Posted: Oct 21, 2007 10:30 pm EDT
Babanov did it again! Climbing partners have bailed on him in the past few years, but Serg seems a perfect match because today, the two bagged the first ascent of Jannu's west ridge, in alpine style!

In other news: A season's end Pakistan climbing report, and an ExWeb special on the upcoming Olympic torch event, including new details from Nangpa La. Debriefs also arrived from Dhaulagiri reminding of an old summit controversy, and from Danielle Fisher who made waves by summiting Shisha via Inaki's 2006 route. HumanEdgeTech finally issued a Thuraya alert, which has led the provider to schedule a meeting for Monday, hopefully resolving the recent sat com problems.

Jannu Summit! Valery and Sergey reached the top of Jannu today (Sunday, Oct 21) at 9.10 am local time. The climbers began their final push yesterday morning from 7400 meters, bringing only some gas and a tent. They went right up to the head wall, Olga reports. It snowed all night which the men spent sitting out in the tent without sleeping bags at 7600 meters. 6 am this morning, they resumed the climb to the top. In a later report from the west shoulder, the men said they were exhausted and descending their ascend route in very cold and windy conditions. They planned to spend a night, "I'm not sure they have a meal but they have a tent, gas, and a sleeping bag there, Olga reported.

Everest current affairs: President Bush, the Dalai Lama, Men's Journal and Nangpa La. "Paul told me you sent an email to ExplorersWeb," Russell Brice yelled at Luis Benitez. "Are you fucking crazy?" In a large Men's Journal article this month, titled "Murder at 19,000 feet", details are printed about last year's events on Nangpa La. It's not pretty, and even less so in light of David Sharp's fate and the upcoming Olympic torch event on Mount Everest north side. The ExplorersWeb's special story spurred tons of emails and is a must read.

HumanEdgeTech Thuraya ALERT - online refills and SMS down; firmware updates crash phones. The Thuraya online SMS service is spotty, and has probably been unavailable for the past week - this after being down last month as well. Also the online refill service is unreliable, at times rejecting customers wanting to fill up minutes on their phones. Reports have also arrived that defective firmware updates have crashed customers' phones. Outgoing calls seems OK, incoming calls might experience problems. The biggest complaint is that Thuraya fail to inform about the problems when they arise; but in a latest report Thuraya said the issues will be addressed in a large meeting Monday.

Danielle's Shisha summit debrief: "We traversed the snow face below the main summit." We have an Ochoa repetition on Shisha this year! After climbing for 12 hours the upper section of a mountain that had already turned back close to a hundred climbers including a number of resourceful commercial teams - Iñaki sidestepped the tricky traverse over the sharp ridge leading from the central summit to the top. This seems exactly the path that Danielle and Alpine Ascents' Lakpa Rita Sherpa chose to Shisha's first victory this fall.

Dhaulagiri summit? Kinga and Dodo report: "We climbed on the summit ridge to the place where a pole was and where it seemed that there was nothing higher. Sherpas said this is the summit, so did the Korean. Fredrik doubted it, and the two of us don't dare to say if we were on the summit or not. Our watch showed 8.076m but that's not really relevant," reported Kinga and Dodo.

The situation almost an exact repeat of the controversy in 2005, when a Korean team claimed to have summited Dhaulagiri. But other climbers, also on their summit bids, disagreed, stating the Korean's track stopped at 8,000 meters, and that they found a pole in a place which, according to Iñaki Ochoa, was not the real summit. While the Koreans appeared as confirmed summiteers in Elizabeth Hawley’s Himalayan database, Nives and Romano went back and climbed the mountain again, this time traversing the entire ridge to leave no doubt.

Dhaulagiri extreme ski descent update: Fredrik, "I was on top of my longest ski run ever." One day after Kinga and Dodo, Fredrik dispatched, "we were 7900 meters above sea level and I was on top of my longest ski run ever. It was more than 3000 vertical meters of skiing in mostly powder snow down to base camp."

New Spanish line on Jannu. News arrived from Spain that Jordi Tosas (K2 Magic Line) claims a new 1900 meters-long direct line up the Jannu NF, ranked as ED, which he has named 'Sun Tzu’ and reportedly climbed in September in a single push up to 6900 m (no summit) without mates, camps or ropes.

Ama Dablam: Avalanche in camp 3 - no injuries. "An avalanche has occurred in camp 3 on Ama Dablam. So far, no reports of any injuries have come in," reported Stewart Wolfe from SummitClimb. Apparently a piece of ice from the Dablam fell down and tore out some of the fixed lines. Ama Dablam is keeping everyone on edge since the night of November 13 in 2006, when a large part of a serac collapsed on the upper slopes of the peak. The falling chunk of ice hit Camp 3 on the normal route, sweeping six sleeping climbers off the peak.

Back to Diran with Schell and Pischinger: ExWeb's interview with Rainer Göschl, "Pakistan and India should learn from World War II." Rainer and Katharina Göschl witnessed the Pakistan earthquake first hand, raised money and before Christmas, the Göschl family had distributed three truck loads of first aid items. In 1968, Rainer joined Rudolph Pischinger and Hanns Schell (G1, Nanga Parbat Schell route, G2 and Shisha Pangma) for the first ascent of Diran. Next year, the 68 years old climber plans to revisit Minapin village with Hanns and Rudolf he told ExWeb's Karrar Haidri in Pakistan in an interview.

Season's end: Final Report of Pakistan 2007 Mountaineering Expeditions. In 2007, Broad Peak had the most summits (77) followed by Spantik (44) and K2 (29). Nanga Parbat and the Gasherbrums shared 48 summits. 5 climbers perished; two on K2, one on G1 and two on G2. Last week, the final season's big report arrived from the Alpine Club of Pakistan.

Expedition to commemorate Scott’s 100th Anniversary. An expedition to Antarctica to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova expedition of 1910-12 has been announced for March 2012. Several seasoned and well-known Antarctic explorers have been contacted for their assistance and involvement, “there is no intention for this expedition to be a re-enactment of the original expedition however to add realism, the expedition members will be unsupported for the duration and will man-haul their supplies to each location using Scott base as a staging point. The involvement of the New Zealand government and Antarctica New Zealand will be an important part” said leader Jason Nitz.

"When looking for friends, one shouldn't look for perfection" said the bear. January 17 this year, exactly 95 years after Scott, Correne Erasmus-Coetzer reached the South Pole. She has kept in touch with ExWeb since, shooting over cool stuff from international polar news. The latest from Correne - an incredible image series from a world that's not always black and white.

Miniature ship, big voyage: Erden Eruc's tech report, "I might as well be an astronaut." What do you do when Vista doesn't recognize your Iridium satellite phone, when you need support in remote corners of the world, or when you don't want to format and code new dispatches yourself? 100 days out, Erden has reached not even half way on his great Pacific crossing and has not seen a ship since Limassol. Tiny row boats require working miniature versions of everything - including communication technology. Last week, Erden reported how he goes about it.

Great Exploration Hoaxes - calling David Roberts. In adventure, blue-blood offspring, egomaniacs and/or the rich have always grabbed media from folks who deserve it more. We all know that, and if you don't - just cross check the list of adventure Bestsellers against the list at AdventureStats. They don't match. The Long Riders' Guild believes that Alaskan mountaineer David Robert's book Great Exploration Hoaxes might be worth to put back into print. If David reads this, or you happen to know how to reach him, please email the folks at longriders@thelongridersguild.com.

Ralph Tuijn update: "I'll be paying that Maka a little visit on Samoa!" Last we left off, Ralph had rowed 163 (!) days or about 5,600nm, with another 2,200nm left to go. His iPod was fried, his laptop was soggy, and his tracker had died. But a strong current was what finally killed him off, pushing the rower on to shore at the Atafu atoll. The boat was wrecked and Ralph had to abandon ship; apparently swimming to shore. "He's very disappointed, and tells how his project has been ruined by mistakes, lies and corruption," reported his webmaster when Ralph's second attempt to leave the island was wrecked last week. All is not yet lost though, a late Friday report had Ralph back out there after all.

Is praying to God for help considered assistance? "A couple of days ago, when I needed motor advice, I described our problem and it was posted on our blog. One person suggested that maybe this counts as receiving outside assistance and weren't we supposed to be doing this voyage without help," reported the Mars Ocean Odyssey guys. "Space men on a long voyage will get a lot of outside assistance and advice and probably a lot of orders too," Reid pondered, also thanking folks for directing prayers to the almighty for the Mars Ocean Odyssey mission. AdventureStats rule that usage of navigation and safety aids such as radios, satellite phones and location beacons are not considered support. God's assistance is OK too. "In fact," stated an Adventurestats representative, "praying to God can prove a bigger assistance than the help of some island mechanics I've met."

Read these stories - and more! - at ExplorersWeb.com.

 EMAIL   PRINT   SHARE   TEXT