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Face to face with Baruntse
12:02 p.m. EST Apr 14, 2004
Simone Moro has dispatched his own report today from Baruntse, the 7129 m technical new route pre-acclimatization climb that he and Denis are fixing right now. There are 2000 meters of vertical ice and rock face that they'll try to climb in light, alpine style.
"Hello!
We are back at base camp after our first day spent on the face. We fixed 350 meters of rope in the first complicated part and we reached 5650 m. We had expected an easy snow slope but ended up climbing mixed rock and ice and traverse big crevasses. We are not yet acclimatized and for that reason we will continue to fix rope on the face and come back in the evening. We plan to fix 800-1000 meters of rope and then continue in alpine style. The weather is cloudy, especially later in the day.
Follow us.
Simone"
First off, the Italian/Kazakh combo along with another Italian, Bruno Tassi, will be attempting the North Wall on Baruntse, 7129m. After getting acclimatized, Simone and Denis will then move onto Annapurna’s North Face, attempting a new line on it.
Annapurna, which just peeks above the 8000m level, rising at 8091m, is the most deadly of the 8000ers. In total, only 130 climbers have summited Annapurna, while 53 have died. The overall fatality rate is thus 41%, or four and a half times that of Everest’s overall fatality rate of 9%.
Image of today's Baruntse climb, courtesy of Simone Moro.
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