The Loneliest Mountaineer on Everest

The tattered stays of an orange tent flap within the wind. A single rope dangles from a 300-foot wall of rock. The sound of crampons squeaking on snow and ice breaks the silence. Just one backpack seems, and it belongs to Jost Kobusch, a German who proper now may finest be described because the loneliest Alpine climber on this planet.

Kobusch is on Mount Everest, within the useless of winter, trying to climb the world’s tallest mountain throughout a season when virtually no person dares to scale it.

There is no such thing as a one else to be seen for miles, simply Kobusch and a 29,031-foot problem: to change into the primary particular person to climb Everest solo in winter, with out supplemental oxygen.

In a WhatsApp telephone name from Nepal, Kobusch described the surreal solitude of the panorama. “It’s important to image this: There’s just one tent within the base camp,” he stated. It’s his, in fact. He coughed into the telephone; the frigid air — which might plummet to unfavorable 80 levels Fahrenheit on the summit in winter — has been powerful on his lungs, he stated.

If he succeeds, Kobusch, 29, will etch his identify into the historical past of climbing on Everest in a serious means. Even he acknowledges it’s a huge “if,” however his try displays the push to go away a mark on probably the most well-known mountain on this planet.

Since Edmund Hillary and the Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay turned the primary to achieve the summit, in 1953, greater than 6,000 individuals have been acknowledged for reaching the highest.

Today, it has change into trendy to affix some type of first to the mountain — the oldest N.F.L. participant to achieve the highest, the world’s highest ceremonial dinner — leaving actually notable feats on Everest uncommon.

“It’s getting tougher and tougher on the 8,000-meter peaks to do one thing excellent as a result of a lot has been completed, notably on Everest,” stated Billi Bierling, managing director of the Himalayan Database.

But reaching the summit of any of the world’s 14 8,000-meter (26,246 toes) peaks within the inhospitable chilly and hurricane-force winds of winter stays a monumental feat. K2, the world’s second-tallest peak, had but to have anybody attain the summit in winter, till it lastly succumbed final yr to a Nepali staff, led by Nirmal Purja, who is called Nims, and Mingma G.

K2 may be colder than Everest in winter, however Purja stated in an e-mail from Antarctica, the place he was guiding an expedition, “When it comes to the winter perspective, in the event you take away all of the manpower and in the event you simply go there with a small staff, Everest can be a lot tougher and extra harmful as a result of it’s virtually 9,000 meters.”

Krzysztof Wielicki, 72, made the primary winter ascent of Everest on Feb. 17, 1980, with a fellow Polish climber, Leszek Cichy, after a staff of 16 climbers toiled away on the mountain for 2 months.

“You’ve to have the ability to undergo. It’s the artwork of struggling,” he stated in a telephone name from his residence in southern Poland.

Together with Wielicki and Cichy, solely 15 individuals have stood atop Everest in meteorological winter (which begins Dec. 1), when winds can attain 200 miles per hour. All climbed with companions, and just one, Ang Rita Sherpa, in 1987, climbed with out supplemental oxygen.

Kobusch, together with his penchant for lengthy, lonely, daring climbs, is attempting to up the ante even additional.

Not solely is he climbing in winter and alone with out supplemental oxygen, he’s attempting to achieve the highest of Everest through the West Ridge, a much more formidable path than the 2 most typical routes, which almost 98 p.c of summit seekers use. Kobusch should cope with sheer partitions, bullet-hard blue ice pitched as steep as a church spire and a closing gully of ice, rock and snow — known as the Hornbein Couloir — through which just a few individuals have ever set foot.

“Doing a route that hasn’t been completed earlier than in winter is one other method to do one thing for the primary time,” Bierling stated. “What Jost is doing, it’s very technically difficult, and he’s doing it utterly alone. If he makes it up he might be standing on the identical summit that everybody stands on. However the best way he will get there — you’ll be able to’t really evaluate it, it’s so totally different.”

Climbing Everest by himself isn’t a departure for Kobusch, however a continuation of his trademark fashion. In 2016, after he climbed Annapurna I (26,545 toes) solo, he determined he was looking for an expertise much more monastic and distant.

“Different individuals have been climbing the mountain on the identical day,” he stated of Annapurna. “I used to be in search of true wilderness.”

In 2017, he discovered it. Kobusch climbed Nangpai Gosum I (24,019 toes), which was then the fourth-highest unclimbed peak on this planet, alone. “Subsequent I went in search of that uncooked area on 8,000-meter peaks, for the toughest and largest venture I may probably think about,’’ he stated. “And it was fairly apparent. It was Everest.”

That is his second time attempting to climb the West Ridge of Everest solo in winter, after an preliminary try within the 2019-20 season. On that try, he reached an elevation of 24,167 toes earlier than turning round. In each cases, his solitary experiences have been as totally different as conceivable from the mainstream Everest that most individuals know.

In springtime, Everest Base Camp turns into a bustling village, stretching for 1.2 miles alongside the Khumbu Glacier. In 2021, its inhabitants exceeded 1,000 individuals. The mountain itself is extra of the identical. In 2019, the final climbing season unaffected by the coronavirus pandemic, greater than 1,240 individuals have been above base camp, based on the Himalayan Database.

It’s “principally a motorway” of bumper-to-bumper climbers, stated Bierling, who climbed Everest in 2009. Climbers on industrial expeditions have the mountain served as much as them on a silver platter, queuing in strains to cross crevasse-spanning aluminum ladders put in by Sherpa groups within the Khumbu Icefall and ascending fastened ropes all the best way up the mountain. Sherpa guides arrange tents for his or her shoppers within the larger camps, and typically even lay out sleeping luggage inside for them. And virtually each climber makes use of supplemental oxygen, even whereas sleeping.

Kobusch has none of that. He has put in brief lengths of rope, totaling about 560 toes, on a number of of the steepest rock and ice steps, however, past that, he’s climbing free solo. In distinction, in spring, there are over two miles of rope put in within the Khumbu Icefall alone, a treacherous jumble of house- and apartment-size blocks of ice earlier than Camp 1.

Kobusch opted to climb the West Ridge partly as a result of he deemed touring alone via the Khumbu Icefall, which the route avoids, too harmful. However he additionally selected it due to aesthetics.

“For an actual climber, the West Ridge is a extra stunning line,” Kobusch stated. “It’s a lot tougher, nevertheless it’s straighter. The South Col route that most individuals use goes across the again of the mountain in a means. The route I’m taking is a extremely direct line.”

Kobusch’s highest level to date this yr is 21,184 toes, which he reached on Jan. 4. (A reside GPS tracker on his web site reveals his progress.) If he makes it as much as 8,000 meters (26,247 toes), he’ll come to the Hornbein Couloir, which may show probably the most troublesome a part of the climb. The couloir is a steep and slender 1,600-foot tongue of snow splitting the rocky north face of the mountain.

The People Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld made the primary ascent of the Hornbein Couloir in Could 1963. Within the almost 59 years since, solely 5 different expeditions have climbed up it.

“In trying again, whereas clearly we have been dedicated and decided, we have been additionally fortunate as hell,” Hornbein, 91, stated from his residence in Estes Park, Colo. “Jost appears to have his head screwed on pretty straight and is taking part in his playing cards with a modicum of warning. But it surely’s nonetheless vastly excessive threat. There aren’t any money-back ensures.”

Wielicki agreed. “I believe his chances are high 50-50, if he has luck. If he has a superb climate window, it’s doable. However you want luck — and luck is difficult in winter.”

Kobusch acknowledges that his odds of success are slim, and {that a} third expedition subsequent winter could also be mandatory.

“If I can go larger I want to, however I might be completely happy to achieve 8,000 meters,” he stated. “No person has even had a take a look at the couloir in winter. Perhaps will probably be inconceivable to climb it. It’s a journey into the unknown.”

Kobusch insists he doesn’t take into consideration the historic nature of his enterprise, or what it might imply to hitch the ranks of trailblazers like Hornbein, Wielicki and Purja.

“I’m simply there to do my factor,” Kobusch stated. “However once I’m on the mountain, my thoughts isn’t wandering round a lot. There’s only a deep move and deep focus.”