Three Pinnacles
The Three Pinnacles are a formation of sheer rocks along the northeast ridge on Mount Everest . They mark one of the longest unsolved problems of high altitude mountaineering , which has now been solved.
The rocks are at foot heights of about 7800, 8100 and 8200 meters and are therefore already in the death zone , in which people can no longer regenerate even in rest.
The normal routes on Everest avoid this area; the normal north route literally ignores them.
In various attempts to conquer the Pinnacles to open a new route over the entire northeast ridge, there were regular serious problems and deaths: In 1982 Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker died in the first serious attempt to climb climbing in the 5th degree of difficulty in the death zone. Joe Tasker is missing; ten years after his death in 1992, Kazakh mountaineers found the body of Peter Boardman sitting at the foot of the second Pinnacle, as if he were sleeping.
In 1988 Russell Brice and his partner Harry Taylor finally managed to master the Three Pinnacles; However, they were so exhausted after climbing the third Pinnacle that they gave up their original plan to take the other route to the summit, which was then identical to the normal route. Instead, they descended on the normal route along the north ridge right down to the north saddle.
It was not until 1995 that a team from a Japanese university, supported by a huge crowd of around 35 Sherpa high porters, climbed the entire northeast ridge route including the Three Pinnacles in both directions. The Sherpas had secured practically the entire route with fixed ropes . Only after this route was established did a group of Japanese go to the summit.
This part of the mighty mountain is almost always avoided to this day; The difficulties with the Pinnacles are too great, in addition to the weather, the cold, the winds and the altitude, they also extend to the terrain problems.
Almost all mountaineering tasks on Mount Everest have now been solved; There remain two paths that present extraordinary difficulties: an ascent in the avalanche-prone east face - Direttissima - the only direct ascent on Everest that has not yet been climbed - and an ascent over the north pillar of the east face, over the so-called "Phantasy Ridge" (as George Mallory said ) (in picture no. 7c). This ridge ends at the central northeast ridge - below the Three Pinnacles. A climber who wants to climb the “Phantasy Ridge” and also wants to reach the summit has to master the Three Pinnacles on the northeast ridge after the east ridge.
literature
- Stephen Venables: Everest, Kangshung Face . Pan, 1991, ISBN 0-330-31559-5
- Roberto Mantovani and Kurt Diemberger: Mount Everest - battle in icy heights . Moewig, 1997, ISBN 3-8118-1715-9
- Stephen Venables: Everest - The Story of His Exploration . Geo, Frederking and Thaler, 2003, ISBN 3-89405-465-4