원정 개요

The team's original ambition was to climb the formidable West Pillar without Sherpa helpers, fixed camps or bottled oxygen.

They established their BC on 21 April at 5400m on the moraine below the south end of the the pillar. They bivouacked from the 25th to 27th at 6000m, the normal site of C1 for the pillar; on the 26th they climbed to 6300m for acclimatization and to observe conditions on their route. On the 27th, they descended to BC and took the decision that the route was too difficult.

From 29 April to 2 May, they made an acclimatization climb on the normal route's West Face, as they had originally planned to do, to 6800m. They moved up and down the face for a few days. On 8th May they bivouacked at the site for C2 (6600m) and the following day climbed up to the Makalu La (7400m), where they slept that night.

On the 10th they were down in BC and now decided to go for the summit by this normal route up the face and along the NW Ridge to the top. They now had to move their stored equipment to the new route, so on the 16th they returned to their pillar cache.

Siegrist had left the team on the 12th. He had high altitude problems because of a climbing accident two years ago.

Finally the four remaining members began a bid for the summit. In a series of bivouacs, they moved up to 6600m on the 19th, to the Makalu La's 7400m on the 20th, and and to 7700m on the north side of the NW Ridge on the 21st. At 1:00 am they set out for the top, and reached 8200m at 4:30 am. Here they found other team members and Sherpas had stopped at this point because they were no fixed ropes above in the French couloir (8200-8400m), and no one had any rope with them to fix.

At his point, Waerthl's fingers had gotten very cold, and he turned back to BC. But the other three, Bartsch, Goettler and Mitterer, still went to on up and arrived at the summit at 9:00 am that day, 22 May.

A Finn climbing alone, Samuli Mansikka, was about half an hour behind them from 8200m. When they reached the top, they waited for him and took pictures of him together with them.

They descended to their 7700m bivy at 12 noon, had two hours rest, packed up their gear and moved down to their bivouac at 6600m at 5:30 pm. They were in BC on the 23rd.