Baruntse

Annapurna

Simone Moro reports:
I’ll be returning to Nepal on the 28th of March. I’m going there in order to attempt two prestigious climbing objectives. The first will be the north wall of Baruntse (7129m). This is a “virgin” wall, untouched except by the gaze of thousands of “eye climbers!” This wall is located in front of the south wall of Lhotse (8561m), part of the mountain group between Everest and Makalu which has battled hundreds of trekkers and alpine specialists over the past 30 years.
Immediately after this first ever attempt, we’re going to try the north wall of Annapurna (8091m—of the 8000m mountains it is the least climbed and the one with the most failures) along the route previously taken by the French. There is also the possibility, not to mention the desire, to try something new on this wall...
My companions on this vertical adventure will be Denis Urbko from Kazakhstan (he has already reached 8 summits of 8000m), who was my companion in 1999, and Bruno Tassi, alpine guide from Bergamo, who will be with us only on Baruntse.

http://www.simonemoro.com/

Simone Moro, Denis Urubko. Doublet: Baruntse North Face&Annapurna.

Russian

Baruntse North Face. Portfolio.

It had been very difficult, very... but at the end using all our capicities and resistance we reached our objective. The north face of Khali Himal or Baruntse nord is realy big, vertical, dangerous, impressive. It was vergin and unclimbed and only the eyes of the trekkers and climbers had been dreamed a climb on that wall after looking the mountain. We knew that we have to use all our capicities and strenght to have success on that face. And it happen.....

We strugled four days and nights again wind, cold, mix climb, ice and rock. We had bivy 4 days in three people in a tend of two... We never finded place to set it good and only our legs hanging in devoid.. Ice crew, rock pitons, ice axes, friends and nuts had been used to climb the complicate wall, but the real stuggle had been against the wind and cold. We get 35 m/sec (120 Km/h) wind during all the climb and also on the summit!!! We had been very happy to reach the summit trow this new and first route and we spend 12 hours to come down fom th mountain rapelling on a single ice crew for 20 times.....

The name of the route is "Ciao Patrick" because we dedicated the climb to Patrick Berault recently dead. It was our friend and mythus. The specification of our new route you can see below. Now we will have rest and than we will fly to Annapurna I, 8091 m for a new challange.

"Ciao Patrick"
Khali Himal o Baruntse Nord 7066 m
Aperta il 4 Maggio 2004
da: Moro Simone G.A, Tassi Bruno"Camos" G.A, Urubko Denis
Via di 2550 metri di cui gli ultimi 1350 metri saliti in stile alpino
Campi intermedi 3
Difficolta massime in misto M6+ spesso su roccia friabile a lastre e strapiombante
Difficolta massime in roccia 5+/6
Difficolta massime in ghiaccio tra 70° e 90° su ghiaccio fine che copriva placche di granito
Esposizione a Nord west
Bivacchi in parete 4
Discesa in 12 ore totali con 20 calate in doppia in piena parete

Near Lukla	Trekking in Khumbu valley
Simone	The face in the evening
Our Baruntse or Khali Himal north face	Baruntse Team
Camp 1 at 5900	Our C1
Camos at the beginning of route	Difficult mixt climb
My sat station	After the M6+ step
Camp 4	On the mix climb
Denis on the summit	Simone on the summit
Simone and Camos on the summit	During the descent
Joby Ogym,Simone Moro, Inaki Ochoa	Boris Khorshunov