Bold New Routes on Everest Planned This Spring
By Dougald MacDonald
Three separate pairs of climbers are preparing to attempt bold new routes on the world’s highest peak this spring. Although few details of their plans have been announced, the climbers are some of the most successful Himalayan mountaineers alive, and success on any one of these attempts would be a major development in Everest’s climbing history, particularly if they succeed in pure alpine style, without supplemental oxygen.
The high-profile duo of Simone Moro (Italy) and Ueli Steck (Switzerland) will try a new route from the south. Moro has climbed Everest several times, and has done three first winter ascents of three 8,000-meter peaks. Steck, best known for his speed climbs in the Alps and hard technical routes in the Himalaya, also has climbed Everest
Also attempting Everest from the Nepali side will be the powerful Kazakh-Russian pair of Denis Urubko and Alexey Bolotov, who, with various other partners and teams, have done some of the hardest new routes in the Himalaya and Karakoram in recent years. Urubko is one of the two dozen or so climbers worldwide who have climbed all of the 8,000-meter peaks. The two men will try a line on the steep southwest face.
Meanwhile, a pair of Russians, Gleb Sokolov and Alexander Kirikov, are planning to attempt a new route on Everest’s daunting Kangshung Face, to the right of the two existing routes on the peak’s east side. Sokolov, the better known of the two, has done hard new routes on 8,000-meter peaks as well as several new lines on Peak Pobeda, the 7,439-meter giant in Kyrgyzstan.
