Sad news coming out of the Himalayas today. 5 mountaineers have perished on the world’s 3rd highest peak, 28,169-foot Kangchenjunga.
Details are still fuzzy. All current information is coming from 74-year old Spanish climber, Carlos Soria, who halted his attempted on Kangchenjunga at 27,230 feet after falling behind schedule. Carlos is attempting to become the oldest climber to summit all of the fourteen of the 8,000-meter peaks on Earth.
All of the details we report below come from the Spanish website Desnivel.com who interviewed Carlos Soria yesterday.
KANGCHENJUNGA DETAILS:
– 11 climbers summited between May 20th and 21st.
– 5 climbers perished on the descent from the summit.
– 2 Hungarian climbers Zsolt Eross (one leg) & Peter Kiss reportedly reached the summit after 24 hours of climbing and having started their summit climb about 1,000 vertical feet below where most teams begin. Zsolt reported via radio at 11am on May 21st that he had lost sight of Peter. At 3pm, all radio contact with Zsolt was lost. Both climbers failed to return to camp.
– 1 Korean climber, Park Nam Su, reportedly fell near the summit and was lost.
– Park Nam Su was with Phurba Sherpa when he fell. Phurba Sherpa fell and was lost shortly after Park Nam Su fell.
– Vivas Sherpa also reportedly fell and perished near the summit.
– Vivas Sherpa, Phurba Sherpa, and Park Nam Su’s bodies were all found in the vicinity of Camp 4.
There are also unconfirmed reports of an avalanche having hit Camp 2 on Kangchenjunga. As details emerge, we’ll update this post.
We know this is a challenging peak as even the great mountaineer Anatoli Boukreev avoided the true summit when he made his famous traverse of all four 8,000-meter peaks of Kangchenjunga in 1989.
Our deepest condolences go out to all of the friends and families of the fallen climbers.
learn more about the experience of climbing Earth’s 3rd highest peak
Really sad news. 🙁
A little correction: Peter Kiss was the younger climber (with 2 legs) and Zsolt Eross was the older one who lost his right leg in 2010 and he climbed with prosthesis leg.
Sad to hear this news. Amazing how far people are able to push it in such extreme places. thanks for the spanish website translation
RIP to the fallen
RIP. always hate to hear of sherpas passing away
it’s always scary above 26K.
R.I.P.