Himalayan Climbing as an extreme sport

A short story about alpinism

Himalayan climbing - in the strict sense it is mountaineering in the Himalayas.

In a common sense it is a typical mountaineering, similar in nature to the climbing in the Himalayas, but also cultivated in other high mountain peaks where the altitude exceeds at least 5,000 m above the sea level. These are the Caucasus Mountains, the Andes, the Hindu Kush, Karakoram, the Altai Mountains, the Alaska Range.

SPECIFICITY OF HIMALAYAN CLIMBING

From a technical point of view, due to the fact that the tops of very high mountains are always covered with snow and ice Himalayan climbing is almost always treated as the ice climbing.

Due to the high altitude this kind of climbing has a few characteristic problems a climber has to go through:

■ ■ ■ ■

problems associated with adapting of the human body to the areas above 5000 m altitude (rare air, low air pressure) problems associated with extreme weather conditions (strong winds, intense sun light, very low temperatures) problems with the length of the climbing routes (sleeping on the climbing wall, the exhaustion due to huge exertion, usually without possibility of regeneration) problems associated with the extent of mountain areas (the lack of roads, necessity of gathering large supplies of food and camping equipment, connectivity problems.) All these mean that in ice climbing strictly technical climbing skills are not so important as the physical and mental strenght.

Styles practised in Himalayan Climbing

“Siege” style Siege style is the oldest and most common way of the Himalayan way of climbing. The expedition always sets a camp at the foot of the mountain which climbers will try to reach – “attack”. Reaching peak usually is a multiple-day operation which consists in going through a few stages of the route, building a complex system of ropes and other facilities (rails) along the route, establishing more temporary camps and organizing a transport of food and equipment to them, and continuing the procedure until the final camp (the one closest to the peak) is made.

People involved in the expedition are divided to

• •

porters, maintenance,

• •

climbers – workers 3 to 4 people who are chosen to be preserved until the final climbing where the peak is reached. This style is very expensive and time consuming simultaneously.



Style "Alpine" This is the style in which a small group of climbers (3 4) limited the number of equipment to a minimum so as to be able to deliver it yourself at the top. The summit is attacked directly from the database by the whole band at once without the construction of permanent camps and indirect por bottom.

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czowania. In the event of failure of the whole team goes down temporarily eliminating intermediate camps and re-attacking the top from the



Style solo The style of this single climber takes with him only as much equipment as he is able to lift and totally alone, trying to climb to the top without building any intermediate camps. Sometimes it happens that the climber-soloist, is assisted by several colleagues, but only in the organization of the database. Sometimes, in turn, it happens that the climber-guest soloist with the database uses a large expedition, which "prepares" for a nearby peak.

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Styl "obl ęż niczy" Styp obl

ęż

niczy jest najstarszym i najbardziej typowym stylem organizowania wypraw wspinaczkowych w górach typu himalajskiego.

Wyprawa taka tworzy zwykle u podnó

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y góry rozbudowan

ą

baz

ę

, z której organizowane s

ą

kolejne próby "ataku". Sam "atak" jest zwykle wielodniow

ą

operacj

ą

, polegaj

ą

c

ą

na pokonywaniu kolejnych fragmentów drogi , budowania wzdłu

ż

niej systemu lin i innych ułatwie

ń

(tzw. por

ę

czowanie), budowania kolejnych obozów przej

ś

ciowych, transportowania do nich odpowiednich ilo

ś

ci sprz

ę

tu i zapasów

ż

ywno

ś

ci, a nast

ę

pnie kontynowania tej procedury, a

ż

do zbudowania obozu podszczytowego, z którego wreszcie organizuje si szczytowe".Osoby zaanga

ż

owane w wypraw

ę ę

dziel ostateczne "ataki

ą

si

ę

na tragarzy, obsług

ę

technicz

ą

, wspinaczy "robotników" i wreszcie "szpicy" - czyli wybranej grupy 3-4 wspinaczy, którzy s

ą

przez cały czas wyprawy oszcz

ę

dzani, po to aby mie

ć

maksymalnie du

ż

o sił na atak szczytowy.Styl ten jest bardzo kosztowny i czasochłonny.

 

Styl "alpejski" Jest to styl, w którym nieliczna grupa wspinaczy (3-4) ogranicza liczb

ę

sprz

ę

tu do minimum, tak aby by

ć

w stanie samemu dostarczy

ć

go pod szczyt. Szczyt jest atakowany bezpo

ś

rednio z bazy przez cały zespół na raz bez konstruowania stałych obozów po

ś

rednich i por

ę

czowania. W razie niepowodzenia cały zespół schodzi na dół likwiduj

ą

c tymczasowe obozy po

ś

rednie i ponownie atakuje szczyt od samego dołu.

 

Styl solowy W stylu tym pojedynczy wspinacz bierze z sob

ą

tylko tyle sprz

ę

tu ile sam jest w stanie unie całkowicie w pojedynk

ę

stara si

ę

wej

ść ść

i na szczyt bez budowania jakichkolwiek obozów po

ś

rednich. Czasami zdarza si

ę

,

ż

e wspinacz-solista, jest wspomagany przez kilku kolegów, ale tylko przy organizacji bazy. Czasami z kolei zdarza si

ę

,

ż

e wspinacz-solista korzysta go

ś

cinnie z bazy du

ż

ej wyprawy, która "szykuje" si szczyt.

ę

na jaki

ś

pobliski

            

Maciej Berbeka Leszek Cichy Anna Czerwi

ń

ska Artur Hajzer Jerzy Kukuczka Wojciech Kurtyka Piotr Morawski Ryszard Pawłowski Tadeusz Piotrowski Piotr Pustelnik Wanda Rutkiewicz Krzysztof Wielicki Andrzej Zawada

      

Hermann Buhl Kurt Diemberger George Mallory Reinhold Messner Edmund Hillary Tenzing Norgay Lionel Terray

by: Natalia Wyporska, Agnieszka Kaziród, Adrianna Figiel