Pressrelease: First Everest summits 2005, climber missing.

[Romke]

By Harry Kikstra, 7summits.com

Note: not all details are confirmed and can (hopefully) change before or after this pressrelease is posted. Please check 7summits.com & Explorersweb for the latest updates.


Today and yesterday the non-stop spell of bad weather on Everest was broken for a few moments. This was enough for the Slovenian climbers Victor & Marko from the international 7summits-club/7summits.com team to go for the summit.

After leaving the last camp, 8300m, at 02.30 they climbed through the increasingly worsening weather. This afternoon at 13.00 China time they reached the summit while the wind was picking up again to regular 2005 speed. This season is extremely bad and the 2 summits (so far there are no other summits confirmed) are the first and maybe last of the season.
The summit push was made without any Sherpa support, extraordinary on Everest nowadays.

Victor called back in from camp 3, 8300m, but has let us know that he lost track of Marko during the descent in the bad weather. Victor is waiting for him in camp, one of the Sherpas has joined him and will be climbing higher in search for Marko.
...


Marko, day before start of summitpush

On behalf of the 7summits-club/7summits.com expedition, Alexander Abramov & Harry Kikstra

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See the daily updates on the 7summits.com forum for more details about the climbing schedule and route information