MOONLIT ROUTE

The Russian climber Valeri Babanov and Yuri Koshelenko have conquered the Himalayan peak Nuptse East , the highest of the yet unclimbed summits on the planet.

The close of the autumn season was utterly successful for the Russians. For the first time in the history of mountaineering, Valeri Babanov and Yuri Koshelenko reached the Nuptse East peak (7804 meters). The steep faces and treacherous snow planes had made the fifteen expeditions of their predecessors give up the endeavor…

” Nuptse is a whole mountain range stretching from West to East and gradually merging with Lhotse, said Valery Balabanov. “ Nuptse East I is an awesome gigantic wall with a pointed summit and a cute crest on top of it. One is so mesmerized by the flow of the skyline and its accuracy that one feels pulled towards the mountain. The ascent starts at 5400 meters, its length is 4 km. The wall’s inclined fall is 2.5 km. The wall’s foundation is about 2 km of complex bedrock turning into snowy mountainside. The face becomes rather steep closer to the summit, and at 7500 meters it turns into a tower of rocks and ice. From below, it looks an absolutely steep 300 m high wall, but the route is 600 meters long. And it’s all steep slope, ice, cliffs and snow… The night temperatures are as low as 30 degrees Celsius below zero; by daylight, it gets warmer by only 10 degrees. At such an altitude, the human body defies restoration. That means that the ascent may take away one’s physical strength and health resources. In the spring of 1994, the French climbers were the closest to Nuptse East peak having to quit only 300 meters before reaching the goal. All in all, only three expeditions succeeded in reaching the notorious Devil’s Tower (6300 meters), most of the climbers had to turn around even before hitting the Devil’s Tower (name given by Americans Jeff Lowe and Mark Twight in 1986). It marks a most difficult point due to its sheer steepness (60-65 degrees) and unsafe “hollow” snow. Valeri Babanov is one of the best solo climbers in the world. He conquers peaks on his own and performs fantastic mountaineering feats. In 2002, in recognition of his outstanding achievements Valeri received the prestigious international climbing award " Piole d'or" and a "Silver Genziana" award, as well as a special award of the Film Festival of Mountains and Exploration "Citta di Trento" for his solo ascent to the Central Meru Peak (6310m) in the Garhwal Himalaya in India. At the start of his climbing career, Balabanov was a team player, but gradually his teams grew smaller and his routes grew harder.

“After solo ascents, team ascents seem sort of bleak, Valeri explains. Solo climbing an incomparable sense of oneness with Nature. It is meditation in action. They say that mountaineering is like an addiction. I think it is sooner a state of mind”. Last fall, he decided to pursue his dream of 5 years to solo the South East Pillar of Nuptse to the yet unclimbed Nuptse East summit, but he realized the dangers of the route and chances of getting there by himself. In his estimation, it was not beyond the realm of impossibility, but his first attempt didn't fare well since he could only manage to climb up to the Devil’s Tower.

Though still reluctant to give up his desire for yet another solo attempt to better the record. He said: “There are routes that can’t be trodden on one’s own, no matter how great one’s desire is”. He had no options left but to look for a partner to return to the mountain for the second attempt. He found Vladimir Suviga, a climber from Kazakhstan. Three years before, Valeri met Suviga on the route up Khan-Tengri and was impressed by his ability to endure high altitudes. Babanov also was aware of Suvilga’s summiting Everest without oxygen. When he was descending, totally exhausted, he heard voices of some climbers having lost their way in the so-called “death’s zone”. The whole night he kept guard at their camp. They got frozen, but saved each others’ lives. After I had learnt about this incident, I realized that I could count on Vladimir". Unfortunately, bad weather prevented the duo Babanov-Suviga from getting to the summit, 350 meters within its reach. Babanov would have taken Suviga to Nepal for the second time in the fall of 2003, but the latter had no money for that project, as the expedition expenses were about $5,000-6,000.00 for each climber. Babanov himself had to guide tourists around the Alps to earn the money. He found another Russian climber, Yuri Koshelenko to join him this time. Yuri and Valeri were together on their ascent of 'Petit du Dru" in the French Alps in 1998. Together with Yuri Koshelenko Babanov had finally achieved the goal. The expedition’s budget was about US$18,000.00 The ascent permit cost US$4,000.00. For US$4,000.00 he hired sirdars and yaks, another US$4,000.00 were given for the equipment; food stuffs cost about US$2,500.00, services of a liaison officer took up US$ 1,500.00. The air tickets (US$ 620.00) were the cheapest item of expenses. From Katmandu they took a domestic flight to Lukva, and from there set off to the first base camp at 5200 m.

From the psychological point of view, it is easier to climb in spring: it is warmer and days are longer. On the other hand, the weather is more stable and there are more sunny days. The only disadvantage is that it blows heavily. So, one has to face the choice: to struggle with blizzards in spring or with gales in autumn. It was in the spring when at 7500 m Babanov and Koshelenko fixed one kilometer worth of ropes. They hoped that it would help them in their autumn ascent, but their hopes failed. The ropes remained intact in steep places, but in some gently sloping places the ropes were buried under the snow. They had to be hanged anew. The only good news was that the ropes were preserved along the traverse at the Devil’s Tower. That saved them several days.

At 6900 m. they left behind everything they considered unnecessary including sleeping-bags and karrimat pads, and took along only a light (2 kg) tent. According to Babanov, he had only down eider-duck feather parkas that only very few have. They carried 7 pitons, 5 friends, 3 nuts, 4 snow bar, 5 ice screws and 2 ropes. No oxygen masks.

The last meters (after 7500 m) to the East Summit were even more difficult than Valeri had thought. He had reckoned that only six ropes (50 meters each) would be needed, in fact they used twelve of them. The last climb from the 7500 m. mark started at 8.40 am, after two cold night. At 5 pm the situation grew critical. Babanov recollects: “We realized that the dusk would set in half an hour. We had to choose: to continue the climb or to descend. It was obvious that the dark made the climbing even more dangerous. The bottom line was that either we could have quit or never returned from the mountain".

When they reached the East Summit of Nuptse, it was already dark. Valeri was the first; Yuri came up ten minutes later. Being cold and exhausted, they didn’t display a lot of emotions: just embraced and set off. They did not feel like leaving anything behind. They explained: “The mountain is sacred. It let us up. What we wanted it to do was to let us go down, too”. The night also prevented them from taking photos.

It is interesting that when they were registering the permit to officially register their ascent in the Ministry of Tourism in Nepal, they had problems. It turned out that the Nuptse East I was not in the summits list. According to their notes, Nuptse was one mountain with five summits: East I, East II, Central, West I, and West II. When the Russians said that they had conquered a 7804 meters summit, the officials declared that there was no mountain like that in their country and the climbers had had no right to climb a “closed” mountain. In accordance with their notes, the Nuptse mountain was 7845 meters high. That is the official height of the Nuptse Central summit. Everybody was wondering where the Russians had gone up to. The dispute went on for a few hours, but the Russians succeeded. They just wrote recommendations that the Nuptse East I be registered.

It is customary to name a route after its conqueror, or the country he is from. But Valeri Babanov and Yuri Koshelenko decided to call their route the Moonlight Sonata. It was Yuri Koshelenko who came up with this idea: “The inner state I experienced up there was in accord with the name. All the Himalayas with Mt. Everest, Lhotse and the Nuptse pinncles washed in the moon light were just breathtakingly magical”.

Lately, there have been very few ascents in the Himalayas. No wonder the success of the Russian duo found so much acclaim worldwide. Phillipe de Canne, an editor of the climbing magazine and Valeri Balabanov’s friend, said: “There is no denying it that these Russians are really strong”. Does it mean that Balabanov and Koshelenko will be nominated for the “Piole d’or” award (de Canne is on the selection committee)? So far, this achievement of Valeri and Yuri has only found recognition in Russia. They were given the first prize in the national high climb championship.