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Austrian brothers for winter Nanga Parbat
13:38 p.m. EST Feb 5, 2004
Austrian brothers, Rainer Wolfgang and Gerfried Göschl will be attempting a winter ascent of Nanga Parbat at the end of this year. As fate would have it, the Austrian brothers were born in separate years, but oddly enough on the same day, October 3rd.
Nanga Parbat in the summertime is difficult enough, let alone in the winter. It’s one of the seven left that have not been summited in the winter – Shisha Pangma, Makalu, Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II, Broad Peak, K2, and Nanga. The brothers plan to start their expedition at the end of November and stick it out until the end of January.
So far they’ve climbed Cho Oyu, Gasherbrum II, Aconcagua, and Muztagh Ata together. This past summer they attempted a new route on GII, but had to turn around because of weather and avalanche hazards. They ended up summiting by means of the Normal Route.
Brotherhood of winter 8000ers
Now they have their sights set on climbing Nanga Parbat’s Kinshofer route in the wintertime along with two Pakistani climbers - Hasil Shah, who has summited GII, and his uncle Merban Shah, who has summited K2, Broad Peak, G1, and G2. Should they make it, they’ll enter Austria and Pakistan into the books as only the fourth and fifth countries with a winter first ascent of an 8000er.
Polish are the winter kings
Of the seven 8000ers scaled in the wintertime, all but one of them was first summited by the Polish. A Japanese and Nepali were the first to summit Dhaulagiri in the wintertime.
Can they break the 2 year drought?
The last successful winter ascent of an 8000er was Cho Oyu in 2002, by Alberto Inurrategi and Jon Beloki. Since then, every winter 8000m expedition has failed. Last year saw teams going for K2 and Broad Peak, and more recently an international team attempted Shisha Pangma this past January. All went home summitless. Can the Austrians break the 2-year run?
The Polish are the reigning kings of the wintertime 8000m first ascents. They were the first to climb Everest, Kangchenjunga, Annapurna, Lhotse, Cho Oyu, and Manaslu. They were also the first to almost summit Broad Peak, solo, no less – however, Maciej Berbeka only was able to reach the foresummit.
Image of Gerfried Göschl just before their July 4th summit of GII courtesy of the brothers Göschl.
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