Carlos Carsolio | |
---|---|
Born | |
Occupation(s) | Mountaineering, motivational speaker, entrepreneur. |
Spouse | Elsa Ávila (divorced) |
Children | Karina and Santiago |
Website | http://www.carsolio.com.mx |
Carlos Carsolio Larrea (born 4 October 1962 in Mexico City) is a Mexican mountain climber. Carsolio is known for being the fourth man (first non-European) and the second youngest to climb the world's 14 eight-thousanders, all of them without supplemental oxygen (although, he required emergency oxygen on his descent from Makalu in 1988).
Carsolio, the eldest of seven children, was introduced to mountaineering by his mother. When she was pregnant, she climbed Iztaccíhuatl (5,220 meters) despite her doctor's recommendations. [1] Carsolio admired climber Hermann Buhl in his youth, and later Lynn Hill, Peter Croft and Jerzy Kukuczka. [2]
His first ascents were in Mexico: Pico de Orizaba and Popocatépetl. In the early 1980s Carsolio climbed the nose of El Capitan in Yosemite, California.
At age 22, Carsolio got his first big achievement when he climbed Reinhold Messner's tough south face route of Aconcagua, the highest peak in South America at 6,962 meters (22,841 ft). [3] He traveled to Patagonia in 1990 with his friend Andrés Delgado to make the first Mexican ascent of Cerro Torre, considered by experts as the world's most difficult mountain for its great granite wall of at least 800 meters (2,625 ft), no matter what path climbers seek to attack. In 1991 Carsolio and Delgado climbed on Baffin Island, Canada where they accomplished the first Mexican summit.
Carsolio climbed his first eight-thousander with Jerzy Kukuczka; considered by some the best high-altitude climber in the world. They climbed Nanga Parbat on 13 July 1985, with a Polish expedition, led by Pawel Mularz. [4]
Carsolio summited Shisha Pangma with Elsa Ávila, Ramíro Navarrete, Ryszard Warecki and Wanda Rutkiewicz, and being the first to traverse the sharp snow arête from the Central Summit to the Main Summit. Carsolio and Ávila were the first Mexicans to reach that peak, for Navarrete would be the first Ecuadorian eight-thousander on 18 July 1987. [5] [6]
His solo ascension of Makalu on 12 October 1988 was the third eight-thousander in Carsolio's career. He required rescue and emergency oxygen on the descent. [7] [8]
On 13 October 1989 Carsolio headed a Mexican expedition to make summit on Mount Everest by the southeast route without the aid of bottled oxygen. This was a pending account with the mountain, months before with Elsa Ávila; they had to abort the mission because his partner got severe pulmonary edema only 92 meters (302 ft), from the summit. They were forced to retreat. Elsa would summit Everest 10 years later. However, on 16 May, his countryman, Ricardo Torres-Nava, reached the mountaintop to become the first Mexican and Latin American to do so, with supplementary oxygen on an American expedition. [9] [10] 1989 was a particularly hard year on Everest. Sherpas saw it as a "dark year" because of 24 people who reached the summit, 8 died during the descent. [11]
On 12 May 1992 Carsolio made the summit of Kangchenjunga climbing solo. Wanda Rutkiewicz began the ascent with Carlos at 3:30 am on 12 May from camp IV, located at 7,950 meters (26,083 ft). After a dozen hours of climbing under heavy snowfall, Carsolio reached the top, becoming the only climber to do so that year. On his descent, between 8,200 and 8,300 meters (26,900 – 27,230 ft), Carsolio encountered Rutkiewicz. Although she had no food, she decided to bivouac and attempt the summit the next day. Carsolio was exhausted and could not convince her to descend with him, and she was never seen again. [12]
The sixth eight-thousander for Carsolio was K2 on 13 June 1993, considered by many climbers the most difficult peak in the world. [13]
On 26 April 1994, Carsolio reached the summit of Cho Oyu, establishing a speed record: ascent from base camp in 18 hours and 45 minutes. [2]
On 13 May 1994, Carsolio set a new speed record on Lhotse, with a climb of 23 hours and 50 minutes from base camp to the summit. This was Carsolio's eighth solo eight-thousander.
The Carsolio Route. On 9 July 1994 Carlos reached the summit solo of Broad Peak, establishing a new route on the west face of the mountain, now known by his name. Carsolio called it his most successful climb. With that, he became only the fifth person to establish a new solo route of an eight-thousander. [14]
Carsolio ended that year, 1994, with two world records set in just 17 days, a new route with his name and three more eight-thousanders in his statistics.
1995 was the most productive year for Carsolio. He conquered Annapurna on 25 April, Dhaulagiri on 15 May, Gasherbrum II on 4 July and Gasherbrum I on 15 July. This left only Manaslu on his list. Carlos tried Manaslu with Kukuczka in 1986, but failed at that time with principles of freezing on fingers and toes, and nearly lost his life on this expedition in an attempt of a new route.
On 12 May 1996, Carlos and his younger brother, Alfredo, made the summit of Manaslu in Alpine style. For Carlos was his long-awaited fourteenth and final eight-thousander. Manaslu is characterized by bad weather. The ascent of Manaslu by the Carsolios had a serious setback at 200 meters (656 ft), from the summit; the climbers found that a strong storm was approaching from the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri. They calculated that the storm would arrive in a couple of hours, just when they were touching the mountaintop. The international media pressure was enormous, and Carlos never made an expedition so well prepared, equipped and funded. But to survive they made the right decision, to turn back. Fortunately the storm was not as high, at around 7,300 meters (23,950 ft). Although the brothers had to dig an ice cave for shelter.
After a week of recovery they tried again, and a few days later the Carsolios finally reached the summit. The objective was accomplished; Carlos Carsolio got his 14th eight-thousander. Headlines of the feat spread all around the world. [15]
Peak | Year | Notes |
---|---|---|
Nanga Parbat | 1985 | |
Shishapangma | 1987 | |
Makalu | 1988 | Solo; required emergency oxygen on descent |
Mount Everest | 1989 | |
Kangchenjunga | 1992 | Solo |
K2 | 1993 | |
Cho Oyu | 1994 | Solo; summitted from base camp in 18 hours and 45 minutes, a world record |
Lhotse | 1994 | Solo; another world record, achieved in 23 hours and 50 minutes |
Broad Peak | 1994 | Solo, new route; fifth man ever to solo a new route on an eight-thousander |
Annapurna | 1995 | |
Dhaulagiri | 1995 | Solo |
Gasherbrum II | 1995 | |
Gasherbrum I | 1995 | |
Manaslu | 1996 | |
Kangchenjunga, also spelled Kanchenjunga, Kanchanjanghā and Khangchendzonga, is the third-highest mountain in the world. Its summit lies at 8,586 m (28,169 ft) in a section of the Himalayas, the Kangchenjunga Himal, which is bounded in the west by the Tamur River, in the north by the Lhonak River and Jongsang La, and in the east by the Teesta River. It lies in the border region between Koshi Province of Nepal and Sikkim state of India, with the two peaks West and Kangbachen in Nepal's Taplejung District and the other three peaks Main, Central and South directly on the border.
Lhotse is the fourth-highest mountain on Earth, after Mount Everest, K2, and Kangchenjunga. At an elevation of 8,516 metres (27,940 ft) above sea level, the main summit is on the border between Tibet Autonomous Region of China and the Khumbu region of Nepal.
Cho Oyu is the sixth-highest mountain in the world at 8,188 metres (26,864 ft) above sea level. Cho Oyu means "Turquoise Goddess" in Tibetan. The mountain is the westernmost major peak of the Khumbu sub-section of the Mahalangur Himalaya 20 km west of Mount Everest. The mountain stands on the China–Nepal border, between the Tibet Autonomous Region and Koshi Province.
The eight-thousanders are the 14 mountains recognized by the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) as being more than 8,000 metres (26,247 ft) in height above sea level, and sufficiently independent of neighbouring peaks. There is no precise definition of the criteria used to assess independence, and at times, the UIAA has considered whether the list should be expanded to 20 mountain peaks by including the major satellite peaks of eight-thousanders. All of the eight-thousanders are located in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges in Asia, and their summits lie in an altitude known as the death zone.
Manaslu is the eighth-highest mountain in the world at 8,163 metres (26,781 ft) above sea level. It is in the Mansiri Himal, part of the Nepalese Himalayas, in west-central Nepal. Manaslu means "mountain of the spirit" and the word is derived from the Sanskrit word manasa, meaning "intellect" or "soul". Manaslu was first climbed on May 9, 1956, by Toshio Imanishi and Gyalzen Norbu, members of a Japanese expedition. It is said that, given the many unsuccessful attempts by the British to climb Everest before Nepali Tenzing Norgay and New Zealander Edmund Hillary, "just as the British consider Everest their mountain, Manaslu has always been a Japanese mountain".
Broad Peak is one of the eight-thousanders, and is located in the Karakoram range spanning Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan and Xinjiang, China. It is the 12th highest mountain in the world with 8,051 metres (26,414 ft) elevation above sea level. The first ascent of this mountain was in June 1957, accomplished by Fritz Wintersteller, Marcus Schmuck, Kurt Diemberger, and Hermann Buhl as part of an Austrian expedition.
Shishapangma, or Shishasbangma or Xixiabangma, is the 14th-highest mountain in the world, at 8,027 metres (26,335 ft) above sea level. It is located entirely within Tibet. In 1964, it became the final eight-thousander to be climbed.
Józef Jerzy Kukuczka was a Polish mountaineer. He was born in Katowice, his family was ethnically Silesian Goral. On 18 September 1987, he became the second man to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders in the world; a feat which took him less than 8 years to accomplish. He climbed all, except Lhotse, by new routes or in winter. He is the only person to have climbed two eight-thousanders in one winter and his ascents of Cho Oyu, Kangchenjunga and Annapurna were first winter ascents. His ascent of K2 was made in alpine style with Tadeusz Piotrowski, that route has not had a second ascent in over 35 years. Reinhold Messner, upon hearing that Kukuczka had completed all fourteen 8000ers, wrote to him: "you are not second you are great", a line which is reproduced as the epigraph of Kukuczka book and the polish translation forms the title of a biography published in 2021.
Krzysztof Jerzy Wielicki is a Polish mountaineer, regarded as one of the greatest Polish climbers in history. He is the 5th man to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders and the first ever to climb Mount Everest, Kangchenjunga, and Lhotse in winter. He is a member of The Explorers Club.
Wanda Rutkiewicz was a Polish mountaineer and computer engineer. She was the first woman to reach the summit of K2 and the third woman to summit Mount Everest.
Alan Hinkes OBE is an English Himalayan high-altitude mountaineer from Northallerton in North Yorkshire. He is the first British mountaineer to claim all 14 Himalayan eight-thousanders, which he did on 30 May 2005.
Juan Eusebio Oiarzabal Urteaga, commonly known as Juanito Oiarzabal, is a noted Spanish Basque mountaineer. He has written four books on the subject. He was the 6th man to reach all 14 eight-thousander summits, and the third to do so without supplemental oxygen. He was the first person to climb the top three summits twice and the oldest climber to summit Kangchenjunga, at almost 53, until Carlos Fontan did so in 2014, at 75 years old. In 2004, he lost all his toes to frostbite after summiting K2.
Artur Henryk "Słon” Hajzer was a Polish mountaineer. Hajzer summitted seven eight-thousanders, several via new routes and made the first winter climb of Annapurna on February 3, 1987.
Andrew James Lock OAM is an Australian mountaineer. He became the first, and still remains the only, Australian to climb all 14 "eight-thousanders" on 2 October 2009, and is the 18th person to ever complete this feat. He climbed 13 of the 14 without bottled oxygen, only using it on Mount Everest, which he has summited three times. He retired from eight-thousander climbing in 2012.
Kinga Baranowska is a Polish mountaineer. She made ascents of nine eight-thousanders and is the first Polish woman to have climbed Dhaulagiri, Manaslu and Kangchenjunga. She has also climbed the seven summits.
Iván Vallejo is a high-altitude mountaineer from Ecuador. On 1 May 2008, he became the 14th person to reach the summit of all 14 mountains above 8,000 meters, and the 7th without use of supplemental oxygen. He is the first, and still the only, Southern Hemisphere climber to complete all 14 eight-thousanders, without supplemental oxygen.
Zygmunt Andrzej Heinrich was a Polish mountaineer who made several ascents of eight-thousanders. He died in an avalanche on the northwest slopes of Mount Everest in 1989.
Denis Urubko is a Russian-Polish climber. In 2009, as a citizen of Kazakhstan he became the 15th person to climb all 14 eight-thousanders and the 8th person to achieve the feat without supplemental oxygen. He had Soviet citizenship, but after the dissolution of the Soviet Union he became a citizen of Kazakhstan, but renounced the citizenship in 2012. In 2013, he received Russian citizenship and on 12 February 2015 he received Polish citizenship.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link){{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link){{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) (in Spanish).{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link){{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link){{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)