An evening of mountaineering: the Himalayas, then and now

This is an extraordinary story, though the full version is little known even to mountaineers; this is probably due both to the vastness of the area concerned and to the unique orography of the Karakoram Himalayas. For centuries, this part of Asia was more imaginary than real, but it became a theatre of exploration throughout the 19th century. This uncharted territory intrigued traders, naturalists, travellers, scholars, geographers and politicians. As time went by, it was discovered that the mountain range between India and Asia was almost 500 kilometres wide. This posed a problem for the British Raj, which knew very little about the northern border of the Empire. The problem was compounded because the small Himalayan kingdoms would not allow Western explorers across their borders. However, exploration did not stop in the face of these difficulties. During the Great Game, the famed spy-war between the British and the Russians for the control of Central Asia, military topographers, undercover surveyors (the British-trained Indian pundits) and travellers ventured into the vast blank spaces that covered contemporary maps of the Himalayas. However, when mountaineers joined the mission in the last quarter of the 19th century, a new sequence of events unfurled. Although the British had attempted to scale Everest between the two World Wars, it was only in the 1950s that mountaineers managed to set foot on the highest peaks. From 1950 to 1964, all of the fourteen Eight Thousanders were climbed, and later even more treacherous routes were mapped. In addition to the race for the highest peaks, there were also Alpine style ascents without oxygen and even solo climbs. The 1980s saw the beginning of the daring winter ascents, some of which still remain unachieved today. Female mountaineers also began to stake their claim to the Eight Thousanders. At the dawn of the third millennium, the northern face of this endless chain of mountains still beckons with its immense uncharted areas and infinite array of unconquered faces.

Kurt Diemberger is the only remaining mountaineer alive to have made first ascents of two Eight Thousanders. In 1957, he climbed Broad Peak with Hermann Buhl and two other climbers without bearers or oxygen masks. In 1960, he made the first ascent of Dhaulagiri with his Swiss expedition team and two Sherpas, without the use of supplementary oxygen. After an 18-year break devoted to adventurous journeys around the world, he reached the peak of Makalu in the spring of 1978 and climbed Everest in the autumn of the same year, making the first sound film from the peak. He returned to Everest on a number of occasions to shoot films for Italian and American television, for which he won an EMMY. In addition to his anthropology films about Tibetans, he has made four films about K2. He won the City of Trento Grand Prize for his documentary on the 1986 K2 tragedy. Diemberger is also known for making films about the Eight Thousanders and for writing a range of books, including Spirits of the Air, Summits and Secrets, and Endless Knot. Kurt Diemberger tells how climbing the Himalayas evolved, from the French expedition to Dhaulagiri, the White Mountain, in 1950, which culminated in the first ascent of Annapurna, to his successful team climb of Dhaulagiri in 1960, after seven failed attempts. In order to reach the peak, the team used dynamite and a Pilatus Porter plane, known as the Yeti, which crashed in the Dhampus Pass at over 5000 metres.

Krzysztof Wielicki was born on 5 January 1950 in Szklarka Przygodzicka, Ostrzeszów (Poland). He is the fifth man in the world to have scaled all of the fourteen Eight Thousanders.
Wielicki is known as the “winter ascent Pole” and “the man who ran up the Eight Thousanders ”. He was the first person to climb Everest in a winter ascent, doing so on 17 February 1980. All of his feats have been extraordinary: in 1984 he climbed Broad Peak in a solo ascent, reaching the peak and then returning to base camp in just over 21 hours; he has scaled Manaslu twice, each time on a different face; he has also made winter ascents of Kangchenjunga, as well as Lhotse, which he scaled solo, making him the first person to achieve such a feat on a Himalayan eight thousander. He later climbed Makalu Alpine-style and Dhaulagiri along a new route on a 17-hour solo climb. He also scaled Annapurna and Cho Oyu, as well as Shisha Pangma along a new route on a 20-hour solo climb. He made an Alpine-style ascent on Gasherbrum I and II in 1995; he climbed K2 in 1996 after a gruelling 3-month ascent up the Northern Pillar, after which he scaled Nanga Parbat, his last eight-thousander, in a 3-day solo climb. After capturing the Crown of the Himalayas, he also attempted winter ascents of the other great Himalayan peaks: K2, Makalu and Nanga Parbat.

Nives Meroi was born in Bonate Sotto, northern Italy, on 17 September 1961. She has lived in Fusine Laghi, in Friuli Venezia Giulia, for more than twenty years; it was here that she met her husband Romano Benet.  Nives and Romano have been partners in both life and mountaineering for more than 20 years. Their impressive mountaineering CV includes some of the most difficult routes through the Alps, and they have undertaken ventures such as the first winter ascent of the Pilastro Piussi on the north face of the Piccolo Mangart di Coritenza and the Cengia degli Dei on Jof Fuart. Their passion, however, also includes climbing rocks and ice waterfalls, extreme skiing and expeditions.  Over the years, their love for the mountains has led them to explore increasingly further afield, to places where the air is rarefied and, as Nives often says, “where every step becomes an effort of will”. Theirs is a lean and pure form of mountaineering, without the use of additional oxygen, mountain porters and fixed camps: a fair means of testing themselves and the mountains. They have made successful climbs in the Andes, Himalayas and Karakoram. In 2003, they scaled three of the fourteen Eight Thousanders (Gasherbrum II, Gasherbrum I and Broad Peak) in a mere twenty days, only the second team ever to have achieved the feat, with Nives being the first woman ever to have done so.  Between 2006 and 2007 they achieved the dream of a lifetime when they climbed Dhaulagiri, K2 and Everest, mountains they have always loved and admired. Nives and Romano have climbed eleven of the Eight Thousanders and need to scale only three more to complete their project.  The eleven Eight Thousanders Nives and Romano have climbed are Nanga Parbat (8125 m - 1998); Shisha Pangma (8046 m - 1999); Cho-Oyu (8202 m - 1999); Gasherbrum II (8035 m - 2003); Gasherbrum I (8068 m - 2003); Broad Peak (8047 m - 2003); Lhotse (8516 m - 2004); Dhaulagiri (8164 m - 2006); K2 (8611 m - 2006); Everest (8850 m - 2007); and Manaslu (8163 m - 2008).

Ang Tshering Sherpa was born on 15th November 1953 in Khumjung village (3785 metres above sea level) in Nepal’s Solu Khumbu district on the way to Mount Everest. After his studies, he attended many training courses including tourism training and seminars conducted by the Asian Development Bank, Civil Aviation and Department of Tourism. He also attended climbing training in Switzerland, Austria and in Manang, Nepal (organised by the Nepal Mountaineering Association), as well as management courses conducted by the Management Association of Nepal. He is an expert in the travel trade, his main activity in his 40 years of experience. He is Chairman of Asian Trekking (P.) Ltd; Chairman of Asian Adventure Travel & Tours (P.) Ltd; Chairman and Managing Director of Hotel Mt. Monastery (P.) Ltd; Chairman of the Himalayan Chain Resort (HCR) in the Khumbu Region; Board Member of the People's General Hospital, Kathmandu; and Board Member of the Nepal Printing & Trading Cooperative Ltd. He was co-coordinator of the Nepalese Cabinet Meeting at Everest B.C./Kalapathar Plateau at 5542 metres on December 2009, as well as co-coordinator of the International Climber for Summiteers Summit to Save the Himalayas in Copenhagen on the occasion of International Mountain Day. During his career, he has also been awarded a number of international prizes. He has also received various tourism-related awards.