Chronicles of an Eclectic Life: mountaineering

Showing posts with label mountaineering. Show all posts

Saturday, May 14, 2016

Power couple of grand-scale mountaineering

Romano Benet and Nives Meroi are the most legendary mountain-climbing couple I've come across. Their individual accomplishments aside, few hours back, these two summited Mt. Makalu, completing 13 of the 14 eight-thousanders.

In true alpine style, all of Nives's and Romano's 8,000 m climbs have been completed without supplementary oxygen and without sherpas. It has been said that "(...) their style of mountaineering belongs to another era."

1994 K2, attempt
1996 Everest, attempt
1998 Nanga Parbat, summit (Nives becomes the first Italian woman to summit)
1999 Shisha Pangma, summit
1999 Cho Oyu, summit
2003 Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II and Broad Peak summits (in 20 days)
2004 Lhotse, summit
2006 Dhaulagiri, summit
2006 Annapurna, attempt
2006 K2, summit (Nives è la prima donna italiana in vetta)
2007 Everest, summit (Nives becomes the first Italian woman to summit without supplementary oxygen)
2008 Makalu, attempt (winter expedition)
2008 Manaslu, summit
2009 Annapurna, attempt immediately abandoned
2009 Kangchenjunga, attempt immediately abandoned
2012 Kangchenjunga, attempt
2014 Kangchenjunga, summit
2016 Makalu, summit

Note: Nives is the more popular of the couple - having a Wikipedia page even in English. Romano Benet, only Wiki-d in Italian, has an introduction that Google cheekily translated as

Romano Benet ( Tarvisio , 20 April 1962 ) is a mountaineer Italian .

It is one of the largest Italian mountaineers, known for the exploits of the wife, also a mountaineer Nives Meroi

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Tuesday, March 01, 2016

Russians climbing it right

There are several things on my mind. To filter out through, on this morning, to chagrin (maybe fate), is the history on the V Thread (aka the Abalakov Anchor) an anchor made using, but ultimately sans the ice screws. The screws are drawn out, and all that's left is ice and rope, and a 200-400lb load in the form of you, the anchored.

When its Soviet inventor, Vitaly Mikhalovich Abakov, engineered it in the 1930s, he was arrested for embracing western mountaineering techniques; something similar to the sedition charges that our dissenting loud mouths face today. Only if the dissenters in our country were arrested for "making" than "saying" things, we would see a much healthier environment despite dissent that might even lead to some fantastic application of a small principle towards solving a big problem.

The first hollow screws were developed in the 1930s and were much faster to place than their predecessors; their hollow core allowing for relief of pressure as chewed up ice could spit out the end of the screw. It wasn’t until the 50s or 60s that thicker screws were made with a larger core. It was sometime during that period that Abalakov invented the V-thread and dramatically changed what climbers thought was possible on steep ice and alpine routes.

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Monday, February 08, 2016

Feverish over Ev history

Sunday spent feverish about people well dead and buried by now. The 1922 British team to attempt the Everest was an A-team of all sorts. It was only a year back, in the 1921 reconaissance mission, that a possible route to the Everest - through Tibet - was identified. These two expeditions - of 1921 and 1922 - count among the best, hardest, and bravest of mountaineering expeditions on this subcontinent. The enthusiasm with which every member of the team took it up, despite the inconveniences, brings to mind that agency that i have been trying to find and lift myself through in this year.

Also managed to confirm some finer details of JBL Noel's 1913 expedition, AM Kellas' covert documentation of 1920s, and the 1921 expedition, all of which led to the 1922 expedition.
The Arun River, which originates from Shishapangma (the shortest of eight thousanders), also has a fascinating course, that ultimately feeds the Saptkoshi system, that was new knowledge for me. Oh, and Tashikak != Tashigaon, that which fired all my curiosities to begin with, was resolved.

And I guess every time somebody takes a damn lotta interest in this, at the end of the day sits Wade Davis, with his book "Into the Silence" chronicling those events. Though a 2011 book, it is available at very few vendors - at 672 pages it sits beyond the boundaries as a primer or as a lighthearted reading, and I guess that is why it hasn't received a wider audience.
Lucky to have stumbled onto the last remaining copy on Amazon India, a surprisingly cheap paperback edition available that was immediately summoned to my home.

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Friday, February 05, 2016

The blue eyed boys of high altitude mountaineering

Today's idling has been occupied by the fantastic adventures of Mr. JBL Noel.. one of the most fantastic creatures on planet earth in the last century. Him, and another gentleman Mr. Alexander Kellas, a chemist and physiologist, have been the two most underrated characters in the history of Himalayan expeditions, and climbing in general.

Inspiration, envy, eagerness, will to action - let's hope I follow that chain which starts today. Found a coupla nice papers to read that focus on the era of these gentleman. Had Kellas not died enroute to Everest on his very first visit with the 1922 expedition, the ill-fated 1924 expedition of Mallory-Irvine might've made it out alive.

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Monday, May 26, 2014

No kidding

I was in the mountains, for over a month. It is very exciting to share that it was the longest and the coldest time up for this wayward wanderer. But with a lesser excitement I also share that what I'd set out for wasn't achieved - which would've been in the form of a summit for my girlfriend, who had to abort (the expedition) because of a knee injury, and video diaries for the entire expedition which were left incomplete coz of the early exit.

However, now that I'm back, I plan to share a lot. Going through the events in a chronological order - in pictures and videos - one can well judge how crazy and otherworldly it was. Despite knowing the nature of things in the wild, and in the snows, it was different. If nature was a master-chef, the delightful dish it served us was a combination of the people - of the mountain profession - and the situations that made it so memorable.

In the followup to our return, some very good news has come. There have been summits; most importantly an Indian summit of Makalu. That was GP Pune's Ashish Mane creating history a day back, and I can imagine it would've been a crazy climb. Then there was a 16 year old (American) summitting the same mountain 2 hours after Ashish, which makes for another inspiring tale, one which I hardly know anything about. Swee Chow, the gregarious Singaporean and the Grand Slam-mer, also summitted. So did Dr. Dragan, everyone's best man at the basecamp - I suspect cheating, since mere prayers would've been enough to take him to at least the French Couloir, if not the summit.

Much to follow.

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Chronicles of an Eclectic Life

Saturday, May 14, 2016

Power couple of grand-scale mountaineering