The Loneliest Mountaineer on Everest
The New York Times
The German climber Jost Kobusch is attempting to be the first to scale the world’s tallest mountain in winter alone without supplemental oxygen. There’s nobody else out there.
The tattered remains of an orange tent flap in the wind. A single rope dangles from a 300-foot wall of rock. The sound of crampons squeaking on snow and ice breaks the silence. Only one backpack appears, and it belongs to Jost Kobusch, a German who right now might best be described as the loneliest Alpine climber in the world.
Kobusch is on Mount Everest, in the dead of winter, attempting to climb the world’s tallest mountain during a season when almost nobody dares to scale it.
There is no one else to be seen for miles, just Kobusch and a 29,031-foot challenge: to become the first person to climb Everest solo in winter, without supplemental oxygen.
