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KILIAN JORNET EVEREST 2021: KILIAN JORNET & DAVID GÖTTLER READY FOR EVEREST-LHOTSE TRAVERSE.
KILIAN JORNET EVEREST 2021: Kilian Jornet & David Göttler ready for the Everest(8,848m)-LHOTSE(8,516m) traverse. Our MOUNTAINEERING section continues to follow up on a new Kilian challenge, following its double ascent to Everest in 2017.
Below you can see the information Kilian Jornet posted yesterday, from Everest. We also saw another one together to his team colleague for this adventure, David Göttler, with whom have already finished the acclimatation phase and are ready to give the final push in the mountain.
Kilian Jornet Everest 2021: Photo: Kilian Jornet
KILIAN JORNET EVEREST 2021 EVEREST WEST RIDGE (8,848M) AND LHOTSE (8,516M)TRAVERSE
Kilian Jornet and David Gottler confirmed yesterday, on their social media that they have successfully completed the acclimatization planned for their challenge. Now, they’ve come down a little bit to rest, recover and throw themselves now if nothing twists into the final assault.
Kilian’s latest publication below shows us both mountaineer and also includes two videos” after making one last acclimatization trip just below 8000m. They went down the face of the Lhotse from Camp 2 and to base camp following the normal route. Now some time to rest and wait.
Video 1: Even if the trail is a highway the speed is very low.
Video 2: Our camp, we took the luxury to carry one tent each to have individual suits with views.
DAVID GOTTLER. VETERAN MOUNTAINEER AND UELI STECK CLIMBING PARTNER.
According to his biographical note for The North Face, David highlights includes having climbed icy peaks everywhere, from Pakistan to Patagonia. But what he confesses as his greatest passion is the hard and beautiful high-altitude terrain of the 8000 m mountains.
In fact, it has already conquered five of the 14 different peaks of 8000 m on Earth, reaching the summits of Gasherbrum II (8035 m), Broad Peak (8051 m), Dhaulagiri (8167 m), Lhotse (8516 m) and Makalu (8481 m), as well as ascending to 8200m in K2 (8611m).
Just a year ago, in May 2020, KIlian himself interviewed David for his personal blog. Going over that talk between the two, these are the highlights of their exchange. Here the full text, highly recommended.
What does an ascent in fast & light style make you feel compared to traditional style? I feel so much more freedom, I feel closer somehow it is less layers between me and the mountain, the lightnes is not in only in the backpack but also happens inside my head, how I feel on the mountain is a way less weight.
Do you remember the first climb on F&L? I think it was in 2007 in K2 when we tried to do it in a single push. But we had some camps and fixed ropes in the mountain so it wasn’t really alpine style, so the first time without any compromises it was 2016 with Ueli Steck and we just had a day pack and wanted to climb the hole face up & down in Shishapagma.
Kilian & David at Everest 2021. Photo: Kilian Jornet
From David’s side, he arrived at Everest base camp six days ago, but has not yet revealed his plans. His last published image portrayed him already passing ladders in the Khumbu Waterfall area, which would show his rapid acclimatization.
As you can read in the text below, his first approach when you arrived was: “Here I am again. Some of you may ask WHY? and I get that, and sometimes ask myself the same: but in 2019 I stopped 100m from the top, and for me it feels unfinished. I would like to complete what I began. This year there are even more layers of uncertainty than ever before but I know that these big objectives can take many years and many attempts. Letting a year just go by without trying feels wasteful of precious time. I’m taking things day by day and hoping that the stars align for me”
KILIAN JORNET EVEREST 2021: WHAT’S NEXT?
If the challenge is finally confirmed, the situation is not at all easy: They’ll have about a month before the monsoon. As we have seen in his own images, Kilian has trained intensively in Norway, mainly skiing mountaineering. It is true that there is no data on how has he being prepared for altitude, since the highest point in Norway (Galdhø peak) has a modest 2,469 m.
However, this is not the first time Jornet has planned to accelerate Everest with little acclimatization. However, he has already successfully developed and tested previous models of rapid acclimatization from protocols with an hyperbaric chamber at home, oxygen debt training and so on, so the images of both in Nepal do seem to confirm the assault.
Now let’s check down here in detail what it means. 
KILIAN JORNET WEST RIDGE EVEREST & LOTHSE TRAVERSE 2021
As you can see in the image above, the challenge of the planned traverse would also include the descent to the South Col from the 8,848m of the top of Everest. The route dates back to 1963 and its was called “West Ridge Route/Hornbein Corridor”. It is a route that was made by a group of American hyalayists in their attempt to open a route entirely by the west ridge (dividing the north and south faces).
For their ascent, they started from the C2 of the southern route over the Khumbu glacier taking the ridge to 7300m. From there, they continued through it until the first steps of great difficulty at 7600m and seeing that they could not continue on the edge they took to the left entering the north face.
Once there they went up a corridor of great technical difficulty reaching the top. From there, they would resume a new ascent, this time by a direct route to the 8,516m of the top of the Lhotse before finally embarking on the return to base camp, that is, something very similar to what Ueli Steck intended to carry out in 2017.
Photo: Kilian Jornet
KILIAN JORNET EVEREST 2021: PHOTO GALLERY BY DAVID GÖTTLER.
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