mountaineering

The Mammut Mountain Days will take place in Zermatt from September 1st to 3rd. The program includes tours and workshops with professional athletes such as Katherine Choong, Jonas Schild, Stephan Siegrist and Andrea Kümin, as well as all-inclusive camping at the foot of the Matterhorn. We are giving away 2 tickets worth CHF 490 each.

The effects of global warming are clearly noticeable and visible in the Alpine regions. The mountains are changing rapidly. To protect what we love, we must reduce our carbon emissions to zero. The climate protection law, which Switzerland will vote on on June 2, creates the basis for this.

The German extreme mountaineer and mountain guide Luis Stitzinger has had an accident on Kangchenjunga. The 54-year-old had reached the summit of the third highest mountain in the world last Thursday afternoon and sent a last radio message around 21 p.m. - he has been missing since then.

Spanish ultra-runner, ski mountaineer and alpinist Kilian Jornet completes his attempt to climb Everest single-handedly and without supplemental oxygen via the challenging Hornbein Couloir. This after an avalanche had swept him 50 meters away and he had already found extremely difficult conditions on the west shoulder.

Robert Renzler died in a climbing accident last weekend. The 67-year-old fell more than 60 meters while abseiling.

With the establishment of mountain tourism on most of the eight-thousanders and all of the Seven Summits plus a few other mountains, the required alpinistic skills have been reduced to almost zero. By alpine skills I mean independent climbing, acting and making decisions on the mountain. Everything that used to be required on these mountains has now largely become superfluous thanks to the technical infrastructure on the mountain. It is enough if you learn to walk with crampons in the base camp and to attach yourself correctly to the fixed rope.

The three alpinists Roger Schäli, Simon Gietl and Mathieu Maynadier have opened a new, challenging route on the 6600 meter high Meru Peak in the Indian Garhwal Himalayas: Goldfish (800m, M6+, A1). Schäli and Maynadier had already tried the route together with Sean Villanueva in 2019, but had to turn around in the upper third of the wall.

Simple rope handling at the belay station with a self-made rope holder ring - the handicraft instructions in 5 steps, that's how it works!

Kristin Harila has climbed her 14th eight-thousander with Cho Oyu in Tibet. With a time of one year and five days, the Norwegian is currently the fastest woman on the highest mountains in the world. Depending on the interpretation, she even beats record holder Nirmal Purja.

The German mountaineering specialist Ortovox is launching a shop selling refurbished products.

In the summer of last year, the renowned alpinist and mountain guide Christophe Profit removed metal posts that were used to secure the heavily frequented Goûter route on Mont Blanc. Now he has been charged with theft. He faces a fine of 4000 euros.

Norwegian Kristin Harila on Wednesday started her record attempt to scale the world's 14 highest peaks in less than six months. She started her race exactly where she had to give up last year due to a lack of permits: on Shishapangma.

Last winter in Patagonia, a strong rope team attracted attention: crack specialist Pete Whittaker and Patagonia veteran Sean Villanueva. During their time together, the duo managed, among other things, to wring a first free ascent from two hard crack lines.

The Brit Rock Film Tour stops in German-speaking countries, more specifically in Austria. The best British climbing films will be screened at 21 venues between 19 April and 10 May 2023. Lacrux is giving away 5x2 tickets among its community members.

In mid-March, the Italian alpinist and mountain guide Stefano Ragazzo climbed the Croda Rossa in the Rosengarten Group alone. His solo ascent of the famous line by Christoph Heinz and Oswald Celva is likely to be the first winter solo of Moulin Rouge (400m, 7b).

In 2022, 3668 people got into an emergency in the Swiss Alps and in the Jura and had to be rescued or recovered by the mountain rescue service - that's slightly less than in the previous year. 109 people died in classic mountain sports - that is significantly fewer than in 2021. At 70 people, the number of falls from crevasses on glaciers was almost twice as high as the average for the last 10 years (38).

The two alpinists and mountain guides Michi Wohlleben and Lukas Hinterberger succeed in their project Salbitschijen winter trilogy in the Uri Alps. Within 45 hours on February 15th and 16th, the two climbed the south, west and east ridges to the 2985 meter high Salbitschijen with its famous summit needle.

Billi Bierling has worked for the Himalayan Database, the archive of legendary Himalayan chronicler Elizabeth Hawley, for almost twenty years. She is known for cruising the busy streets of Kathmandu on her bicycle to interview expedition climbers from around the world. In her book, she tells of the fascination of expedition mountaineering in the Himalayas and her commitment to people in need.

Last year she came close to beating Nirmal Purja's 14x8000 record time. Now Kristin Harila wants to try again - and she goes one better: The Norwegian not only wants to climb all 14 eight-thousanders in the world within a year, she also wants to do it without artificial oxygen.

On July 12, 2022, the two Swiss alpinists Nicolas Hojac and Adrian Zurbrügg climbed the Swiss Skyline Route from the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau in the Bernese Oberland in a new best time of 13 hours and 8 minutes. In the video for their record ascent, the two comment on the fine line between speed and risk.

On July 3, 1953, the Austrian alpinist Hermann Buhl was the first person to stand on the summit of Nanga Parbat - the 8.125 meter high "mountain of destiny" in the western Himalayas, the climb of which claimed more lives than almost any other. And yet the mountain still attracts alpinists to this day - even in winter. In the Bergwelten documentation, Reinhold Messner presents the eight-thousander from his perspective and shows its uniqueness in the western Himalayas in Pakistan.

With the G-Tech, La Sportiva has developed an extremely light mountaineering boot that covers the entire range of technical mountaineering - from ice and mixed climbing to mountaineering in demanding mixed terrain. We took a closer look at the alpine miracle weapon from the Italian shoe specialist.

The Swiss professional alpinist Yannick Glatthard manages the first ascent of the Hall of Fame (400m, M13, WI6) in Kandersteg. The mega route with its 30 meter long horizontal roof and the gigantic freely hanging ice candle is probably one of the most challenging mixed lines in this style.

For the weekend we have two visually stunning films for you, both of which are about ice climbing: Stefan Siegrist repeats the legendary ice route Crack Baby near Kandersteg together with Michael Gruber, who was the first to climb it. Dani Arnold went in search of crazy ice lines in Iceland and struck gold.