Shutov, Boris Dedeshko and Svetlana Sharipova successfully reached the summit

On May 19th Portuguese Joao García made the summit followed by four Frenchman with six expedition Sherpas. Sadly one of their Sherpas, Pasang Gurung, later died on descent probably from HACE. There were also two further summits from the British Navy expedition by Matt Hing & Lara Herbert with two Sherpas.

On May 21st Australian Andrew Lock summitted Makalu, this is his 13th 8000m summit and now only has Shishapangma left to complete his quest of climbing all of the world's highest mountains. He climbed to the summit with British Ted Atkins and Czech Radek Jaros.

Everest
This year the big news was the closing of Everest northside from Tibet to all foreign mountaineers as a result of adverse publicity over the Olympic flame. This was a huge surprise to many expeditions as was only announced in early March, some diverted to the Nepalese side whereas others delayed until 2009. In fact, the Nepalese southside was also affected by the Olympic flame with climbers not being allowed above Camp 2 until the flame reached the summit.

On May 8th the torch did reach the summit and the climbing ban from the Nepal was finally lifted. There was a large number of people on Everest this year with well over 400 foreign climbers. To alleviate the crowding on the mountain double ropes were fixed to Camp 3 which seemed to work quite well.

The first summits of Everest were on May 19th by two Sherpas breaking trail and fixing ropes to the South summit. On May 20th Mountain Madness team made the summit followed by Jamie McGuiness from Project Himalaya on May 21st. Many other teams summitted during this period.

Of note on May 22nd Apa Sherpa reached the summit of Everest n the Eco-Everest expedition for his 18th time! On May 25th Min Bahadur Sherchan became the oldest person to summit Everest at 76 years. Other records included the first Saudi, Farouq Saad Hamad Al-Zuman, on Everest and the first mother and daughter to summit together.



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