Szilárd Suhajda’s tracker was last reported near the summit, since then there has been no news about the climb

2023-05-25 06:06:54

The last signal from Szilárd Suhajda’s satellite tracker was received on Wednesday at 19:30 Nepalese time, since then there has been no news about the Hungarian mountaineer who set out to conquer Mount Everest.

On Sunday, he left for the highest point in the world, the 8,848-meter peak of Mount Everest Suhajda Szilárd, who, according to the plans, would have reached the top of the world on Wednesday, around noon Hungarian time, without any external help, such as stretchers or artificial oxygen. According to what appeared on his Facebook page on Wednesday morning, he had already reached 8,700 meters and was in good physical and mental condition.

After that, there was no news about Suhajda for many hours.

In the evening, RTL Fókusz c. in his show was saidthat he called his wife from the mountain, Timbre, said he was not quite well, and was advised to turn back, but he went on. After that, no GPS signal was received for hours, and no emergency calls were made. Later, the instrument indicated that he continued to climb, even though it was already dark, while according to the Fókusz report, no one is recommended to stay on the summit after 5 p.m.

Another climber, Allie Pepper he also wanted to climb to the top of Mount Everest on Wednesday, he wrote about a snowstorm in its entry, and that he had to choose whether to continue using artificial oxygen or turn back. He chose the latter option.

Since the GPS signals were rare, it was not even known after 9 pm Hungarian time on Wednesday whether Suhajda Szilárd turned back before reaching the summit, or whether she reached the summit and turned back afterwards. One appeared in the Hóhatár Facebook group a little after midnight registration, that Suhajda’s satellite tracker operated with quite large gaps during the summit attack. The last signal came 50 meters from the summit, “but in some cases it could be a climb of several hours”, and the climber did not report. This is not a curiosity, the post said.

“During his Lhoce climb last year, for two days we had no idea where he was going, what was wrong with him, he didn’t even report from the summit, while he thought that we were following his progress based on the tracker in a premier plan at home. We start from the assumption that because we don’t see the data of his tracker, he is still slowly descending the mountain,” they wrote.

Two Sherpas from Szilárd Suhajda’s agency set out for the camp of four in front of the climber, and expeditions went to the summit as well, they offered to help if the Hungarian climber needed help.

The 40-year-old expedition climber born in Békéscsaba arrived at the base camp on March 23, from where he did several acclimatization rounds. In his Saturday post, he also wrote about how he had to deal with the huge wind, and then for days he was tormented by a cough to such an extent that he struggled with teary eyes, but he felt ready for the successful summit attack. Camp 4, located just below the summit at 7,900 meters, was reached on Tuesday. After some rest, he started the actual summit attack from here.

Szilárd Suhajda used to stand on the summit of three 8,000-high mountains in the Himalayas. He reached the highest point of Broad Peak (8051m) in 2014, K2 (8611m) in 2019 and Lhoce (8516m) in 2022, all without using oxygen cylinders. He was the first Hungarian to climb K2 – the second highest peak on Earth.