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KILIAN JORNET EVEREST 2021: KILIAN AND DAVID GÖTTLER GO BACK HOME WITHOUT THE SUMMIT.
KILIAN JORNET EVEREST 2021: Everest(8,848m)- west ridge and 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, the note that David published yesterday this very morning Jornet, from Everest.
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KILIAN JORNET EVEREST 2021
DAVID GÖTTLER GOOD BYE STATEMENT.
No. No, we didn’t climb Everest.
Finally, after a lot of waiting for tropical cyclones to pass and snow to settle, we began an attempt, but on reaching the South Col we both decided to stop.
@kilianjornet left from BC and I left from C2. We both climbed through the night and met at South Col and we both experienced the same sensation of not feeling well or strong. It was a bizarre moment when we regrouped at South Col and told each other we were not ok, both of us having had exactly the same experience and feeling equally not right.
So actually, it was easy to know we should stop. It would have been foolish to continue to climb higher in that state. You can’t climb Everest in our style if you don’t feel 100%, and luckily both of us know very well how we should feel at those altitudes.
So, we stopped our climb and descended. Even though we could blame the wind for having prevented us from going on (it was pretty windy at S Col), it wasn’t the wind or bad weather or bad conditions on the mountain. It was our bodies and how we felt, and it’s equally important to listen to your body and respect it. It’s just one more piece of this difficult puzzle. When the margins of safety are this slim, if one piece doesn’t fit you don’t get to finish the puzzle.
Disappointed, of course. Regretful. Not a bit.
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 and David at Everest 2021. Photo: Kilian Jornet
KILIAN JORNET WEST RIDGE EVEREST & LOTHSE TRAVERSE 2021
As you can see in the image below, 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.
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Read the article in Spanish HERE
