Never have the slopes of the feat been so crowded. More than twenty mountaineers want to launch this year the assault of Shisha Pangma (China) to win their “Holy Grail”: the ascent of the 14 highest peaks on the planet.

“This season is shaping up to be the most interesting in history,” German columnist Eberhard Jurgalski, who runs the website 8000ers.com, impatiently sums up for AFP.

The climbers crowding into the base camp of this 8,027-metre-high mountain in southern China’s Tibet Autonomous Region have all already scaled the other 13 “8,000ers” in the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges.

Everyone had been champing at the bit since China’s decision last year to suspend permits for Shisha Pangma after two American women and their Sherpas died in an avalanche.

The race for the feat has finally resumed this season, to the great delight of the contenders.
Since last week, six of the contenders have already succeeded and added their names to the list of those – barely fifty – who have already succeeded in this improbable marathon of the peaks.

A good fifteen are ready to join them. Unheard of in a single season…

“We are a growing community, we come from all over the world,” one of them, Pakistani Shehroze Kashif, 22, told AFP. “It’s good news, they are all realizing their dream like I am.”

The conquest of the 14 peaks over 8000 m has long been a lifelong work. It took Italian legend Reinhold Messner 16 years to be the first on the list in 1986.
“Top logistics”
The pace of the feat has since accelerated considerably. Just a few years. Or even less.

In 2019, Nepalese-British Nirmal Purja broke the speed record by planting his ice axe on all 14 peaks in just six months.

Back this year at the Shisha Pangma base camp to repeat his feat without oxygen, he released a documentary on the Netflix platform at the end of his campaign which definitively transformed the long-distance race into a sprint.

Advances in mountaineering techniques, weather forecasting and, above all, logistical support largely explain this.

Many climbers are now supported by large support teams and travel from base camp to base camp by helicopter, attempting multiple ascents each season.

“It is clear that the pioneers before attempted much more difficult, dangerous and exceptional climbs,” observes Eberhard Jurgalski. “Now everything is achievable in less than three months, the logistics are top notch.”

After Nirmal Purja, the Norwegian Kristin Harila and her Nepalese guide Tenjen Lama managed to raise the record to… 92 days.

At the head of the largest Nepalese high mountain expedition agency Seven Summit Treks, Mingma Sherpa confirms that the number of candidates for the 14 “8000” continues to grow.

Purists
“People rarely decide to tackle all 14 peaks at once. They climb one or two and then the mountain takes them,” he notes, “and they decide to climb all the highest ones.”

According to his estimates, the cost of the performance can range from $300,000 to $700,000.

Not enough to discourage vocations.

“When you cross the line, it’s historic,” said one of the candidates, Dawa Yangzum Sherpa. “I sometimes feel like it’s the equivalent of a World Cup where everyone represents their country.”

The Nepalese guide hopes to become the first Nepalese woman on the list of conquerors of the 14 summits. And in style.

“Some people climb all 14 peaks, some even climb Everest several times, but they wouldn’t be able to do it alone, without any support,” she says angrily.

Purists have thus criticized Nirmal Purja and Kristin Harila for their unlimited use of helicopters, for using pre-equipped voices or for having surrounded themselves with a plethora of teams.

They see it as a dangerous distortion of the spirit of mountaineering, like the dangerous jostling of wealthy amateurs on the slopes of Everest.

Criticism that leaves Russian Alina Pekova cold, who entered the race last year with the intention of crossing the finish line this season.

The climber says she understands the criticism, but believes there are simply “different” ways to do it. “If you can take the quickest route, why not try it?” she asks. “It’s just another challenge.”