Luca Vuerich

Luca Vuerich (born December 11, 1975 in Gemona del Friuli , † January 22, 2010 in Udine ) was an Italian mountain guide and extreme mountaineer. He left his mark on long, combined routes, on frozen waterfalls and as an extreme skier . As a high-altitude mountaineer and photographer, he has taken part in several expeditions by Nives Meroi and Romano Benet . Vuerich was an instructor and trainer for the winter sports promotion group of the Italian mountain troop school. He was engaged to the sister of Nives Meroi.

His ascents on the highest mountains in the world were all done without additional oxygen . Luca Vuerich has successfully climbed five of the fourteen eight-thousanders , ten ascent attempts failed.

On January 22nd, 2010, he was swept away by an avalanche while attempting the first ascent of an ice climbing route on Prisojnik , near the Slovenian town of Kranjska Gora . His climbing partner Andrej Magagne was unharmed and alerted the mountain rescue team . Since Vuerich was also an active member of the same from Tarvisio, she arrived in a helicopter together with Slovenian rescuers. Vuerich was flown to Udine hospital , where he succumbed to his serious injuries shortly afterwards. His grave is in the Camporosso cemetery .

Expeditions (full list)

• 1998 Nanga Parbat : a brain haemorrhage stopped the project.
• 1999 attempts at Shishapangma , failed 10 days later at Cho Oyu .
• 2000 Attempt to be the first to climb the north side of Gasherbrum II , one of the so-called last problems of the Himalayas up until then , but bad weather prevented success. Nevertheless, five difficult six-thousanders could be climbed for the first time together with a group of alpinists from Tarvisio .
• In 2001, the political situation after the events of September 11th led to an early termination of an alpine style expedition to Mazeno Peak (7120 m) and its impenetrable, combined (ice / rock) 3000 meter high north face.
• In 2003, all three main peaks of the Gasherbrum group ( Hidden Peak , Gasherbrum II and Broad Peak ) could be climbed one after the other during an expedition . That was only the second time. The peaks of the three 8000ers were reached within 20 days. In addition, an attempt was made on K2 from the north, which ended in chest-high swimming snow .
• 2004 successful ascent of Lhotse . Another attempt to reach the K2 for the 50th anniversary of its first ascent via the north side. However, canceled due to bad weather conditions.
• 2005 Ascent of Dhaulagiri on the 8157 meter high pre-summit failed due to poor conditions.
• 2006 Illness two days before the summit ascent to Dhaulagiri. An attempt on the Annapurna had to be stopped because of the great danger of ice avalanches at an altitude of 6600 meters.
• 2007 attempt at Peak Nansen (5697 m) in the Tianshan Mountains ( Kyrgyzstan ) together with the Slovenian Andrej Magajne canceled due to the persistent falling rocks and danger of avalanches. The summit of Khan Tengri (7010 m) was achieved single-handedly over the south wall, and the base camp was reached again over the summit in just 22 hours. Up until then, no Italian had been able to climb the mountain in one day. Bad weather prevented a planned attempt at Dschengisch Tschokusu (7439 m).
• 2007/2008 attempt of winter ascent of Makalu However, persistent storm destroyed the prepared, including all the equipment and food supplies, in decline for Hillary - base camp he had Nives Meroi because of a broken fibula long distances wear. The planned circumnavigation of Makalu on the Makalu Trek was waived.
• 2008 Manaslu together with Romano Benet and Nives Meroi, the summit was already reached after 13 days, the descent with dismantling of all intermediate camps took only 10.5 hours; Leila Meroi, sister of Nives and Vuerich's fiancée, carried out high altitude medical examinations.

Web links

• Luca Vuerich's homepage (Italian)
• Information about Luca Vuerich on www.ilfriuli.it (Italian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Luca Vuerich dies swept by an avalanche ( Memento of the original from January 28, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. www.up-climbing.com (accessed on January 23, 2010)