an avalanche drags him for 50 meters and he cannot summit Everest

2023-05-26 18:17:14

BarcelonaKilian Jornet returns to the scene. This time, however, he stayed with honey on his lips. In a post on Instagram, the athlete from Cereta explains how his attempt to crown Everest via the west ridge ended unsuccessfully because of an avalanche. He himself recounts his solo experience tackling what is known as the Hornbein Corridor, a route by which only sixteen mountaineers in all of history have reached the highest peak on the planet. On May 22, 1963, two Americans, Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld, opened a route currently known as one of the great feats of Himalayanism. It has never been done alone and only once without oxygen, in 1986. In this way, Jornet has tried to reissue a challenge that the alpinist Ueli Steck had in mind, who died in 2017 while preparing a new Everest climbing record.

The Catalan athlete explains how the weather conditions have frustrated the success of an expedition in which he was able to “fit all the pieces except one: the summit”. The story, already written from Khumbu, in Nepal, has an impact. First, the blue ice and strong wind forced him to take cover on a ledge. When after about three hours the weather improved, he resumed the route, but an avalanche dragged him up to 50 meters. This made Jornet decide to do a half lap, in a descent in which they still had to overcome the heavy snowfall on the way back.

Now the next milestone of the ceretà is planned for the summer. In August, Jornet is scheduled to participate in the Sierre-Zinal (31 kilometers and 2,200 meters of accumulated positive difference in altitude), to get rid of the thorn of last year, in which he finished fifth at first and fourth, finally, for the disqualification of Marc Kangogo for doping. Three days later, he tested positive for coronavirus. This year he wants to complete it in full conditions.

After the Sierre-Zinal he announced that he will do a “long distance challenge”. At the moment, he has not been able to crown Everest because of the weather conditions. This is Jornet’s sixth attempt at the top of the world after his failed attempts in 2021 and 2019, also because of the weather. Earlier, in 2017, he completed two ascents of Everest (with corresponding descent) in a single week. In both cases oxygen was dispensed with. In 2015 and 2016 he had annulled two previous attempts to crown him.