Topo of the planned climb on Schell route, which traverses both the Rupal and Dimair sides of Nanga Parbat. The Poles will set up four camps, and maybe a 5th one on the upper sections. Topo courtesy of HiMountain Polish team (click to enlarge).
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Winter Nanga Parbat expedition's kick-off: Climbers to arrive in Islamabad today
Posted: Dec 05, 2006 10:14 am EST
(K2Climb.net) “We are in London for 4 hours,” read an email to ExWeb from Artur Hajzer yesterday. “We left Poland for Nanga this morning.”
Artur and the rest of the Polish team are scheduled to land in Islamabad today. The team needs some days to arrage the approaching trip to Nanga Parbat’s Rupal face, which they plan to start climbing in a few weeks time.
With the help of Hans Schell
The team has also posted a topo and some details on their targeted Schell route – mainly thanks to the help of climbers worldwide including pioneer Hans Schell himself; who advised the team on his rarely attempted climbing route.
“Initially, the route climbs along a rocky ridge, on which we expect to fix 1500 meters of rope” the Poles report. “Then, at 7000m, it climbs steep snow fields towards the peak’s Diamir side.”
The last pitches of the route in fact traverse the Diamir side of the mountain, until it reaches the summit dome.
Winter logistics: 4-5 higher camps
“On the Diamir side sections we expect to face difficulties up to II and III degree (alpine scale),” reports the team. “This part of the route is very long, so we are considering to set up a camp there (it would by our 5th higher camp) or to make a bivouac in the area on our summit push.”
The team has two recent additions: National Geographic has supported the expedition with a grant, and sent a photographer (Argentinean Tommy Heinrich) and a journalist (American Mark Jenkins) to cover the climb.
Not even Messner could beat them: Polish climbers have all the first winter ascents on Himalayan 8000ers, achieved in the eighties.
Now, Krzysztof Wielicki will lead the Fifth Polish expedition to a winter Nanga Parbat. The team members collectively don't only have many years of experience - but also an amazing number of 8000ers summited - including winter first ascents:
Krzysztof Wielicki was the fifth climber to summit all 14 8000ers. Among his climbs, the first winter ascents of Everest, Lhotse and Kangchenjunga. Artur Hajzer has four 8000er summits in his name and the first winter climb of Annapurna. Dariusz Zaluski also summited 4 of the 8000ers and did winter attempts on K2, Makalu, Nanga and Shisha. Jan Szulc led the team who first climbed Shisha Pangma in winter, and made a K2 winter attempt.
Jacek Berbeka has summited 4, 8000er and also done some winter attempts. Krzysztof Tarasewicz is summiteer on 3 8000ers; Jacek Jawien has been a member in K2 and Shisha winter expeditions. Only Przemyslaw Lozinski will experience an 8000+ meter peak for the first time.
The team doctor will be Robert Szymczak. A young generation climber, he has nevertheless taken part in several expeditions in Nepal and Pakistan – his latest was a climb on Passu Sar. He is a mountain rescuer and a scientist specialized in high mountain medicine.
The Pakistani climbers will probably be: Hassan Sadpara – a summitteer of all the 5 Pakistani eightthousanders, and Rasool from the Machalu village (with three 8000ers summited).
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