No one has ever climbed Mount Everest quite like this. He hasn’t summited yet, but a German alpinist is making headway on one of climbing’s most daunting feats.
Jost Kobusch just reached a milestone on an ambitious — and highly dangerous — project on the world’s highest mountain. The 32-year-old aims to scale Mount Everest alone in winter, and without supplementary oxygen.
While hundreds of people ascend Everest each year, most of them arrive on the summit via the easiest route and during the best possible weather conditions. That’s the opposite of what Kobusch is doing. Not only does he want to ascend Everest in winter, when conditions make climbing near impossible, but he’s also been pursuing a route that terrifies even hardened alpinists (like GearJunkie’s Climbing Editor Seiji Ishii).
To understand the degree of Kobusch’s boldness, look no further than an Instagram vid posted by him last week, captured by a camera attached to his backpack. The solo climber ascends an icy bulge with massive exposure stretching below him, his ice axes and crampons the only things keeping him from a very long fall.
This winter marks Kobusch’s third expedition dedicated to the long-term project. On Saturday night, fighting high winds and pitch-black darkness, he finally reached his goal of ascending beyond 7,500 m. Upon reaching a new high point of 7,537 m, or 24,727 feet, he descended back to camp. It is the highest anyone has reached alone in winter without supplemental oxygen.
Before collapsing into his sleeping bag, he contacted ExplorersWeb with the news: “It’s a few meters, but mentally, it was important for me,” Kobusch said from Base Camp.
Mount Everest Winter, Solo Ascent: A Methodical Approach
While Kobusch’s project is certainly risky, he’s taking a careful approach to pulling it off. After returning to his Base Camp, it’s unclear if he’ll make another attempt at reaching the summit this season.
In an interview with German blogger Stefan Nestler, Kobusch said that he wasn’t sufficiently acclimatized to continue to the summit last weekend. (Without the supplemental oxygen used by most climbers on mountains like Everest, the human body needs more time to acclimate.)
“Ultimately, I’m not interested in breaking any records in the short term,” Kobusch said. “I want to achieve the project in the long term. That’s the focus.”
Kobusch made his first attempt of the solo winter ascent back in 2019, and then returned in 2020, reaching a high point of 7,366 m, which is the previous solo winter record. The German climber has acknowledged the difficulty of his project, and even said he was unlikely to succeed. So it was surprising when legendary alpinist Reinhold Messner dismissed Kobusch’s goal as “all PR.”
Kobusch is well aware of Messner’s attitude. He told ExplorersWeb that he takes it as a sort of compliment.
“You’re only criticized if you don’t do whatever everybody else does; to me, that means that you’re doing something right,” he said. “It fuels me to go and prove the critics wrong.”
Of the thousands of people who have summited Mount Everest, only 15 have reached the top in winter. More than 30 expeditions have tried, including 13 without bottled oxygen. Only five of those expeditions were successful, and just one of the 15 summiters did so without supplemental oxygen.
So if Kobusch completes his goal, it would make him the first to reach the summit in winter without extra oxygen — or help from teammates.
A Single Push
During his latest attempt this weekend, Kobusch climbed in a single, alpine-style push from his Camp 1. He didn’t set up a second higher camp, as he did on his previous winter Everest expeditions. Instead, Kobusch carried his tent and supplies all the way up and down.
“In fact, the most challenging part of the ascent was to dig platforms for the tent when I stopped for a rest,” he told ExplorersWeb. “Otherwise, that is why I had reduced my equipment to the very minimum. I carried nothing non-essential except maybe a bit of spare fuel,” Kobusch said.
On the last part of the climb, Kobusch left his tent at 6,800 m, progressed to 7,537 m, and then quickly returned to his tent for some sleep.
Yesterday, he made it back to Camp 1 at 5,650 m to 5,700 m on the mountain flank leading to the Lho La. He had pitched Camp 1 at the top of some ropes he had fixed on the way up.
“Wind picked up to 40 kph, with some much stronger gusts,” he said of his descent.
So, will Kobusch try again this season to reach the summit? Or wait to come back yet again in a future season? As usual, the German climber is taking his time and refused to commit when speaking with ExplorersWeb this week.
“I have learned a lot on this trip, and most importantly, I have reached the goal in my first push up the mountain,” said a happy-sounding Kobusch. “Right now, I really need a rest. There will be time to make decisions tomorrow.”
