Ushba (4.710m)

Van Edward Bekker Ski & Alpinisme ontvingen wij het officiële bericht over het drama op de Ushba. Het bericht is in het Engels.

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Georgian climbers Merab Khabazi and Zaal Kikoidze’s bodies were found last week at 3900m on Mt. Ushba (4.710m). The climbers had been stranded on the mountain for five days. Bad weather prevented all rescue efforts, according to Georgian authorities – a helicopter flew over the area and spotted the climbers still alive on Monday 18th of July, but apparently it couldn’t land. The bodies were recovered two days later.

A third stranded climber, Gela Otarashvili was rescued alive. Merab, Zaaal and Gela were part of a Georgian-Dutch expedition on Ushba since July 15th. The five-member team split up when one of the Dutch climbers got sick. The two Dutch members of the team stayed behind while the Georgians continued. Thus the Dutch could be rescued easily, but the Georgians got out of reach.

A regular on the Road to Nowhere

"If not for the bad weather, they would not have been in need of a rescue; they were rescuers themselves," local climber Beno Kashakashvili told Georgian paper the Messenger.

Merab Khabazi knew Ushba (‘The road to nowhere’) very well. He had climbed the twin-summit peak, located on the border between Georgia and Russia, several times. Now he was leading the team up one of the most difficult routes on the 4710m summit. The climb was intended just a training weekend before heading for Lenin, the last peak Merab needed to complete the Snow Leopard mountains.

Everest summiter

Spanish Lady climber's Chus Lago's climbing mate for years, Khabazi, 45, had summited most of the higher peaks in the Caucasus range, and had also visited the Himalayas. He reached the summit of Everest in 1999 through the North Col route. Mountain guide and rescuer, he was also an accomplished mathematician and linguist.

Zaal Kikodze was a professor at Tbilisi State University, senior curator at the State Museum of Georgia and founding member of Open Society - Georgia Foundation. He was also an accomplished climber and mountain rescuer.

These are not the first mountaineers to be killed trying to climb the mountain. In February 2000 seven mountaineers - four Russian and three British - were killed by falling ice trying while trying to reach the summit from the Russian side.

Mount Ushba is located in the craggy Svaneti region which can be reached from Tbilisi only by plane or by an 8-hour drive over jostling roads and dirt paths.

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Bericht ontvangen van: Edward Bekker Ski & Alpinisme

Auteur: Ice-X

Bron: Ice-X