Josh Kobusch ends Everest Winter climb
Josh Kobusch has made the sensible decision to end his climb on Everest’s West ridge.
The German climber had already fulfilled his season’s goal when he surpassed 7,500m on Everest’s Lho La-West Ridge route.
Josh used his Socials to explain his reasons and celebrate his success;
“I will end this years Everest winter climb.
My reasons:
1.) I have never been rescued due to an emergency in my career but right now there are protests going on in the Khumbu making helicopter rescues impossible
(I mean it is anyway very improbable to rescue me up there but this is part of my consideration)
2.) The earthquake and its aftershocks make my route that is already prone to rock and icefall more risky.
3.) Due to my back injury I missed out on a lot of aerobic base training hours in the preparation. I am not where I want to be as an Athlete to push for the summit.
4.) I have already achieved my goal for this expedition in going further than anybody before me on the west ridge in winter.
For this project to happen everything needs to align and right now there are a lot of things that are counter indicators.
I’d rather focus on going back to training, building skill and becoming a better alpinist so that I come back stronger.
I’m in this for the long run, my goal is to climb Everest in the winter by myself via the west ridge – not some record of going a bit higher than before.
There was so much learning in my time here already that I’m ready to make the changes in training that are necessary to reach the next level.
I also believe that by ending the expedition now I can begin training faster and have a better shot next time.”