Denis Urubko introduced the Karakoram climbing season to an emphatic crescendo final week when he blazed a brand new Alpine-style route on Gasherbrum II (eight,034 meters), solo and with out oxygen.
The route is historic by itself, nevertheless it’s the style wherein Urubko accomplished it that has set the mountaineering world abuzz. He left his radio and satellite tv for pc cellphone in base camp and introduced no sleeping bag, water or range. With solely a handful of power gel packets for sustenance, he climbed 24 hours to the summit and downclimbed 18 extra to return by way of the traditional route. His girlfriend, the alpinist María “Pipi” Cardell, advised the Spanish-language climbing web site Desnivel that Urubko “climbed the summit pyramid in a straight line, as he deliberate to not coincide with any of the prevailing routes or variants.”
All this after first tagging the summit by way of the traditional route for “a pleasant acclimatization,” after which collaborating in three profitable rescues whereas he waited for circumstances to enhance. He’d deliberate to open the brand new route with Cardell at a extra measured tempo, however she suffered a debilitating again damage on the weeklong trek to base camp. When it grew to become clear in mid-July that she was not match to climb, Urubko selected his solo lightning strike.
“Initially, María and I deliberate three to 5 days. However going solo has sure benefits. I might go continuous, full blast,” Urubko stated in a short interview with the Russian-language web site, Mountain. “Regardless of the issues, I managed to maintain the hearth alive. I received’t again down when it’s attainable to understand a dream,” he stated.
Urubko’s view of Gasherbrum II’s near-perfect summit pyramid (left). The brand new route he named “Honey Moon” is marked in crimson within the picture at proper. The extra frequent traces are marked in inexperienced, together with the traditional route alongside the southwest ridge. Courtesy Denis Urubko and Mountains.RU
Urubko’s line introduced him straight up the center of the western face of GII’s distinctive summit pyramid. “I crossed the primary small bergschrund (6,050 m) on the foot of the wall, then moved up ice and firn, previous seracs and avalanche-prone slopes,” he stated. “A kilometer drop lay beneath my ft. I reached the highest at eight:40 p.m. The hassle exhausted me.”
Urubko has now climbed GII 4 instances, together with a 2001 velocity climb wherein he set the report for the quickest ascent—seven hours and thirty minutes up and 4 hours down—and extra considerably, the primary winter ascent in 2011, with Italian Simone Moro and American Cory Richards. Theirs was the primary winter summit of an eight,000-meter peak within the Karakoram Vary, which lies some 500 miles north of the opposite excessive Himalayan peaks in Nepal and Tibet.
His third summit got here on July 18 as a part of his acclimatization regime and to scout his deliberate descent by way of the traditional route. Nonetheless, after reaching the summit by way of his new route shortly earlier than 9 p.m. on Aug 1., he almost misplaced his manner again down.
The wind was ferocious, limiting visibility. Regardless that he’d climbed the traditional route simply days earlier than, he was disoriented sufficient that he needed to cease and relaxation for hours earlier than he might verify the route.
He waited till first mild, then continued down to fulfill Canadian Don Bowie, American Matthew James and Lotta Hintsa of Finland in Camp 1. The trio had deliberate to fulfill Urubko on the summit however aborted their try on account of harmful circumstances. Days of unusually heat climate had turned the Gasherbrum glacier to slush and opened dozens of latest crevasses. Bowie and the others assessed the avalanche danger as extraordinarily excessive. After cautious examine, Urubko judged the circumstances on his new direttissima acceptible, although not at all perfect.
“Each mission has its surprises and troubles,” he stated, referring to Cardell’s damage, the unstable circumstances and the accrued fatigue of three tough rescues in a interval of 5 days, the primary an all-night affair that Rock and Ice referred to as a “miracle rescue.”
Recent off his acclimatization summit, Urubko raced with Bowie and two others to achieve Italian ski mountaineer Francesco Cassardo, who had tumbled 500 meters down the face of close by Gasherbrum VII. The rescuers labored by the evening to carry Cassardo down the glacier on a makeshift litter, the place he was evacuated by helicopter.
Subsequent up was Lithuanian Saulius Damulevicius, who was affected by excessive altitude pulmonary edema. Urubko and Catalan ace Sergi Mingote climbed to his support. The subsequent day, they assisted a Pakistani climber who had run into hassle in an icefall. These efforts little doubt drew closely on Urubko’s reserves, however there was by no means any query whether or not he would reply the decision. “He has been raised and skilled within the previous Soviet college of mountaineering—he helps as a result of that is what you must do,” the Twitter channel RussianClimb defined.
Urubko is Russian by delivery, however after the dissolution of the Soviet Union he climbed underneath the flag of Kazakhstan, a former Soviet Republic with a sponsored military climbing crew and a number of the largest mountains in Central Asia. He’s now a twin nationwide of Russia and Poland, which gave him a passport on the energy of his winter climbing exploits. He was a key member of the 2018 Polish Winter K2 expedition, which was the setting for 2 of probably the most dramatic incidents in Urubko’s extraordinary climbing profession.
The primary was the rescue of French climber Elisabeth Revol, wherein Urubko and his K2 teammate Adam Bielecki flew by helicopter to neighboring Nanga Parbat and climbed by the evening to assist Revol, who was incapacitated above 6,000 meters. They had been unable to achieve her associate Tomasz Mackiewicz, who was misplaced above 7,200 meters.
Urubko, left, with Elisabeth Revol and Adam Bielecki after a profitable rescue on Nanga Parbat in January 2018.
The subsequent came about a month later when Urubko, chafing on the sluggish tempo of the Polish crew and pushed by his explicit definition of winter—he holds the season ends on the finish of February, whereas the Poles’ extra beneficiant definition extends one other three week to the vernal equinox—abruptly determined to launch his personal summit bid, solo and in opposition to the orders of his crew chief.
Urubko charged up the mountain with out radio, satellite tv for pc cellphone or tracker. When he returned to camp two days later, having circled properly in need of the summit, he stated he’d gone incommunicado as a result of if something went unsuitable he didn’t need his teammates to danger their very own lives to come back to help him. It was an odd assertion coming from a person whose repute rests largely on his high-altitude rescues. Urubko has pioneered 5 new traces on eight,000-meter peaks and climbed all the world’s 14 highest peaks with out oxygen, however lots of his most memorable exploits are the rescues he carried out between these summits. Therefore Rock and Ice’s description of Urubko as “one of many strongest Himalayan climbers of all time and maybe probably the most skilled high-altitude rescuer ever.”
Final week on Gasherbrum II, Urubko once more left the communications gear in camp. This was partially to save lots of weight—he didn’t even take water for God’s sake—nevertheless it was additionally an aesthetic selection. Understanding that he was fully on his personal was a vital piece of Urubko’s imaginative and prescient for this climb.
Nonetheless, for Cardell and the trio of climbers in Camp 1, it made for a nerve-wracking silence. As Angela Benavides wrote on Explorersweb, his route was largely out of sight from Camp 1, and the climbers there caught solely a glimpse of him round midday on August 1, someplace above 7,000 meters. “Concern grew among the many climbing neighborhood, though not a single voice expressed it aloud,” Benavides wrote. “Urubko isn’t any different climber, they stated. He’s Denis—the one who rescues others, by no means the one in want.”
The hours ticked by till lastly, on the afternoon of Aug. 2, Urubko reached his companions in Camp 1. He’d been climbing for 42 straight hours.
Per week after the ascent, Urubko’s new route on GII is already the stuff of legend. Many extra particulars are nonetheless to come back, however for now, Urubko is content material to savor the second. “I actually simply wished to understand my thought of freedom,” he advised Mountain. “It’s like an artist drawing a single lovely stroke about which he’s dreamed for years. Sure, it could push me to the bounds of my energy, however that’s what makes mountaineering worthwhile.”
Prime picture: Fb
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