Cho Oyu : New route, solo, in a single push

South west face of Cho Oyu (8201 m) (1) , world's 6 th highest mountain was after Everest my another Himalayan challenge. In September 2006 I joined small Slovenian expedition and after acclimatizing in crowds on normal route (2) the team was ready for the alpine style ascent in the face. But before climbing, the incident at Nangpa La where 3 Tibetans were killed by Chinese soldiers (3) disturbed the life in the base camp. At the 1 st of October we crossed the Gyabrag glacier (4) and established ABC at 6200 m below the SW face. Early at night (5) we started to climb, and I went forward to realize my plan: solo ascent directly to the top. In about 5 hours I reached the crux of the new route, icefall at 7200 m (6). I passed it by on the rock on the right side (7) and reached the Polish ridge. Then I continued up the ridge (8) and at about 18:00 I could enjoy the Everest view from Cho Oyu summit (9). For the first time, a new route (10) to the top of 8000 m was climbed in one day single push. My team mates Emil, Aljaz, Uros and Marjan reached the top next day, when I already had a rest (11) in the base camp…

Čo Oju : Nova smer, solo in v enem zamahu

Devet let po Everestu je prišel naslednji himalajski izziv: 2000 metrov visoka jugozahodna stena Čo Oja (1), šeste najvišje gore sveta. V septembru 2006 sem se priključil mali slovenski odpravi, in po aklimatizaciji v gneči na normalni smeri (2) smo bili pripravljeni za vzpon čez steno v alpskem stilu. Tik pred odhodom v steno nas je presenetil žalosten dogodek na sedlu Nangpa La, kjer so kitajski vojaki (3) hladnokrvno ustrelili 3 tibetanske prebežnike. Prvega okrobra smo po štirih urah dostopa čez ledenik Gyabrag (4) postavili naš ABC, pomožni bazni tabor na višini 6200 metrov. S plezanjem smo pričeli ponoči (5). Sledil sem zamišljeni smeri in po petih urah dosegel ključno mesto smeri, ledeni slap (6) na višini 7200 metrih. Obplezal sem ga po skali na desni strani (7) in prišel na Poljski greben (8), po katerem sem v slabših razmerah nadaljeval proti vrhu Cho Oya. Dosegel sem ga okoli 18 ure (9) in nova smer na osemtisočak (10) je bila tako prvič preplezana v enem dnevu. Soplezalci Emil, Aljaž, Uroš in Marjan so preživeli noč v taboru na normalni smeri in dosegli vrh naslednji dan, medtem ko sem sam že skrbel za regeneracijo v baznem taboru… (11)