Madness Climber Begins His Pursuit of the ​“Eight-Thousanders”

The world is cov­ered in moun­tains of all shapes and sizes, but only 14 peaks stand taller than 8,000 meters (26,247 ft). Each of these has a riv­et­ing his­to­ry, the tri­umphant and dis­as­trous often only min­utes apart. Moun­tain Mad­ness climber Alex B. is embark­ing on his first of the ​“eight-thou­sanders,” Cho Oyu. Mad­ness Ever­est guide Ossy Freire leads the Expe­di­tion start­ing August 25. We invite you to fol­low the expe­di­tion expe­ri­ence through the eyes of Alex.

It’s Over Eight Thousand!!!

You’ve heard some of their names.

Ever­est. K2. Annapurna.

Ever­est’s Khum­bu Ice­fall. Ossy Freire photo

Some you’ve prob­a­bly nev­er heard of, but whose very names fill the mind with wild and mys­ti­cal images of far off and exot­ic places.

Makalu. Dhaula­giri. Shishapangma.

There are only four­teen of them in the world, resid­ing in a thin chain of moun­tain ranges stretch­ing from the impos­si­bly high sheer walls of Nan­ga Par­bat, stand­ing in iso­la­tion in Pak­istan to the west, to the daunt­ing and holy Kangchen­jun­ga, 1500km to the east near the bor­der between Nepal and Sikkim, India. It is one of the younger moun­tain ranges on the plan­et, still ris­ing at a rate of five mil­lime­ters per year, pushed towards the stratos­phere by the vio­lent col­li­sion of the Indi­an sub­con­ti­nent plow­ing into and under the Tibetan plateau.

Hid­den Peak. Broad Peak. Cho Oyu.

Cho Oyu camp. Mark Payne photo

They are known as the ​“eight-thou­sanders;” moun­tain peaks whose sum­mits reach up over eight thou­sand meters (26,000 feet) above mean sea lev­el, into a realm nor­mal­ly only occu­pied by jet streams and jet lin­ers (and the occa­sion­al flock of over­achiev­ing geese). Up here the atmos­phere is so thin that the vast major­i­ty of those who ven­ture into this realm will use sup­ple­men­tal oxy­gen while they dash to the top in often razor-thin win­dows of opportunity.

Gasher­brum II. Lhotse. Manaslu.

First suc­cess­ful­ly climbed between 1950 and 1964 in a post-war burst of nation­al­is­tic pride by teams from coun­tries around the world, most of them have still only seen a few hun­dred ascents. The scene of many epic tri­umphs and tragedies, they are among the most sto­ried and famous (and infa­mous) moun­tains in the world.

Com­ing Sum­mer 2018.

Fol­low the jour­ney on social media:

Insta­gram: @weekendalpinist

Twit­ter: @weekendalpinist

Alex

P.S. For those not up on their memes (or aren’t Drag­on Ball Z fans)