Kristin Harila gives Cho Oyu summit reaction
Norwegian, Kristin Harila has completed the climbs of all 14, 8000m peaks, taking just over a year to achieve the feat.
Her summit of Shishapangma last week was followed by Cho Oyu on the 3rd of May, meaning all peaks were bagged in a World Record time of 1 year and 5 days.
She used her Social Media to give her reaction;
“It’s finally done! The Cho Oyu summit means I completed all the 14 8000m, thank you for all the congratulations
After Shisha, we rested for 3 days in Tingri and went directly up to Cho Oyu BC with one rest day there before starting up to C1. It was a long way up.
We had a plan to go to C2 from BC but saw that it would be too long to do that so we rested in C1 for 5 hours before starting the summit push of 1800 metres! The longest summit push I have ever done
We knew we had a chance with the weather even if there was a lot of wind. So we started from C1 at 1am. The conditions on the mountain were good with no deep snow. After a little, Matias decided to go back to C1.
Lama had a high speed because he knew we had to climb such long way and he was fixing ropes as we were climbing. It was windy so at about 6900m I put on oxygen.
After 14 hours we reached the summit with Lama and Ngima. It’s a very very big plateau on Cho Oyu. There were high winds up there and we also saw the Nepal mountains.
After summitting, we went straight down to C1. There was a lot of wind and I had some problems with my eyes. I was happy to see Matias, Viridiana and the others sherpas in the team. Then, we decided to go all the way back to BC. The whole journey from C1 to summit and down again took about 23 hours.
Cho Oyu was the hardest climbs I’ve ever done, not only because of the very long push, but also the short rests.
I was super tired after the climb but I am happy that we were able to summit both mountains. Unfortunately, we were only given the permits to climb Shisha and Cho Oyu once.
Now, I’m enjoying some rest days in Kathmandu before starting for the next step of my adventure.”
