Nanga Parbat: End of Tomek Mackiewicz’ Fifth Winter Attempt

Posted: Jan 19, 2015 07:08 pm EST

(By Raheel Adnan) Tomek Mackiewicz’ Fifth attempt on Nanga Parbat ends here, as he suffers a broken rib and fractured leg after a snow bridge at around 6500m broke, causing the Polish climber to fall 50 meters into a crevasse. The accident happened when he was descending after summit push, together with Elisabeth Revol.



“Elisa was first to go. She is very light and crossed the snow bridge without any problem. I made two steps and the snow beneath me broke. I fell into crevasse against my back. I did not have any control over it. I looked up and saw the sky view getting reduced in cosmic speed, messing up against the walls and somehow the flight ended after 50 meters, and I lived.” Tomek Mackiewicz told Off.sport.pl journalist Dominik Szczepański from Base Camp this afternoon. Elisabeth rescued him out of crevasse. “No way could I come out from there, alone.”





After spending ten days on the mountain, Tomek Mackiewicz and Elisabeth Revol returned to BC, this morning. It was a huge relief for fellow climbers, the BC team and climbing community who has been closely observing the team’s progress. The two climbers remained out of contact for three days due to battery issue with their satellite phone.



“We set up camp (C4) at 7000m, because the conditions didn’t let us go above.” From C4, the two climbers pushed towards the summit and reached 7800m. From this point onwards, they would have followed the Hermann Buhl’s route to the summit. However, it was getting late and they decided to turn back. Although, they were almost 300 vertical meters below summit, total distance to be covered was more than 2 kilometers. “Had no chance to reach the top,” says the Polish climber.



It’s third instance of Tomek Mackiewicz reaching above 7000m on Nanga Parbat in winter. The only climber to have reached higher is Zbigniew Trzmiel, who turned back from 7850m in 1997. The route of Tomek and Elisabeth was previously climbed till 7500m by Reinhold Messner, Hubert Messner, Hanspeter Eisendle and Wolfgang Thomaseth.



It's not known whether Elisabeth will continue the climb or will be returning home.

Based in Pakistan, mountaineering enthusiast Raheel Adnan is a reporter for Explorersweb's mountaineering sections. He shares regular updates on Twitter and runs his own blog at Altitude Pakistan posting initiated climbing news from Himalaya and Karakoram.

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