"My happiness is boundless, I can't wait to tell the story of my climb - it was a great experience!", Szilárd Suhaja wrote.Continue reading
A Hungarian expedition is setting off to conquer the 8848-meter Mount Everest. Szilárd Suhajda could become the first Hungarian to climb the highest point on Earth without an oxygen tank or load carriers, i.e. sherpas.
“I am leaving for Nepal on 23 March. The summit climb is planned for mid- to late May, and I would like to return home by the first days of June at the latest. My long term goal is to climb the Big Five, the five highest peaks, without oxygen tanks or load carriers, of which I have already reached K2 (8611 m) in 2019 and Lhoce (8516 m) last year,” said Szilárd Suhajda at the expedition’s press conference in Budapest on Thursday.
He added that he feels prepared for the task and is confident of good conditions, favorable weather, calm winds and little precipitation. He pointed out that it is essentially a one-off event, so it is important to check the forecasts carefully and to keep away from the large number of “commercial climbers” as much as possible. He noted that as a climber without an oxygen tank, you are also more exposed to the risk of frostbite.
You do not take extra risks, but you can cope with the thin air. In my view, using an oxygen tank degrades the value of climbing mountains,”
stated Szilárd Suhajda. The climber will leave for Nepal two weeks earlier than usual for ideal pre-acclimatization. “I believe that climbers are not heroes, but guests in the mountains, where it is necessary to have the right humility and modesty, as well as to pay attention to our surroundings and ourselves,” he said. He added that he will try to go as much as possible at night, to get to the next camp at sunrise and avoid the so-called traffic jams, i.e. commercial climbers.
Szilárd Suhajda will be carrying 75-80 kilograms of equipment with him to the base camp, but will not even have a backpack on him during the summit climb.
The expedition, which will last more than two months, will be continuously followed on the social media pages of both Global-Union Ltd. and Szilárd Suhajda’s sports community.
Everest was first climbed without oxygen tanks by German climbers Reinhold Messner and Peter Haberer in 1978. So far, some 13 500 climbers have conquered it, but only 200 of them have done so without oxygen tanks, and even fewer have done so without using sherpas. So far, five Hungarian climbers have completed Everest with oxygen tanks, the first being Zsolt Erőss in 2002.
Featured photo via Facebook/Szilárd Suhajda