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Ogre
Two years after the unsuccessful attempt in 1999, Thomas Huber returns the mountains of
his dreams. First climbed in 1977 by the famous British mountaineers Chris Bonington and
Doug Scott, the Ogre (7285m) is one of the most difficult and elusive mountains in the
world. Since the first ascent, all other attempts of climbing the mountain - more than
20 expeditions - have been unsuccessful.
Together with the Swiss climbers Iwan Wolf and Urs Stöcker, Thomas planned to climb
the South Buttress of the Ogre. But they were not the only ones, which would like to climb
the Ogre in 2001. Hans Kammerlander and Luis Brugger from South Tirol tried climb the
original route of Scott-Bonington-Scott, the Slovenian Silvo Karo attempted the East Buttress
and the Americans Hans Johnston and Marc Newcombe joined Thomas and his friends to climb
the South Buttress.
Too much traffic, so Thomas, Iwan and Urs decided to follow different plans. They went for
the unclimbed Ogre III (6920m), an impressive and challenging granite spire. After various
days of preparing the route, they successfully climbed its South Buttress with difficulties
as high as 5.11, A3.
After having succeeded in the first ascent of Ogre III on July 1, the team went back to
climb the Ogre.
On July 18, after two days´ preparation, the team left basecamp for their summit
attempt with weather conditions being uncertain. On July 20 they reach the top of the pillar
at 6500m, after 28 pitches of climbing. After a short night they start at 2 a.m. for the final,
decisive stage. Climbing the steep - up to 55° - ice field is very strenuous. It leads to
the start of the extremely hard climb to the summit at 7000m. Climbing up to grade 5.10a,
aid climbing up to A 2, strong winds and extreme cold made the last metres to the summit a hard
challenge. At 3.30 p.m. the team reached the Ogre. After 24 years ...
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