Austria Horizont Reisen Everest 2001 Expedition

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Austria Horizont Reisen Everest 2001 Expedition

EverestNews.com will present the Austria Horizont Reisen Everest Expedition. This will be a first for EverestNews.com in that the expedition will report dispatches in German and English on the site.

Introduction in German; English

Team List in German; English

Leader Dr. Stefan Gatt in German; English

Dispatch 5/31/01: Hello EverestNews.com ! Finally we are in Kathmandu - our expedition-output makes me very happy. From 10 members 6 summited / 2 without oxygen - wonderful / please see report below (unfortunately in German - I mixed the range there are two parts ).

Best regards, Stefan

At 5/13 we could walk on the glacier among the ice-towers back to ABC, some of them as high as 30 meters. The next day we spent resting in ABC. While resting we were waiting for the weather-forecast from our expert Dr. Karl Gabl working in the weather-service in Innsbruck, Austria.

On Friday 5/18 he gave us a green light to go ahead. At 5/19 we packed up our gear and at 5/20 we started the ascent. Theo Fritsche and I reached the high camp (8200 meters) in two days. Phillipe Perlia (Luxemburg) and Mario Kastner (Kitzbuehl) were already there waiting since they had started their ascent one day earlier. Phillipe had the same day reached the summit at approximately 0100 pm. After a remarkably calm night for this altitude. We started preparations to go for the summit at 03.15 am. It was important to collect as much water through melting snow before our summit-attempt. We also had to try to regain as much fluid as possible because of the last days dehydration. After melting about 2 liters we quit, it is not easy melting snow when it is -25 degrees centigrade outside. At 04.30 am we slowly started to get out of the sleeping bags. As I left the tent it was already 05.45 am - everything takes more time than it should. As I was putting on the crampons I had some problems. The gaiters and the crampons didn't fit together right. Because of this our departure time was delayed to 06.45 am. We started in the early light of day. The technical difficulty came in the form of two stone-steps that we had to conquer, and that at an altitude of 8600 meters. The second step represented difficult climbing of UIAA grade five. After that the summit-pyramid should prove easy going. On the hard, wind packed snow we made rapid progress. After some fields and some tricky passages we reached the lower summit. Theo wanted to turn around at this point, but I persuaded him to continue. Then we spent another half hour climbing the exposed summit-ridge we reached the summit at 15.20 pm. I was standing at the roof of the world. After taking some pictures, I strapped on my snowboard and started the descent. In the beginning there was no problems, and I snowboarded to below the third step (8650 meters) . There I removed my board and carried it to 7600 meters. We spent the night before descending. On 5/23 Josef Streif (Allgaeu), Sherpa Nowang (Nepal), Erich Gatt (Igls), Wolfgang Fasching (Lambach) reached the summit. On 5/24 we were all reunited in Advanced Base camp. We packed up our gear on the 5/26 and 5/27, and left Rongbuk for the border town Zangmu on 5/28. Here we had to wait for 2 days because of a strike in Nepal.

30.05 we traveled back to Kathmandu in the darkness. Tomorrow we will be traveling via Delhi back to Austria. We will be back in Innsbruck at 10.00.

Best Regards Stefan