A record number of climbers are gathered in Tibet to complete mountaineering’s pinnacle achievement, summiting the world’s tallest 14 peaks.
Only about 50 climbers have climbed all mountain peaks above 8,000 meters, a feat that took most years, or even decades, to complete.
About 20 are vying for the record books this month, some spurred by a blockbuster Netflix documentary giving the endeavor a wider profile.
Photo: AFP
Technological advancements have made the feat easier to accomplish.
“We are growing as a community, and we are representing mountaineering all over the world,” said Pakistani climber Shehroze Kashif, 22.
“I think that’s great... they are completing their dream, as I am.”
Photo: AFP
It took Italian climber Reinhold Messner 16 years from his initial summit to become the first person in the world considered to have climbed all 14 peaks in 1986.
But most of the climbers assembled in the Chinese Himalayas at the base camp of Mount Shisha Pangma only began their attempts within the past few years.
They have already summited the 13 other highest peaks, located in the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, straddling Nepal, Pakistan, Tibet and India.
Photo: AFP
Many have been waiting to scale the 8,027-meter-high Tibetan peak since last year, when China closed the mountain to climbers after two American women and their Nepali guides were killed in an avalanche.
‘MOUNTAINS ATTRACT THEM’
The aspirants are a mix of seasoned veterans and rising stars.
Photo: AFP
Teenage Nepali climber Nima Rinji Sherpa, 18, aims to be the youngest to climb all 14.
Several hope to be the first from their respective countries to accomplish the feat.
Advances in mountaineering technology, weather forecasting and logistical support have made this once-inaccessible goal more achievable — particularly for those who can afford it.
Mingma Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks, Nepal’s biggest mountaineering expedition company, said that climbers could expect to pay up to US$700,000 for full support teams.
But he said the hefty price tag had not dissuaded a growing number of people from pursuing the endeavor.
“They climb one or two, and then the mountains attract them,” he said. “Soon they might decide to climb them all.”
Teams of support crews and helicopters for rapid transportation between base camps have allowed climbers to tackle multiple mountains in a single season.
“It is clear that the pioneers back then, they did much more difficult, dangerous and exceptional ascents,” said German mountaineering chronicler Eberhard Jurgalski.
“Now it is possible to do them within three months. The logistics are so world-class now.”
British-Nepali climber Nirmal Purja famously completed the 14 peaks in just over six months in 2019, shattering the previous record of seven years.
His efforts were chronicled in a Netflix documentary, inspiring a new wave of athletes to try and eclipse his speed run.
Norwegian climber Kristin Harila and her Nepali guide Tenjen Lama Sherpa — the latter who died attempting to summit Shisha Pangma last year — now hold the record.
They climbed the giant mountains in 92 days, ending in July last year. The pair also reached the “true summits” of all the mountains, which many previous climbers had missed.
This month, at least six have already completed the feat after summiting Shisha Pangma, including the first Japanese, Pakistani and female American climbers.
They also included Nirmal Purja again, who this time said he was climbing all 14 without supplementary oxygen.
‘ANOTHER CHALLENGE’
The trend towards speed has not always been welcomed by the mountaineering fraternity. Veteran climbers have criticized Purja and Harila for using helicopters, pre-prepared routes and support teams.
Dawa Yangzum Sherpa, who is aiming to become the first woman from Nepal to summit all 14 peaks, said the style of ascent dictated how much it was valued by other alpinists.
“Some... don’t have the capacity to climb without support,” she said.
But Russian climber Alina Pekova, also attempting the Tibetan summit to finish her 14-peak climb, said that speed ascents were an endurance test.
“If you can climb it a fast way, why not try?” she said. “That’s another challenge.”
June 2 to June 8 Taiwan’s woodcutters believe that if they see even one speck of red in their cooked rice, no matter how small, an accident is going to happen. Peng Chin-tian (彭錦田) swears that this has proven to be true at every stop during his decades-long career in the logging industry. Along with mining, timber harvesting was once considered the most dangerous profession in Taiwan. Not only were mishaps common during all stages of processing, it was difficult to transport the injured to get medical treatment. Many died during the arduous journey. Peng recounts some of his accidents in
“Why does Taiwan identity decline?”a group of researchers lead by University of Nevada political scientist Austin Wang (王宏恩) asked in a recent paper. After all, it is not difficult to explain the rise in Taiwanese identity after the early 1990s. But no model predicted its decline during the 2016-2018 period, they say. After testing various alternative explanations, Wang et al argue that the fall-off in Taiwanese identity during that period is related to voter hedging based on the performance of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Since the DPP is perceived as the guardian of Taiwan identity, when it performs well,
A short walk beneath the dense Amazon canopy, the forest abruptly opens up. Fallen logs are rotting, the trees grow sparser and the temperature rises in places sunlight hits the ground. This is what 24 years of severe drought looks like in the world’s largest rainforest. But this patch of degraded forest, about the size of a soccer field, is a scientific experiment. Launched in 2000 by Brazilian and British scientists, Esecaflor — short for “Forest Drought Study Project” in Portuguese — set out to simulate a future in which the changing climate could deplete the Amazon of rainfall. It is
The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on May 18 held a rally in Taichung to mark the anniversary of President William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20. The title of the rally could be loosely translated to “May 18 recall fraudulent goods” (518退貨ㄌㄨㄚˋ！). Unlike in English, where the terms are the same, “recall” (退貨) in this context refers to product recalls due to damaged, defective or fraudulent merchandise, not the political recalls (罷免) currently dominating the headlines. I attended the rally to determine if the impression was correct that the TPP under party Chairman Huang Kuo-Chang (黃國昌) had little of a
RSS