Mt Manaslu summit route opens, rope-fixing team scales mountain

Kathmandu, Sept 24: With over 260 expedition members along with their support staff preparing to scale the world’s eighth highest peak, at least four Sherpa climbers of the rope-fixing team along with a Pakistani climber successfully stood atop Mt Manaslu (8,163 m) this afternoon becoming the first team to climb the mountain in the autumn season.

Tashi Lakpa Sherpa, Director of the Seven Summit Treks, said that a rope fixing team comprising Nima Dorchi Sherpa, Ngima Thinduk Sherpa and Tenjing Chhombi Sherpa from Makalu and Namgyal Bhote from Bodkhola, Sankhuwasabha along with renowned climber Ali Sadpara from Pakistan made it to the summit point opening its climbing route above Camp IV at around 1:45 pm.

The team, which struggled for hours to trace the route due to deep snow, finally made to the summit after the mountain witnessed fair weather, Sherpa told THT from the base camp. “The rope-fixing team had left for the high camps on Friday to open the summit route,” he added.

More climbers will be attempting to scale the peak in a day or two after the team opened the route this season. “If all goes well, our team will make the final summit push tomorrow,” Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, Managing Director at Imagine Nepal Treks said. John Snorri Sigurjónsson, who has become the first Icelandic climber to summit K2, will also be attempting to stand atop the 8,163-metre peak, he added.

Enrico De Luca (70) from Italy and woman climber Astrid Gessler (65) are the eldest climbers who will be attempting to climb the world’s eighth highest peak.

Till date, 260 expedition members representing 26 teams, along with over 270 climbing Sherpas, have obtained climbing permits to attempt to climb Mt Manaslu, according to Rameshwar Niraula, an official at the Department of Tourism.

Austrian climbers Andreas Neuschmid and Stefan Fritsche, Carlos Dahms from Chile, German mountaineer Christopher Keller, Arnold Coster from the Netherlands, Muharrem Aydin Irmak and Don R Wargowsky from the United States, Chen Tao, San Jimu, Hua Wang and Wu Xueling from China, Canadian climber Dean Christopher Carriere, Nirmal Purja and Bam Bahadur BK from Nepal, Jean Baptiste Francois Dani Chandesris and Serge Bernard Bazin from France, Italian climbers Angelo Lobina and Massimiliano Gasperetti, Francesc Xavier Arias Sune and Inigo Castineyra Lerchundi from Spain, Thomas Gerald Pelland from Thailand, and Koji Sampo from Japan will be leading different teams on Mt Manaslu this season, according to Niraula.

“Woman climbers – Liudmila Korobeshko and Oksana Morneva from Russia, Naoko Watanabe from Japan, and Anita Devi from India have also reached the base camp to lead their respective teams,” he added.

“They have already reached the high camp on Mt Manaslu after concluding acclimatisation rotation.”