Russian expedition to climb new line on Everest North Face

At the end of February an 20-stong Russian expedition set off from Moscow for the Himalayas, where it aims to forge a technical new route up the Central Pillar of Everest's North Face

Planetmountain.com

March 2004

Traduci in

At the end of February an 20-stong Russian expedition set off from Moscow for the Himalayas, where it aims to forge a technical new route up the Central Pillar of Everest's North Face.

The expedition, led by Victor Kozlov, plans to acclimatise on 6856 high Ama Dablam at the end of March, before resting briefly in Kathmandu and then getting to grips with the immense central pillar.

The highly experienced team has twice scouted a possible route to the left of the Hornbein Couloir, once in 2002 and once in 2003, reaching a highpoint of 6800m. Apart from battling against high winds and severe cold, it expects to encounter steep, technical climbing and will therefore establish fixed ropes up the face and spend nights in portaledeges.

The last new route up the North Face dates back to 1984, when the Australians Tim Macartney-Snape and Greg Mortimer climbed one of the most direct lines, the Norton Couloir, without oxygen.

Everest North Face expedition Spring 2004
Victor Kozlov, Expedition leader
Nikolay Chyorniy, Senior trainer
Alexander Pyatnitsyn, Coach
Sergey Bychkovsky, Doctor
Igor Borisenko, Sergey Shakunin, Videooperators
Vladimir Kuptsov, Photographer
Petr Kuznetsov
Yuriy Koshelenko
Pavel Shabalin
Evgeny Vinogradsky
Nikolay Zhilin
Yuriy Ermachek
Andrey Mariev
Viktor Volodin
Viktor Bobok
Vladimir Arhipov
Gleb Sokolov
Iljas Tukhvatullin
Alexandre Pjatnicin
Aleksey Bukinich

Everest North Face, the routes:
1. North Ridge to Northeast Ridge, 1960
F.A. Qu Yinhua, Wang Fuzhou, Gong Bu

2. Messner North Face Route, 1980
F.A. Reinhold Messner

3. Great Couloir Direct (or Norton Couloir Direct), 1984
F.A. Tim Macartney-Snape, Greg Mortimer

4.Hornbein Couloir Direct (or Japanese Route), 1980
F.A. Tsuneo Shigehiro , Takshi Ozaki

5. West Ridge/Hornbein Couloir, 1963
F.A. Willi Unsoeld, Thomas Hornbein

6. West Ridge Direct, 1979
F.A. J. Zaplotnik, A. Stremfelj, S. Belak

The North Face of Everest, with the immense central pillar in the middle of the photo. Click to see existing routes.
Photo courtesy of www.mountain.ru